~ I have added this Fanfic to my Patreon. If you'd like to read advanced chapters, feel free to check it out!
~ I'm planning to increase the number of advanced chapters to +18 this weekend!
~ I've edited some of the previous chapters to remove anything you might consider "cringe" or "unnecessary." I'll continue reviewing them from time to time!
~ Very soon, we'll return to releasing two chapters daily, including bonus privileges for Power Stone contributions!
<><><><>
The Next Day
Living Room, Naruto's Apartment
Umino Iruka was feeling very much like a right heel at the moment. After he had kicked Naruto's ass for pranking the entire Shinobi Force (at the time, he'd also felt a small flicker of pride at the boy being able to cause mass chaos so easily without getting caught, that kind of ability would serve him well in the future) he had been summoned to the Hokage's office.
There, he had been told the truth…how Mizuki, his friend, had tried to trick Naruto into committing treason. How the blonde boy had, in return, easily caught onto the deception given Mizuki's past animosity and had brought it to the Hokage. And how the crafty old bastard had arranged things so that Mizuki had been given just enough rope to hang himself before seeing him carted off to Anko and Ibiki. More than that, Naruto had fought and defeated Mizuki when the chunin had tried to kill him.
Pride, anger and shame had warred within Iruka.
Pride at Naruto, for being cautious, for using his head rather than rushing in like he would have as little as a year ago, for reporting it to the Hokage, and for defeating someone who, by rank, was many times stronger than he was.
Anger…anger at the Hokage for using Naruto as bait for a trap, at Mizuki for turning traitor and trying to kill Naruto, and at himself for not acting sooner to stop Mizuki going down that path.
As for the shame…some of it was for not stopping Mizuki from turning traitor and attacking Naruto, but mostly? He was deeply ashamed of kicking Naruto's ass the previous night without listening to anything the boy said in his defence.
Which was why he was here to apologise. Naruto, unfortunately, was pouting at him with a slight twitch in one eye, a largish bump on top of his head from the technique Iruka had used on him the previous day, the one his fellow chunin-sensei jokingly called the Ai no Ikkatsu (Roar of Love), a loud shout, swiftly followed by teleporting in close with a Shunshin and a heavy whack across the head.
In the end, he'd had to promise to treat the boy to a couple of large bowls of Ramen at Ichiraku's before Naruto unbent enough to accept his apology.
"Anyway, Hokage-sama told me about everything that happened yesterday." Iruka told Naruto after he finished apologizing. "And I am very impressed. You've really learned how to use your head rather than just relying on your fists. You not only quickly identified the suspicious actions of a supposed ally and brought them to your superior, but you even managed to successfully turn the trap back on Mizuki and learned a scroll's worth of jutsu to boot. All in all, a very impressive night's work Naruto.
"Heheheh…nothing to it but to do it, Iruka-sensei-dattebayo!" Naruto grinned. "Do you mind looking over the jutsu that I managed to learn last night and give me some pointers on them?"
"Of course. While technically we're still teacher and student until you're officially been assigned to a jonin sensei, you're also technically a Genin and not under the Academy's authority any longer. So the law shouldn't be a problem." Iruka nodded. Chūnin-sensei weren't allowed to tutor their students outside of class in order to prevent favouritism (or at least heavily mitigate it, as teachers always tended to have favourites, regardless of policy). However once a student received their hitai-ate they fell into a bit of a legal grey area until the secondary Genin exam administered by their assigned Jonin-sensei. While he still couldn't privately teach Naruto any new techniques, offering critique and pointers on improving his already existent skills was well within the bounds.
"Yatta!" Naruto cheered. Smiling at his enthusiasm, Iruka followed the boy down to the apartment building's shuriken range and watched as Naruto demonstrated the jutsu he had learned the previous day, starting with the Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. It took Iruka's mind a moment to reboot at the realisation that his student had learned an A-Rank jutsu that even he couldn't use and, unfortunately, couldn't help him with.
Fortunately, the rest were jutsu that the scarred Chunin knew and could give some quite useful pointers on. Posture and throwing technique for the Kage Shuriken no Jutsu, for example, as well as a bit of improvement with directing the wires with the Sōshuriken no Jutsu. He'd had to wrack his brains for the Shuriken Goshin and Shuriken Ranbu jutsu since he'd learned those when he was just a fresh Genin himself and it had been several years since he'd had to actively use them.
"I have to say, I'm impressed, Naruto." The chunin admitted a couple of hours later. "Learning one, maybe two, of those jutsu in a single day is something that most experienced genin could accomplish, but all five over the course of a few hours? You've really been making amazing progress the last few months, but this is simply extraordinarily."
Iruka was internally smirking as Naruto blushed and scratched the back of his head awkwardly as he was wont to do when he was praised; the poor boy wasn't used to people honestly praising him.
"S-So Iruka-sensei, how are the teams gonna be chosen?" Naruto asked, strategically redirecting the conversation.
"Ordinarily, the class's various teachers would assign the teams based on a combination of requests from the Jonin sensei and their own observations on compatible skillsets and personal synergy." The chunin replied, allowing the very obvious deflection to pass…this once. "The only obvious odd-one-out would be pairing the Rookie of the Year, the Top Kunoichi and the lowest ranking class member together. The theory behind that being that the more skilled pair of genin will help to bring up the abilities of the less-capable student."
Naruto nodded, having heard that before from the Hokage himself.
"But this year, thanks to some…revelations, I understand that Hokage-sama is choosing the teams himself." Iruka continued more seriously. "Standards have dropped at the Academy, and I was so busy teaching that I didn't question the change in materials."
<><><><>
~ If you like the story, please leave a review!
~ Push the Story forward with your [Power
Stones]
~ (Soon +18) Advanced Chapters Available on Patreon!
https://p-atreon.com/Anshufanfic
(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)