2/2

Tenzuka ate some cake. Truth be told he felt quite guilty- with his inexperience there was not much he could actually add to all of this.

He had to help somehow. What did he know about fuinjutsu?

- Written form of the language of the gods, whatever that meant.

- didn't have to be 100% precise.

- blood was the way summoning jutsus knew who to summon

...well that wasn't much-

"Stop thinking." Said Kabuto with a smile.

"Huh?"

"Stop thinking. Give your brain a chance to breathe. In a few minutes, we'll get back too it."

Tenzuka nodded. It's not like he had an idea anyway.

It was brainstorming time again, so everyone was focusing on the task.

No new ideas were popping up, so Kabuto suggested to use old ideas but in different ways.

"-like perhaps instead of using a chakra marble we could use something else? I don't know-"

"What if we use blood?" Said Tenzuka suddenly.

Everyone looked at him.

"For the compass? What for-"

"No for the summoning. Like why do we need an animal contract, why not just make our own human one?"

"Summoning contracts were supposedly made by the sage of the six paths," said Omori. "The animals that have it guard it jealousy. We'd never be able to study one."

"Then why not make one?"

"It's been attempted in the past, especially by the second Hokage, but it never worked because of the chakra constraints. On a positive side note, he changed his seal a bit and made the first short-distance teleportation fuinjutsu! It is said that the fourth got his legendary technique from lord seconds' jutsu."

"So teleportation can work with humans, but nobody knows how to make it short range."

Hokana shook her head. "Both of those jutsus are lost. We have some research on the second Hokage's work, but the fourth never wrote his seals anywhere. We just know it's too chakra sensitive."

"How do we know that?"

"A squad of jonin can actually perform the jutsu, but it takes three of them to teleport themselves plus one person."

Tenzuka shook his head in disappointment.

"Plus," said Omori, "we'd also have the problem of getting her blood."

"I thought of using her moms' blood or something."

"I got an idea." Said Ando. "We use dogs around calculated perimeters around the village to find her!"

"Eh?"

"I was thinking 'any good ninja would get rid of her trail' right? But they can't entirely get rid of her! We could place dogs in different areas and see who sniffs her out."

Hana tried to smile at the horrible idea. Positive reinforcement was a powerful motivator after all. "Not bad! The idea has a few flaws though like it would be hard to map that out-"

"That could actually work." Said Hokana.

"The dogs?" Said Hana disbelievingly.

"What? No. I meant the perimeter. Me and Omori use certain seals to distinguish different chemicals in the plants that Kiyota has. If we just apply the same concept on a much larger scale, we could have something of a blood tracking device."

"Well done!" Said Kabuto. "Foreseeable problems?"

"A 5. We already know how the seals work, so in theory, there should be no problems. The jutsu would require multiple people that I know for sure. I guess it would take at least two weeks? I don't know."

Kabuto smiled. "Let's get to work!"

Returning home after such an afternoon felt great.

It was just him and Ando, no more impressive people that were definitely judging him for his uselessness (nobody had said anything of course, but he knew what they were thinking) just a nice evening for lazing about. No more thinking today, no more solving, no nothing! He was going to sit on the couch and not move and remain in absolute peace!

"Uhh Tenzuka?"

"Yeah what is it?"

"We've...been robbed."

"What?"

"We've been robbed!"

Tenzuka dashed to the small kitchen where Ando was and looked around. "What did we lose?"

"Remember the hidden drawer where we put our Ryo? It's empty. I wanted to go buy some food for tonight-"

"Motherfuckers."

So much for a nice relaxing afternoon in total peace.

The sun was slowly disappearing behind the mountains leaving a nice fusion of orange, pink and yellow colours in the sky.

Tenzuka and Ando had worked together managed to complete 6 D ranks in the few hours they had left. It had been an intense yet rewarding evening, one that they would laugh at in a few years time. Tenzuka was great when it came to diplomacy, a lot of the clients were angry old people yet he managed to keep his patience calm them down. Ando was the harder worker between the two, always giving it all even for boring jobs.

"The best one was the cleaning mission because they paid a full 20 ryo for that." Said Tenzuka.

"Nah, the 'lost ring' thing was way better. Took us 5 minutes."

"We got lucky."

"True, but the easiest 5 Ryo we ever made."

