"Weak," pronounced Neji.
Sasuke got up and tried again.
"Pathetic," summed up Neji.
Sasuke got up a little slower and tried again.
"You do realize, of course," said Neji as he stood over his opponent, "that if I unleashed even a fraction of my skill with the jyuuken - all your chakra points would be closed and you would be dead."
Sasuke growled as he tried to pick himself up again and realized he had some serious muscle cramps in both legs.
"Enough," said Maito Gai, stepping in. "Sasuke Uchiha, you need to recover from your hospital stay and improve your performance. Fortunately, I know of some methods for that. However, we're out of time for today's sparring. You have an hour before Asuma will be teaching you and Naruto additional ninjutsu."
Sasuke nodded at that. After all, if it were an all-out fight he would have kept the Hyuga at bay while blasting away with fire jutsu. Right?
"C'mon, Sasuke," said Naruto, gesturing. "Ichiraku's has a lunch special."
The training with Asuma had proved to be interesting.
"The main thing with using ninjutsu in battle is having a strategy, and being able to adapt that strategy on the fly," said Asuma. "You have to have experience with your techniques, getting them down to the minimum time to run through the hand-seals, and the better you are at a particular jutsu - the more uses you'll be able to put it to. All the practice and finesse you have on a particular technique though isn't as important as to the timing and planning behind it."
"I thought having a wide variety of jutsu would better," remarked Naruto.
"No," said Asuma. "You're not alone in thinking that, but it's not true. You only have so much time in every day to practice and get the best performance out of your moves. Look at my students. Each has a particular technique that their family specializes in, with higher level variants they've developed and refined. They also work together well, their styles meshing to allow them to deal with many threats and types of missions."
"Ah," said Naruto, looking uncertain about that.
"Your own abilities, for example," said Asuma. "You have peculiar wind techniques, and Sasuke has fire element. Wind supports and strengthens fire, so Sasuke would be even stronger with your support."
Sasuke blinked at that, glancing at his team-mate. Stronger was a good thing.
"So they might work out a combination attack in order to take down particularly powerful targets?" asked Shikamaru, racing ahead with strategies in case he ever worked with Team 7 on missions.
"That's getting a bit ahead of things, but yes," agreed Asuma.
"Do we really need weapons?" asked Naruto.
Sasuke grunted something that sounded like agreement.
"Asuma-sensei has trench knives, Gai-sensei has nunchaku, Kurenai-sensei uses kunai, but I've also heard she's considered A-Rank with punch-daggers. Kakashi-sensei was in ANBU and they typically use kunai and ninjato," said Tenten as she led them to a store.
"I don't have much money you know," said Naruto uneasily.
"So we find a weapon you like, get a wooden practice version, and you buy the real one later," said Tenten, waving off the point. "You'll just be buying a general version anyway, not a customized version. Which you really SHOULD when you get to sixteen or seventeen anyway."
"That your father owns a weapons shop wouldn't be at all why you're trying to sell us on something like that, would it?" said a smirking Sasuke.
"No, not at all," chirped Tenten. "Off-the-rack weapons are like off-the-rack clothes, you never get the best fit. Ahhh. Here we go. Hi hi, Poppa!"
Both Naruto and Sasuke glanced towards the proprietor sitting behind a desk, who waved back without looking up from his newspaper.
"Watch your head," said Tenten a moment before Naruto's forehead cracked into a hanging display.
"Since you like swords," said Tenten, leading the two towards a display, "take one of these and we'll head towards the practice targets. I've got to see your swing."
Sasuke took one in the middle, and Naruto had tried to grab the largest only to have Tenten insist on a smaller one.
Sasuke eyed the targets after they'd reached them, settled into a stance and used the basic four stances he'd been taught. He was quite a bit taller than he'd been then, so he had to adapt a little.
Naruto revealed that he had NO weapon training to speak of.
"The katana and its relatives are all finesse swords," explained Tenten, taking the wooden practice sword and demonstrating three quick variations on Sasuke's stances and attacks. "Speed and accuracy are what you want with those types of weapons."
"A sword's a sword, right?" asked Naruto, who then flinched at the glare from the tomboyish girl.
"A katana is a finesse style of sword," repeated Tenten, keeping the glare up on Naruto. "A zanpakuto is a sword that's a strength style - crushing and tearing through resistance. An epee or rapier is a speed style of sword - doing not so much damage in a single attack but meant to be used repeatedly to bleed out an opponent and then deliver a finishing final thrust. Each is used in different styles and fighting with one doesn't mean skill with the others."
"So..." said Naruto, having gotten images in his head of each sword and getting the very strong image of Tenten USING each one on him for DARING to suggest all weapons were the same, "what kind of weapon would you suggest for me?"
"You're not subtle, your strength is about average for genin," said Tenten, her anger snapping abruptly off as she considered the question. "Probably not a sword. Chain weapon - no. I'd expect you to beat yourself senseless with nunchaku."
