Chapter: 28

You still aren't at the point of doing it sealless, kiddo, give up," Anko said mockingly as she dodged yet another Lightning Flicker kick. She was right, I still lacked two levels to be able to do the jutsu without signs. But still, using the skills in actual combat was the best thing I could do to grind levels. Leaving the skill for normal grinding training would just slow me down.

As I got kicked against a tree though, my resolve wavered for a moment.

"You know what, you are right," I growled, and my sensei made a show of fixing her laidback stance. Either she was mocking me, or she really expected the battle to kick up like the second phase of a boss fight or something. 'Let's grind some more skills, shall we?' I thought to myself.

"Oh come on, I believed you, brat!" She whined as she saw me do the hand seal for Lightning Flicker again. Meanwhile, I smirked.

Instead of stepping towards her for a kick as I had been trying, I stepped to one side before using my second step towards her. Midair, I placed both feet towards her. Unfortunately, the slight change in strategy didn't work.

Fortunately, that wasn't my actual plan.

As I flew past Anko, I made another hand seal and pulled the fuuma shuriken from my hip and threw it at the Tokubetsu Jounin.

[Fuuma Shuriken Throwing has been maxed.]

[Lightning Release: Flashing Shuriken has been maxed.]

[New Perk Acquired: Shurikenjutsu Master]

Ignoring the screens, I made the seal for the Flicker once more. Then, I pushed myself towards were I guessed she would dodge this time. I almost cackled when I was proven right and found myself right next to her and doing another hand seal.

The wide eyed expression on Anko's face as I spat an Embers at her point blank was glorious.

"Not bad, kiddo, not bad at all," She said, appearing a split second later on the side. I gave her my best smug look when I noticed the singed sleeve of her trench coat. She rolled her eyes, which might have been justified considering that I looked pretty terrible in comparison with a completely missing sleeve and bruises everywhere.

Speaking about that…

"I liked this coat, you know?" I grumbled, grimacing as I looked not only at the missing piece but also the several tears in my clothing.

"Yeah, yeah, cry me a river," She rolled her eyes again and I grumbled some more. Mentally, I called for the maxed skills' screens and... 'Shurikenjutsu Master?! I have to see this.'

[Shurikenjutsu Master

Increases damage with shurikenjutsu weapons by 20%.

Increases accuracy with shurikenjutsu weapons by 20%.

Increases travel distance of shurikenjutsu weapons by 20%.]

'Very, very good,' I thought to myself. 'Very strong too, my other perks don't have numbers like those… Wonder what will it take to get one of these for ninjutsu or something.'

[}-o-{]

"Bro! We are back!" The scream froze me while I was preparing dinner.

A month. It had been a whole month without me hearing anything about Naruto or Team 7 as a whole. I had been this close to a panic attack due to my own paranoia several times. Anko had even had to smack some sense into me when it had started to affect my performance during training.

"Naruto! Welcome back!" I called out as I moved towards the living room. My step was broken though, when a blonde missile slammed into me, throwing me right onto the floor. "I missed you too, bro," I said softly as the young Uzumaki attempted to squeeze the life out of me.

"We have so much to tell you," He started enthusiastically, finally letting go and standing. "Right, Sasuke?!" He asked turning towards the Uchiha, who had been standing a little behind looking mildly uncomfortable.

"Welcome back, Sasuke," I greeted with a smile before stepping towards him. He extended a hand towards me, but I was having none of that. I pulled the guy into a hug too. A short one, since I knew that wasn't his thing. But I deserved a hug after worrying so much, damnit. I'll admit that seeing his embarrassed expression was great too.

'I'm really spending too much time with Anko.'

"Were you cooking?" Naruto asked, sniffing at the air with the skill of a freaking ninken.

"Just got started, I'll prepare enough for three, it seems. Sakura not coming?"

"Nah, she went right back to her house. Sasuke would have too, but I dragged him here," The jinchuriiki looked entirely too pleased with himself. This time though…

"Good job, bro," I praised, making the blonde preen while the Uchiha's brow twitched. "So, tell me about this mission."

Boy was I in for a surprise.

The Wave Mission had gone nothing like the canon one had.

Granted, Tazune was still Gato's target, and Gato was still an asshole and such but… There were major changes in this. And I didn't know how to react to that.

First and most importantly, Zabuza and Haku weren't there. They didn't make any type of appearance throughout the mission. And it worried me more than it reassured me. Why weren't they there? What had changed? Was it an AU thing and they weren't even meant to be there from the start?