They counted the money they had. 78.

"You know what we have to do." Said Ando solemnly.

"Buy dinner?"

"Spend exactly 9 Ryo!"

"Huh? Why-"

Oh.

Tenzuka facepalmed and Ando started laughing like he had said an amazing joke.

"On a serious note, we have to figure out a better place for our money." Said Ando.

"Yeah. I figured 'no use having locks' because we're in a ninja village, but we should have some sort of protection."

"Exactly. Let's ask Kabuto tomorrow for tips. For now, lets split the money and keep in on our person, should be safer then right?"

"Don't think so."

It was weird to see the usually empty building buzzing with activity. Hokana and Omori were the experts, so they were in charge, directing others and giving out useful tasks. Their main task, however, was to figure out the seals that were necessary, provided they have the chakra.

Kabuto and Hana were in charge of figuring out how much chakra it would take and the hand seals.

Kuga was waiting for a meeting with the Hokage- she would be very important in negotiating funds for the operation.

Tenzuka and Ando...were doing nothing.

In reality, they were learning a better storage seal for the money they cashed in, how to hide it etcetera, but they weren't contributing in any way to the operation. Tenzuka felt guilty.

The entire day flew by without anyone really noticing it. They stopped for a lunch break, of course, couldn't work on an empty stomach and all that, but 8 hours had passed.

Kuga returned and gave out the details of their funds. It was mostly going to the operation itself, but if everything went well, they would have some for investments.

Which meant that nobody was getting paid for the job.

"Hey Kabuto," said Tenzuka as they were leaving, "how do you guys survive if you don't get paid?"

"We all have secondary jobs that coexist with our main one. I for example work at the hospital- the perfect place for furthering my studies about the human body. Hana works at the vet, Omori sells healing ointments in his free time, we all have something that allows us to survive without too much trouble."

That was actually pretty smart.

"How come? Do you have problems with money?"

"Not really, D ranks aren't that bad, but I'm not really in the safe zone. Like I can't spend the entire day working like today or I won't have enough money to eat."

"Oh don't worry we understand completely. None of us are going to completely focus on the task 24/7 either. What you saw today was us trying to speed up the pace- while two weeks isn't that bad, we want to find the girl asap because the Anbu are also looking. If they find her first, our efforts will be for nothing."

"Oh. If we keep this up, how long will it take?"

"Optimistically? 3 days. Realistically? At least a week, possibly more. By the way, you should focus on finding something you like researching first, then worry about monetizing it."

Nodding, Tenzuka and Ando went home.

"Soo," said Ando as they closed the door, "how do we tell Kabuto we're part of this thing because we failed the bell test?"

"I thought he already knew?"

"Me too but he doesn't seem to act like it."

"Maybe he's just pretending to not know it? Whatever, we can seriously learn stuff from this place."

"Yeah, but studying for years? Count me out."

"Let's see if our exchange program gets accepted first. If not, we try to become chunin, that way we can go up to B ranks if we want to."

"We should start training again."

"Agreed."

Not much changed the following week. After three days the 8 schedules went down to four as everyone had their own lives to worry about. Tenzuka and Ando tried to go on as many D ranks they could, as the landlord could demand money whenever she wanted and they didn't have enough in the bank yet.

They also practised.

While everyone was working on the project, the two just sat, watched and took notes. As soon as a few missions were completed, they immediately went to train, either in taijutsu or kenjutsu.

Having a sparring opponent was great. It motivated Tenzuka do try harder.

Only the next day did some change happen- Kabuto wanted to try out the prototype.

They went to the middle of the village and stood information:

- Hokana was in the centre with a suitcase. Inside the suitcase was a metal plate with different marbles carved into it, making it look like the battleship game. Her duty was to interpret the location of the signal.

- Kabuto, Omori, Hana and Kuga stood exactly 100 metres away in a square formation, covering exactly 10'000 square metres.

- Tenzuka was useles- supervising the whole thing, next to Hokana.

The target was Ando. They already had his mothers blood (Tenzuka could only imagine what type of weird conversation that had been) and were ready to start.

They communicated thanks to wristwatches that were connected by seals. The seals would either glow or not. Glow meant 'start'.

"Ok, everything is set. Go!" She exclaimed, activating the wristband and the metal plate at the same time.

