Naruto Chapter 121

Konohamaru's team consisted of Riku and Nintaro.

Riku was in the lower part of their class, as he never took things seriously and Nintaro was somewhere in the middle, as he struggled to keep up with those from clans and ninja families, but he worked hard to not fall back, which put him on Konohamaru's good side. He didn't like those that didn't work properly.

After the telling off that he got from his grandfather for being rude to the children of the Kazekage, and Ebisu getting orders to finally teach him properly, not letting him get away with too many things, he had understood that being a ninja wasn't some game.

While he wanted recognition for himself, he wouldn't get it if he continued like he had done before.

Not to mention that the village had got a new Hokage and his grandfather was now paying more attention to his development than he could do before, and drilled into him how he had managed to get to the level of Hokage in the first place. It took several years of hard work and always being out to learn new things to improve yourself.

When he found out that the hero of the invasion of their village, Naruto Namikaze, who was also the son of the Fourth Hokage, and therefore in a similar position as himself, would be teaching fuinjutsu, he decided to not goof off. He took the lessons serious, even if the precision needed to make proper seals could get annoying.

Still, his grandfather had told him how this art had been deciding to win the Third Shinobi War for Konoha, as the Fourth's Flying Thundergod jutsu was mainly based on fuinjutsu. And Naruto had mastered his father's jutsu and was even more devastating with it than him, as he could combine it with the shadow clone jutsu by now.

Konohamaru wanted the respect that he saw Naruto was getting, even if he wondered why there also were some hateful looks.

Their mission paper told them to go to training ground twenty-three and collect an item there, then they would get more information. They had needed to decipher a code to find out that much, but Nintaro was very good at this.

He loved riddles of all kinds and had always got high grades in the classes about description of messages and could use four Konoha codes easily. Konohamaru knew three perfectly and a fourth in parts.

There was much more to being a ninja than he had naively believed, but he wouldn't give up. He would become the best and one day he would be Hokage, to not only be seen as the Third Hokage's grandson.

At least at the academy the teachers had strict orders to not treat him any different to his classmates. Nobody there called him honourable grandson, which was a nice change to before.

And, from what he had overheard from the older students, the curriculum had been changed in major parts recently, shortly before he got to start there. It was now much more demanding in the physical parts, and theory was compressed during the class hours. Much you had to work on for homework.

His normal school day started with basic conditioning classes, as they were called. Running, obstacles, climbing, doing weight training, exercises to train muscle growth and balance and so on.

Each of the classes at the academy would start with one class period of that, which meant, all classes of a year did this at the same time.

One of the homeroom teachers would lead the students through the exercises, while the other two walked around, correcting them if they didn't perform them properly.

Then they got two class periods on the theory topic of the day, ranging from maths to geography or history. Then they had twenty minutes break to play and eat breakfast. After that it was weapons training or taijutsu training, switching from day to day, until lunch.

After lunch one period of strategy and tactics, then specialist classes on three days the week, the other two days were for obstacle course training. He knew that the higher years had one mission simulation a week, but they didn't do this until today.

It was cool that they would be able to put the things they had learned to use in a practical setting. He didn't want to fail; therefore, he took this really serious.

"Okay, let's get to training ground twenty-three!" Konohamaru declared.

"Shouldn't we make a plan beforehand?" Nintaro pointed out, "I mean, we were warned regularly that rushing into any situation could kill you."

"Of course, we will scout the location before we enter, especially for hidden trap seals," Konohamaru nodded, "But Naruto sensei couldn't have trapped the whole village. It would have caused trouble with the civilians that go about their days. I don't doubt that there are surveillance seals around that help him observe how we do in the task.

My grandfather once mentioned a training exercise that pitted all the genin from last year's graduation group, against Naruto Namikaze, and he had a week to prepare the field, so to say, and he owned them. But even then, he wasn't obvious about it.

Traps can only be placed successfully in places where you are sure to hit the target you want to be hit, except you go for mass panic, which isn't part of this mission. This is a training mission for us, not real life or death, meaning that civilians aren't allowed to be targeted."

"What a drag," Riku sighed, "Well, let's get this over with. I don't want to deal with whatever punishment our sensei can come up with, if we fail."

The other two nodded and took the normal streets towards the area where the training grounds were located.

...

Naruto was a bit disappointed how fast the first two teams had been taken out of the running. They hadn't checked their equipment, they had barely managed to decipher the code to the location, and he had intentionally chosen the one that was taught first at the academy, to make it fair, as these were the youngest students there, and when they reached the hiding place of the item, they failed to look for seal traps and were taken out by the sleeping gas.

They definitely needed remedial training in basic situational awareness. Well, their grades would be reflecting this failure. His shadow clones had taken them back to the academy and left them there to wait until the test was over.

He only needed to replace the triggered seals and then could leave the spots the way they were. Some other groups might come across the mission papers, which he intentionally left lying where the other teams had dropped them, and could secure the information and items for themselves. He wasn't sure if any team would think about that, but it was an option.

He hadn't given the group many rules, and anything that wasn't forbidden was allowed.

Next to the fast failures of the two teams, there were also positive observations. Many teams had done the basic stage well and had deciphered the code they had been given and were on the way to their destinations.

They stopped long enough to get an idea of what kind of traps he had set up and then put their heads together to work out a useable approach.

They would definitely get points for that. Nobody needed to know everything, especially not when they were just beginners, but the academy stressed that teamwork was important.

Especially with the new curriculum. One team had been smart and had sketched out where which seal had been place, and in case they didn't recognise one, they had drawn it as well as they could and then consulted the other team members to make sure what they were dealing with.

While not all teams checked their equipment immediately, they mostly did so when they reached their destination. He could live with that. It was their first scenario of this type after all. He would point it out during the after-mission briefing, meaning the lesson he would have with them tomorrow.

He had considered telling them today, when everything was still fresh in their minds, but he had decided that it would work better to let them think about the results one night, especially as it gave them more time for the task.

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