Sasuke snorted in amusement but quickly schooled himself back to bored indifference.
Tenten was still considering. "How's your accuracy with missile weapons?"
"What accuracy?" asked Sasuke before he could stop himself.
"Teme," growled Naruto.
"Not good, I take it," pondered Tenten. "Any ideas of what kind of weapon you'd want?"
"Something fireproof," said Naruto.
"Come here," said Tenten, turning around and leading the two off. When she passed the counter and went in another direction she waved to her father. "Hey, Dad! Naruto's going to show me how much fire he can pull. We got any scrap in the hopper?"
"Sure," said the man behind the counter. "Let him knock himself out."
"Uhm," said Naruto nervously.
"We take in scrap metal, buy back used weapons, melt it down and recycle it," explained Tenten as she led them off to an enclosed yard with a massive fire-brick chimney. "I saw the crater you left behind. Now I just want to see how much you can shove into it when you try."
"I dunno," said Naruto, a little nervous about this.
"See these?" asked Tenten, tapping symbols adorning the bricks. "Seals to help contain the heat. If you can do this, my Dad might be able to get your team the occasional mission to melt down scrap. Or maybe he can just hire you directly for it every so often. This is also to see how hot you actually get it and what kind of materials your weapon would need."
"Huh," said Naruto looking at where there was a bunch of scrap metal in a holding area, and a trough under that to channel something over to an area with a rectangular reservoir. There was an iron door stained with seals, currently open, where the scrap metal had been loaded.
Tenten tapped Sasuke on the arm, then led him over to behind a small wall at one end of the yard. "Okay, whenever you're ready - let her rip."
Naruto shrugged, frowned, and began pulling on the strength within him. This time he was TRYING to burn something and as he understood it - the girl wanted him to try hitting just the pile of scrap metal there.
Sasuke had only seen glimpses of what had happened back during the bell test, as his attention had mainly been on beating their jonin instructor.
Seeing the dobe putting his hands out towards the metal, he was interested in how fire appeared without any hand-seals being performed. So it WAS some sort of kekkei genkai?
An almost lazy trail of fire reached out and touched the metal, doing nothing perceptible.
"Is THAT all you got, dobe?" asked Sasuke.
"Kuso," cursed Naruto who concentrated harder, muscles in his back and shoulders clenching.
FWOOOM!
Fire enveloped the entire chimney and the scraps of metal.
"Concentrate on the scrap!" called out Tenten over the roar of flame.
Sasuke could see quite clearly over the wall, Naruto's body shaking as the amount of fire slowly contracted and grew constantly hotter.
The metal went to dull red, then rapidly got brighter until it softened and sagged and then finally went to red and yellow dripping down the chimney.
That sealing of his abilities that old guy was talking about, realized Sasuke. It must be taking a lot to overcome that. Does that mean that the Sharingan can be sealed? Hmph. Not as quick as my Fireball Jutsu, but more intense.
Sasuke put aside considerations for the moment as he considered how to best coordinate efforts with his own fire-based techniques.
Naruto was already shaking and beginning to slump so what he was doing was apparently very difficult. Probably not be able to keep it running for long.
Finally Naruto slumped and grabbed his knees with his hands, gasping for breath.
Sasuke saw Tenten move and was surprised to see how hesitant the girl was in approaching and then passing Naruto. He glanced to the side at a movement and saw the girl's father had joined them.
Sasuke joined Tenten after a few moments, wanting to see what had occurred.
The bricks glowed with heat, clearly visible through the shimmer of heated air. The scrap metal that had been piled up in the catch-bin was now a molten puddle that slightly overfilled the catch basin.
The father spoke up. "Let me know if he ever manages to get better control on that."
"Let's avoid the chain weapons," said Tenten an hour later.
"Why?" asked Sasuke.
"Choji would be good for a chain weapon," said Tenten, sitting at the counter of the store and considering. "Both of you are fairly strong, but it's mainly strength and mass that helps with a chain weapon. Being able to grab opponents and pull them to you, tangling weapons, things like that. It's also pretty specialized. The problem is Naruto. He's short and kind of scrawny."
"Gee thanks," said Naruto.
"Big feet and hands," said Tenten's father.
"Excuse me?" asked Sasuke and Tenten together.
"Blondie here," said the proprietor, jerking his thumb at Naruto as if there were any other blond ninja anywhere near. "He's gonna hit a growth spurt and get taller. Probably a lot taller."
"Unless he does something stupid like only eating ramen," said Tenten, indicating she HAD heard about Naruto's eating habits.
"I don't only eat ramen," grumbled Naruto.
"Hmmm," hmmmed Tenten. "Maybe a spear or other polearm. Combined with your kage bunshin, that means you could set up traps or formations using spears."
"Uh huh," said Naruto, wandering the shop when something caught his eye. "Hey, what about THIS?"
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:51)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.