She had a frown at first, but after 20 seconds she smiled. "So it does work. I wonder why the delay?"

She turned to him. "Ando should be twenty metres in that direction," she pointed.

Tenzuka went to see. She was right. It worked!

There was a great mood at the research division. Everyone was happy at the success.

"There was a delay," explained Hokana, "my guess is that the seals we use to send a signal aren't efficient enough. I'm going to work on it a bit longer with Omori to see if we can make the signal better, and tomorrow we are going to practise variations of the experiment. After that, we can tell Hokage-sama we are ready!"

Everyone cheered!

Summons were a rarity in Konoha.

The best method to get one involved years of folklore research, lots of travelling and luck.

Some ninjas however, were deemed worthy enough of receiving a summoning contract by Konoha itself. These ninjas were always the best of the best at what they did- Maito Gai's turtles, Hatake Kakashi's dogs, etcetera.

The hawk contract had been given to Ebisu after years of hard work, he was proud of his achievement.

Using his gift for such a mundane thing as 'hovering in a designated area as you perform these handseals' seemed like an insult to his skills, but the Hokage had ordered the task himself, so he would obey.

The wristband glowed so he performed the seals to perfection.

He waited.

Nothing.

This had been the third area they had tried this technique in, it had been going on for hours, frankly he was tired.

But he'd wait-

"Ebisu-san!" Said a voice on the radio. "Please move 800 metres towards ovest and 100 towards north!"

He did so. His hawk wasn't pleased, but it was for the good of Konoha.

When he arrived more or less to those indications, he was surprised to see an abandoned shack, hidden by the trees. Weird.

Dropping to the floor he went inside with caution, immediately explaining what he saw via radio.

"The hygiene conditions of this place are terrible, I'd say the place is either abandoned or rarely used for long periods- mother of the sage!"

"What is it?!" Asked Hakana quickly.

"The girl! She's here!"

The mission was a success.

After checking on a few things, Hakana realised they needed another signal sender in the air- reason for that is, the technique worked in a 3-dimensional area, and without specifying the height, it would send a lot of signals to the air as well, reducing the area and speed of the signal.

By having another signal in the air, suddenly the speed was amped incredibly.

Since everything worked, she decided to stretch the limits of the technique to see where it broke-

A kilometer. That's how far her team could go before the connection broke into something unusable.

A km side meant 1'000'000 square meters could be covered after one use.

Having a signal come from above was easy in a village but in the plains?

The Hokage had a simple solution however- apparently one of his ninjas had a flying summon. Perfect.

The operation took hours, especially getting into position, but it worked. In less then a day their team did what not even Anbu had managed to do!

She smiled to herself in joy.

"Congratulations." Said Itachi with a smile. "I am proud of what this division has achieved. The technique has already shown it's use and I'm sure it will continue to do so. You all have done this village proud."

They did a mini-cheer.

"As a reward, I will approve of the request for more funds and will personally contact our allies for the exchange program. I cannot guarantee they will agree, but I will do what is possible to make it work. Continue your good efforts!"

Tenzuka had never felt this satisfied. While he didn't do much, his team did- when he learnt why Tahara had been captured, what that vermin Goto had done to her, he was disgusted. He understood why the jonin allowed the only female on the team to pass

Further investigation revealed he had been doing this for ages. Unfortunately, all the other girls had been 'used up' and killed.

It was a sombre thought that left him with a strong cynical feel about the world.

On a positive side note, every decision that the jonin had made had been revoked. The three were officially a ninja team and had a new sensei that they would meet tomorrow!

The landlord had come to their house personally to thank them. All in all, it was a sweet victory.

Tahara was sent to the Yamananka's to get a psychological evaluation. Hopefully, she wasn't beyond repair.

"It's funny." Said Ando. "Yesterday I was thinking my career was over and I was forced to be part of the loser research team. Now I'm a 'real ninja' but can't help but think I'm cannon fodder."

"We can do both you know." Said Tenzuka. "Especially once we become chunin."

"True." The guy smiled. "Guess they rub off you after a while, huh?"

"I'm pretty sure that's the wrong expression but I get what you mean."

The next morning the two woke up before the sun rose, their enthusiasm at finally becoming 'real' genin was unmatched. They washed and ate as quickly as they could and immediately went to their designated training ground.