It had to be the last part. I couldn't have possibly changed anything to affect Zabuza of all people. I hadn't changed anything out of the village and thinking that my actions could have traveled outside was ridiculous, to say the least. I had barely left Konoha, let alone the Land of Fire.

'What else is different then?'

In the end, I pushed those worries aside and focused on the tale that Naruto narrated for me, with commentary from Sasuke whenever the blonde tried to… spice up the story, shall we say? Apparently, Sasuke had taken care of the Demon Brothers without any of them getting injured. From there, they had guarded the bridge, but nothing major happened, really. The mob of gangsters had attacked, but let's just say that they found out why everyone in our group avoided messing with Naruto too much. Even Sasuke shivered remembering what had happened.

"Well, I'm just glad that you were all ok…" I said with a small smile that they soon returned. Theirs though, were soon wiped out as mine grew wider and colder. "But if you three throw yourself at danger like that again… we'll have words. You went out on a C-rank mission, not a B-rank…"

"Hmm, but I got a bridge with my name now," Naruto said weakly.

[Bloodlust has gone up a level.]

"Sorry," The both of them said quickly. And I let up, slumping down on my chair and letting out a long sigh. 'Kami, why didn't I get normal friends… these guys will be the death of me…'

"We are going to have to kick up your training from now on if you are determined to do this shit."

I relished their shivers entirely too much.

'Definitely too much time spent with Anko.'

Later that night, I, for once, wasn't alone on the dining table. Instead, I was lying down on the floor of the living room. We had moved all the things aside and prepared makeshift beds on the floor. Naruto had had the great idea of Sasuke spending the night with us, to finish the celebration of their first C-rank together. The actual surprise there was that the Uchiha accepted without even trying the appear like he wanted to reject the invitation.

"Thank you," I whispered to the night once I was sure the other two were asleep.

[}-o-{]

"Ok, kiddo, news time," I raised an eyebrow at Anko as we both stood in front of each other. For once though, we were in a training ground that wasn't the Forest of Death. "The Chuunin Exams will be held here in two months' time," I had to do conscious effort to hide my reaction to that. 'Two months? Don't the exams happen shortly after the Wave mission?' "And thus, I'll have to up your training. You are the shining star of the Genin of Konoha right now, if you didn't know. The higher ups want you to show off and to show off a lot."

Internally, I wondered just who the higher ups were. The Hokage? Danzo? The Clan Heads? Some combination of those?

"So, you want me to go full training maniac?" I asked with a straight face.

"I can see your lips twitching, brat," She spat my way before smirking herself. "And yes, we will be exploiting your Maito Gai side from now on," We both shivered. "Tell blondie that he can add weight seals to your clothes every week from now on. We'll also avoid the Forest of Death from now on though, that place isn't a challenge for you anymore."

'I'm pretty sure that we are doing this because the Exams will be there,' I thought to myself. 'But sure, let's go with that.'

"Aren't the Exams supposed to be taken with a team?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That'll be taken care of. Not that you couldn't pass by yourself, but rules are rules," She shrugged. "I'll also be bringing some friends of mine for you to spar with, since just me won't be the best thing for you… What's the matter?" Anko asked when my expression turned confused.

"You have friends?"

"… You want to practice dodging again, huh?"

'Now, there's an idea. I haven't been using Lighting Flicker for dodging,' I thought to myself already having done the hand seal as she charged at me. 'Might as well, right?'

My eyes widened as my teacher spat a cloud of purple gas at me. I didn't need to be a genius to know what that meant. In a blur, I appeared on the other side of the clearing we were standing in. Anko though, seemed to be far from done as, a moment later, said cloud started growing and growing, slowly covering the whole place. 'Makes me wish I had a Wind Release jutsu,' I thought to myself as my mind worked overtime to come up with a way to deal with this.

'Ok, first of all, I can't see shit,' I decided to prioritize that, since I had no way of escaping the poison. I could only hope that Poison Resistance would be leveled enough for this. 'She really stepped up her game, it seems,' I noted to myself with a grimace.

Quickly, I started sending shuriken and kunai with ninja wire all over the place. I even pulled up some Itachi level tricks to hit the already flying projectiles. What I ended up having was a spider net kind of field around me. 'Hopefully, this'll be enough to at least have an idea of where she comes from. And if nothing happens…'

I didn't get to finish that thought as I felt one of the strings on my right being touched. It didn't exactly tell me where she was, but at least-

"Good idea, kiddo," I froze at the voice that came from behind me. "Not enough though."