"Uhh, weren't we supposed to be here by 9?" Said Tenzuka.

"Yeah, why?"

"It's 6:34."

"Oh."

Having literally hours to spare, they squeezed in a mission (a bit of gricery shopping) and a small snack.

"We still have an hour left." Said Tenzuka.

So they went to the lab to see what everyone else was doing.

Only Omori was present. He was reading a magazine of some sorts, probably just to pass the time. The two walked up to him and made a bit of small talk, but there wasn't an interesting topic to discuss, so the conversation quickly died down.

Still having 40 minutes left, they went to the library to search for something interesting to pass the time...

But they were way to restless.

37 minutes left.

"Let's just wait at the training grounds!"

They made jokes, talked about their favourite academy subjects, they did everything they could to pass the time...

34 minutes left.

"Oh bloody hell it's the academy all over again!" Said Ando. "Fuck it, let's train."

"But what if we are too tired for our new teacher?"

"You got a better idea?"

Raido Namiashi was a tokubetsu jonin, which meant he was too specialized to be on an actual jonin, but good enough at his skills to get an A rank if the mission fit.

He didn't mind the position, but being a jonin meant better pay, which was something he wanted if he was to get an extended vacation at Iron country.

As a tokubetsu, he wasn't allowed to train a genin team, which was a shame since he wouldn't mind, but the jonin exams were pretty far away, so he had enough time to polish his skills.

But now the Hokage was assigning new teams. Tokubetsu's were invited.

Not many jonin were up and at it at 8:30 in the morning- they could afford it after all, (ahh the bonuses of not being lowly chunin) so when the Hokage called, not may came.

"Right." Said Itachi. "There is a new genin team that is missing a jonin, does anyone wish to fill the position?"

"I have a question, if I may," said a voice in the back, "why have tokubetsus been called?"

"It's because the two teams in question is part of an exchange program that has been recently made, that can be considered as a B rank mission. Their real team will be created once the program is over. Further details will be given to however accepts."

"How long does the mission last?" Said a jonin.

"Two weeks. Maybe three. Depends on how well everything goes."

Two week B rank in the company of a bunch of brats? The most miserable of B ranks gave 80 ryo, and were incremented by a percentage after a day, then again after a week, then again after a month. The lowest percentage for B ranks were 20%, so that would be 8020% which was 96 if he wasn't mistaken. 96 plus a further 20% was a bit over 110. Add those three up...

He was almost looking at 300 Ryo for a two-week mission. That was better than most A ranks.

And if the percentage was 50%...

380 Ryo. Considering the best A ranks possible gave a maximum amount of 500 Ryo, for a tokubetsu like him, it was an awesome deal.

He raised his hand.

"Perfect," said the Uchiha. "You have 15 minutes to be at training ground 4."

Crap.

Tenzuka was having a tough time facing Ando.

The guy was slightly stronger than him and way more aggressive. He didn't mind taking a punch if he could give one back and knew tons of grab moves.

None of them knew any strong jutsus, nor did they have much chakra to spare, so Tenzuka didn't know how to gain any advantage.

Ando grabbed a stone and threw it at him.

Catching it in thin air, Tenzuka tried to throw it back bit Ando was on him.

He blocked a punch to the face but totally missed a kick to the legs, which chucked him to the floor.

Ando had a kunai in hand to his neck and was on top of him.

"I guess this counts as a win for me?" He said cheekily.

"Only because I've already used up all my chakra, otherwise I would have totally owned you."

"Nice." Said a voice behind them making the two jump.

Scrambling to their feet they got a look at the new guy.

Tall and mean-looking, his most distinct feature was the weal-like scar on his face, running across the bridge of his nose and down across the left side of his mouth. He had brown spiky hair, dark eyes and wore the standard attire of the Konoha shinobi complete with a forehead protecter and the standardflackjacket. He also had small appendages on his hand ranging from black bandages to metal rings on his fingers.

"Right, I'm your new teacher, the name's Raido. How about an introduction?"

The usual thing to do was give your genin some sort of test and then deem them ready. You would assign rules, give them a goal, etcetera.

Raido just straight up attacked them.

He was upon them with an instant, black sword in hand and went for a low slash.

Tenzuka however used to train with Tenten so he didn't react like a total idiot and blocked with his kodaichi.