I would have groaned at that, but she didn't even give me enough time for that before kicking me into the distance. As I was sent flying off the floor, I pulled my hands and twisted, moving the wires wrapped around my fingers so that they would trap her inside.

"Your wires are really annoying, brat," She complained before jumped just right to avoid all of them. Really, why couldn't I battle against a ninja that I had a chanceagainst at least? Animals were all nice and easy, but I wanted to win against a person… the group gatherings didn't count anymore, honestly. I was almost eager for the Exams.

Landing on my feet and skidding back a bit over the ground, I clicked my tongue at the still present cloud of purple around me. Then I groaned, my whole body was starting to tingle, a slight, almost unnoticeable pain coursing through my limbs. 'So, that's what the poison does?' I wondered.

My sensei though, didn't plan on letting me have time to think. This was evidenced by the punch in the gut I received out of nowhere. The poison was so thick that I couldn't see her even though she was standing right in front of me. This was bad, very bad.

'Ok, defense isn't going to work,' I decided before doing a hand seal and Flickering on a random direction. I repeated that process several times, intent in not letting her get another hit, even if I had to burn my chakra like nobody's business. I needed time to think. 'How do I attack if I can't see my target?'

Ninja wire nets was the only answer that I had in my arsenal for that situation. But it was evidently not going to work against Anko, that was for sure. I also didn't have any area of effect jutsu that I could use. So-

[Lightning Release: Lightning Flicker has gone up a level.]

'Neat, I just need one more level.'

"I know you like the jutsu, Eiji, but this is ridiculous," Anko called out, evidently annoyed and I grimaced.

'Ok, time to go for the risky moves, I guess.'

And then, I stopped. 'Intermediate Taijutsu, Running, Free Running,' I called mentally.

"That's more like i-" Whatever she was going to say as she went to kick my back was interrupted as my body blurred and turned around, my hands extended with wires wrapped around my fingers forming a mini net between both arms. A net that trapped her leg and was promptly electrified.

Her body disappeared in a cloud of smoke and I was immediately punched on the side and sent to the ground once more.

"Kamidamned monster," I heard grumble.

"You've got no right to complain when I'm the one smacked around," I grumbled myself. "You know, what, fuck this cloud."

"Kiddo, what are you- Fuck."

The reason for her curse? Well, I had gotten tired of the poison, and the pain was going from annoying to actual damage through my limbs. So, what was my great idea? To see if it was flammable.

The answer? It was very flammable.

[New Skill Acquired: Fire Resistance Lvl 1]

'Not my brightest moment,' I thought to myself as I threw my burning coat to the side and patted the flames off my pants.

"Brat, you are certifiably insane," I heard and when I turned, I noticed that Anko had done much the same thing as I did. But what really caught my attention was- "That was my favorite trench coat, by the way."- the angry expression on her face.

'Oh,' I paled. 'This bad.'

[}-o-{]

"I swear to Kami, you get more and more troublesome every time we meet," Shikamaru grumbled as he tried to get my shadow with his jutsu.

"Don't know what you are talking about, Shika," I shot back with a grin.

"I can't believe this," Ino said, her shocked expression supporting her statement.

The reason for Shikamaru's annoyance and Ino's disbelieve? Well…

"Four people at once," Ino breathed out, answering the question herself.

And indeed, I was currently sparring against Naruto, Chouji, Shika and Shino, all at once. And it was an evenbattle. It had gotten to that level, honestly. And I was past the point where I would try to say that I was anywhere near a normal Genin.

For a time, I had honestly thought about not doing shit like this, if only to spare their feelings. But the Chuunin Exams were coming, no matter how much time left we had. And that meant Orochimaru was coming too. That had been a wakeup call.

Madara and Kaguya were on their own level of bad, that much was true. But they were far away into the future. The Snake Sage was much closer in the timeline, and was still pretty bad himself. No, I had to step up the training, mine and my friends.

"And that's that," I said, stopping my Flickering around and standing right in the middle of my friends. Friends that couldn't attack me even if they wanted to, since they were all wrapped in wires and held pretty firmly where they stood.

'I wonder if I'm Gaara level of unfair yet,' I thought to myself as I walked back towards the house, where Sasuke stared intently at me, Ino shook her head, and Hinata glanced towards the fallen four with a worried look.

"Someone wants a drink?" I asked

"You aren't gonna let us go, bro?" Naruto called out from behind me.

"I'll have tea," Ino said before slumping down, clearly giving up.

"Nobody else? Ok," And with that, I went inside.

"… Bro?"

[}-o-{]

"First of all, I would like to thank you," My new sparring partner for the day said as we stood opposite of each other. "For making my students ask for the training I wasn't giving them. I was too focused on what I wanted my team to do, and too confident in them keeping their abilities up to par."

"No problem," I shrugged Kurenai's words. "I'm sure you would have noticed soon anyway. Hinata and Shino have had nothing but good things to say about you."

"I'm glad-"

"Booo, start fighting!" The peanut gallery, aka Anko, shouted from the side.

"You are friends with her?" I asked with a sigh.

"Sometimes I wonder why," The Jounin said, with much the same despondent tone.

"I can hear you!"

"We know!" We both shot back.

A second later, I made the hand seal for the flicker. Fighting in clearings made using ninja wire much more complicated, and since I wanted to level the jutsu anyway, it worked well for me. Once I stepped to the side though, I used Dissipation.

'This woman,' I thought in disbelief. 'Three genjutsu already? And I can't even tell what they were doing.'

Pushing those thoughts aside, I charged, lightning still shining on the sole of my feet as I flashed right in front of her and sent a punch towards her. Mid motion though, I used Dissipation again and mentally cursed. She had placed more Genjutsu on me already. One of which was evident this time. She had displaced herself slightly to the left. Which would've caused my hit to miss if I hadn't dispelled the illusion.

Still, changing the direction of the punch would have taken a lot of the force out of it. Instead, I used the momentum to twist my body and send a kick with the back of my foot. She blocked it, but the fact that it connected at all was a win in my books.

I Dissipated again and, again, there were more Genjutsu placed on me.

'This'll get annoying really fast, I can already tell,' I grumbled mentally.

I turned and threw a kick towards the Kurenai. However, the hit never connected. Not because I missed, nor because she dodged. No, my fist went right through her. My eyes darted down and I saw that there was no shadow.

As I received a kick on the back, I could only think of one thing.

'I was right, really annoying indeed.'

[}-o-{]

"So, how has the training been going for the both of you?" Hiruzen asked as we played shogi against each other and Naruto rambled on our side.

"Pretty good, getting my ass handed to me by Jounin on a daily basis," I shrugged.

"Great, I'm working on some new seals for tags that I can use in battle. Kakashi-sensei says that I need more in my repertoire than traps," The blonde answered, as if he couldn't understand what was wrong with focusing solely on traps.

Hiruzen and I traded a look before both of us sighed.

"I've been hearing very good things about those Jounin you mentioned, Eiji. Keep up the good work," I couldn't help but look aside in embarrassment at the Hokage's words. It's not every day that you get praise from the fucking leader of a ninja village.

"Eiji is awesome that way. He's been kicking our asses around during spars since we got back," There was something very wrong about how happy Naruto sounded while saying that.

"You sound happy about that," Hiruzen pointed out.

"I am," The blonde beamed. "My brother is super cool, and he's been training us like mad. We'll be really cool in no time at all thanks to him."

Kami, Naruto really didn't know what he could do just with words.

"Indeed," Hiruzen smiled fondly at the knucklehead. "I've also heard that you are doing well in all your missions," The old man added while making his move. "Even going beyond what they are about."

I felt my smile freeze over at his words.

'He knows.'

That's what he was talking about. Me doing something that wasn't asked for in a mission was rare… unless it was something Danzo asked of me. So, Hiruzen knew. 'Now, what the hell am I supposed to do with this?' I thought as I internally panicked.

"I was told that you do an especially good job at that," He said, and I could feel the blood leaving my face. I was just happy that Naruto seemed blissfully unaware of what was going on. "I hope you continue with showing a great performance."

'Hu- what?!' I blinked at him and I saw the corner of his mouth twitch into a smirk.

"There's always need for more work than it's specified on missions," He continued. My eyes darted to the blond boy next to us, but he had that distracted look that he got when we both started talking about something that he couldn't care less about… or he was planning some especially nasty trap. I didn't want to know which option it was at that moment though.

I couldn't be bothered to care, honestly. My mind was too busy trying to get a read of what the Hokage was telling me.

'What the hell is going on here?'

My question though, would remain unanswered.

[}-o-{]

"So, you have a few options, kiddo," Anko started, as we stood in a now familiar clearing in our empty training ground. It was our new Forest of Death, in a way. "You've been using pure taijutsu when fighting up close, but that's gonna have to change. It's all good when your opponents also use just that, or when they use kunai. But if you go against someone with a sword or something of the sort, you'll be at a disadvantage."

"I get that," I nodded before tilting my head. "Isn't that what my ninjutsu is for?"

"And if you are running low on chakra?"