Key word being total.

Fighting a jonin head on? Not one of his brightest ideas.

Ando had lept backwards and was throwing shuriken after shuriken, which saved Tenzuka's ass.

Using the sword to block the projectiles, Tenzuka used the opportunity to leap backwards, never taking his eyes off his opponent.

Raido put the sword away and blew fire.

Grimacing, Tenzuka decided to get as close as possible to Ando. They weren't escaping the jonin.

"Attack on the right, I'll go on the left." He said quickly.

Ando nodded.

They charged.

They didn't expect to win, but it was two against one, they should have at least forced Raido to try hard.

Ando had a kunai in each hand, Tenzuka had his sword, he should have gone on the defensive.

What happened was Tenzuka lost his sword almost immediately because of a quick stab, Ando had both kunai smacked out of his hand and they both got a punch to the face.

"And you're both dead." Said the man simply. "I'm okay with your reaction time and teamwork, so I guess this squad can work. You two pass."

The entire thing hadn't even lasted a minute.

"When someone is trying to kill you there are no warnings. If you're skilled you notice signs and can prepare a trap, but most cases have quick and one sided battles. That is the shinobi's preferred battle. Not many injuries, heavy damage, quick retreat, got it?"

They nodded. Pretty simple really.

"You two got approved for an exchange program, which is why despite being a tokubetsu, I'm going to be your teacher."

Ah wait, he wasn't a full jonin?

"In two weeks a team from waterfall will be here to pick us up. We have until then to train in the basics."

Raido released his sword from no where.

"First of all, I see you have a sword but you carry it the old fashioned way. So you'll be learning storage seals. Anyone have a fire affinity?"

Ando raised his hand.

"Ah, brilliant. You'll be learning traditional Konoha fire techniques."

Raido used his free hand to perform one-handed seals. It looked pretty impressive.

"You all have studied traditional fighting styles at the academy: Suna usually uses puppets and wind jutus, Iwa uses golems and earth jutsus, Kumo has their spider contract and lightning, Kiri has their mist and water jutsus, and finally Konoha. What do we use?"

Suddenly, Raido's sword started glowing a bright yellow.

"We have fire. Fire and seals. As official representatives, you two have to learn it."

While Raido's explenation was grossly oversimplified (he didn't mention the clans for example), it did cover the basics. Each village tended to have a speciality, one that could be copied, but one that would require years and tons of resources to do so. Or tons of backlash.

Seals could be learnt and copied. But not only do they have to be pretty damn precise and written in a specific way, the chakra enchanting had to also be preformed in a specific pattern, so even having the entire seal didn't guarantee learning it. One could just simply 'trial and error' their way out of the problem, but that would cost a crap ton chakra ink and have very dangerous consequences. Konoha's climate and plants could produce tons of ink, so it wasn't a big deal if a lot got waisted do to experimentation, but what about the desert? What about the mountains? It was a mess.

And one could learn the stealth techniques Kiri constantly uses, but it would usually require years of training with a crazy damp climate, otherwhise the chakra restraints would be too much. It simply was imconveniant to copy.

Same went for the golems and puppets. At this point of history, everything that could be easily copied had been.

But that didn't mean the village taught it's secrets to everyone. Usually only Anbu knew it, perhaps some jonin who had been in the force for years and had just recieved an important mission, or maybe one was lucky enough to be a relative to a kage.

A village couldn't afford teaching their secrets to genin and have them betray the village, going nukenin. It would be a massive waste of time and resources.

So to teach genin, even if they were only the basics of the art, was a huge privilege.

Sure, everyone knew storage seals, but storage seals made perpously to enchant swords with a fire affinity, even if the user didn't have one?

First class.

Of course, Raido wasn't teaching him that. He didn't know the basics of storage sealing, so he couldn't start with such complicated things.

Ando had just started learning jutsu. He wouldn't be shooting fire from his fists or making a controllable fire dragon anytime soon.

But they were starting.

And it was for that reason that they were practising even after Raido left and the day was over.

The village was literally handing resources to them. They would not go wasted.

"Ouch!" Said Ando. He was trying to burn a leaf but he must have hurt himself in the process. Again.

"Concentrate." Said their new teacher sternly. "I can't teach you how to breathe fire if you'll burn your throat in the process."

Tenzuka and Ando smiled in satisfaction at their new safe.

The seals weren't that safe, but anyone short of a seal master would have to knock them out and steal their chakra to unlock the hidden seals inside in a soecific combination they had made just now.

It was kind of brilliant really- the safe in itself could be picked by any random stranger, it was the hidden seals that were specifically crafted inside the safe that made it such a big deal.

The idea of becoming an apprentice to a metal worker became more and more attractive. Perhaps he should try?

He hadn't even known that seals didn't need to be made of ink! How cool was that?

To make things better, now that they had their own protection, they didn't have to pay a clan!

Many ninjas also faced the problem that was guarding money. It was the Uzumaki that had come up with the idea of 'safekeeping' first: in exchange for a certain monthly percentage, the clan would use their mastery of seals to protect any sums of money.

Of course that failed spectacularly after the fall of whirlpool. Konoha still had a couple of Uzumaki's, but not enough to run such a difficult business.

So the other clans stepped up.

Each had their own secret methods, with the Hyuga and Nara families having the best reputation.

It was a great system: if anything happened to your money, not only would you be able to get it back, they'd pay extra just to keep you quiet!

Or so Kabuto had said that's how they used to work. Unfortunately, too many people abused this loophole so now a days the small monthly payment had become the huge monthly payment. Many ninjas just opted to use their own creative methods.

The best investment, according to Kabuto of course, was seals. It was a tad bit more expensive than just buring it underground with a jutsu, but it was way more secure. As this was a long term investment, Tenzuka had (painfully) opted for the securer option.

The only downside was limited space- the seals could only contain so much matter. While paper didn't occupy that much, it would eventually when they became better ninja. Oh well, they'd cross the bridge when they'd get to it.

"You know what?" Said Ando. "I'm glad we didn't pass the first time. We probably wouldn't have interacted much otherwise."

"You think so? But we would have been on the same team."

"True but I recon' that people learn to like each other only because of tough situations, otherwise the relationship is a superficial one. It's what my dad used to say anyway."

Curious. Ando had never talked about his family till now.

"I don't think I quite understand: why would this clarify as a 'tough situation? Also, wouldn't we have gone in a dangerous mission eventually?"

Ando shrugged and sat down on the old couch.

"Dealing with these money expenses and the like, facing new situations together. I don't know, it's a bit different from battle of course, but it still intense you know? Like I've had friends, but I wouldn't trust them with my money! I'm not explaining myself am I."

Tenzuka smiled softly.

"I think I get it. I've never had a best friend before either."

There was a bit of awkward silence.

Ando chuckled and lay horizontally on the couch. "Way to make it weird."

"I'm right though aren't I? Guess I wasn't the only 'not-a-complete- loser-but-not-cool-either' guy in the academy."

"What do you mean? Weren't you friends with Tenten?"

Ouch.

Tenzuka hadn't thought about her in a while yet it still hurt.

"I only really talked to her this year. I don't really think she thought we were friends."

"Yikes that sucks. Well, it happened, may as well move on."

"Yeah."

The woods were eerily silent as he ran.

It's as if his persecutor had politely asked the forest to be quiet as they hunted him down.

His heart was pounding in protest- he wasn't meant for this strain.

The adrenaline was stronger though.

His legs were on fire as he pushed as much foliage out of his face as he could, he screamed for help for the millionth time-

Pain flared at his legs as he dropped to the floor. Damn it, he couldn't die, not like this!

"W-why are you doing this?!"

The cloaked figure cocked it's head to the side as if it was confused as to why such a stupid question had been asked. What did he expect, a genuine reply? The cloaked figure produced a kunai.

"Wait, please! I can give you money! Even information about-"

The cloaked figure stabbed him in the neck without hesitation, cutting him off.

His scream died out rather quickly.

Damn it he had finally learnt the technique too!

The cloaked figure produced a scroll to hide the body when it turned its head. Footsteps. Multiple footsteps.

Godamn it.

The figure ran away. That hadn't been part of the plan, how did they discover him so easily? A traitor? Possibly.

The traitor would have to be dealt with.

A snake-ish laugh could be heard as the figure escaped.

As a side note, I found a bit of inconsistency with Kishimoto's economic system so I made it from scratch. That's why the numbers are so "weird."