"Run?" I asked back, getting a raised eyebrow in response. I sighed. "So, options?"

"Well, you can start using your kunai for more than just throwing…" She trailed off at my raised eyebrow. "… and all the annoying stuff you do with them," She added and I nodded with a grin. Anko just rolled her eyes. "Or you can start training with a weapon."

I stayed silent as I weighted what she said.

"What do you recommend?" I asked eventually.

"Get a sword. A tanto probably would be the best. They are pretty standard for ninja," She suggested and I almost laughed. 'Isn't that a Root standard weapon too?'I thought to myself. "To anyone else, I would suggest keeping to the kunai, bigger weapons just get in the way of ninjutsu users. But you master them like nobody's business so… you can still use most of your arsenal that way."

That made sense. In serious battles, I preferred to keep to the jutsus that I could use without hand seals, after all. And honestly, that much was enough for me. If I thought it was a good idea, and my teacher thought it was a good idea…

"Ok, I'll do that," I accepted and she raised an eyebrow, which got me to do the same.

"You really just accept everything I throw at you. I expected you to have some demands regarding training, especially considering how obsessed you are with it," She explained, sounding more curious than anything else.

"You are my sensei," I replied bluntly.

"I'm also a Tokubetsu Jounin instead of the standard Jounin your friends got. I expected you to mention that too at some point."

"Could have fooled me," I smirked. I knew Ebisu, both from the series and eavesdropping. If Anko was on the same level at that guy, I was fucking Kiba Inuzuka. There was just no way. "And I also get one on one training while the other teachers have to spread their attention on three students. I think I got a really good deal here. And also, I agree with your ideas, so I see no reason to complain. I also have enough on my plate to work with, no need to add to it."

She stared before she smirked and let out a short chuckle.

"Right," And with that, she pulled out a scroll. A second later, she had a tanto in her hands. "And as for you training partner of the day," A smoke cloud appeared next to her.

My eyes widened.

"No way."

"Yes way," Anko grinned like a loon as she used her hands to the person standing next to her… who had a cat themed mask… a cat themed ANBU mask. "I present you, Cat, a friend of mine and your swordsmanship tutor for the day."

"Anko…" I breathed out. "I take back all the bad things I've said about you in the last month."

"Only the last month?"

"Don't push it."

The purple-haired Anbu, master of professionalism that she was, snorted at us and shook her head.

[}-o-{]

Third Person, Anko PoV

It was one month after her student came back to life.

Granted, Eiji had been almost 100% there during the time when his 'brother' and most of his friends left the village. But almost is not fully and anyone that knew the Satou could tell that he was not fine. It worried Anko a great deal, if she was honest. Because it meant that if anything were to happen to any of them, Eiji would become an unknown factor. His reaction could be just about anything and that was a dangerous thing.

The Tokubetsu Jounin had been surprised though, when he continued pushing himself harder than ever in his training even after Team 7 came back. It seemed that his friends coming closer to danger had lit a fire under the red-eyed boy. And considering that he was already considered a training maniac before, that was saying something.

The T&I expert still didn't know how to take her student's obsession with power. Yes, she knew that he wasn't a mini-Orochimaru. That much was clear, and if anyone doubted when seeing how much he cared about his friends, then their concerns would clear when they saw the red-eyed boy with the dogs at the Inuzuka vet. Still, despite her very good ability to read people, if she did say so herself, Anko still felt like there was something that she was missing from the picture and it bugged her.

Frustrations aside, the Mitarashi was grateful for her student's predilections at that very moment as she read over the mission they had been assigned. Assigned, not offered. They had to go on that mission. Granted, there was the option of rejecting it. There were very few mandatory missions for any ninja that wasn't very specialized or very related to the task at hand, especially in times of 'peace'. And since this wasn't either case, it made the whole thing more worrying.

Anko sighed to herself.

However, they couldn't deny it. There was a myriad of eyes on Eiji. The boy seemed at least partly aware of the fact, but he still didn't realize the magnitude of how bad his situation could be. How bad it could be if he did onething wrong.

Like rejecting the wrong mission.

Anko let out another sigh and looked down at the mission folder on her table. A B-rank mission wasn't thatbad. She was a Jounin in all but name, she could do a normal B-rank by herself. And that wasn't even taking into account Eiji. The little monster was a Chuunin already, as far as she was aware. The absolute beast could probably give some Tokubetsu Jounin a run for their money.

But this wasn't a normal B-rank mission.

'At times like this,' She thought, slumping on her seat. 'I really wish we hadn't gone in that first C-rank