"Saitama, how can this be?" Anko said with resignation.
Mitarashi had been trying for two days now to teach material that was normally covered in the Academy. Nothing complicated — just the basics. But either she was a terrible teacher, or the student she had been given was… not the most gifted.
"Uh… what's wrong again?" Saitama asked, yawning widely.
"Did you even read the reference books I brought?"
"Well… I skimmed them," the young man scratched his bald head.
He had genuinely looked through the textbooks Mitarashi had brought. But they had no pictures and no plot, so after a while the young man would start nodding off. Jiraiya's books were another matter entirely — you could read those multiple times and never lose interest. There was intrigue, conflict, a story arc… and a great deal else of interest. It was hardly surprising, then, that Anko occasionally caught Saitama reading the erotic bestseller tucked inside a geography or history textbook.
At the moment, the young man and the girl were settled at a small table in the living room of Saitama's new house. Though "house" was perhaps a grand word — it was a two-story building with five rooms, a good bathroom with a bathtub, a shower, and two toilets. There was also a large kitchen with everything necessary. Even the refrigerator was packed with food, which Saitama found extremely pleasing.
The house, incidentally, had been received just yesterday.
On top of that, the relevant documents had already been drawn up for the hero, and Caped Baldy had officially become a bald shinobi with the rank of Special Jonin. Clothing had been issued, but he had refused to wear it — at least not in the colors provided. The Hokage had placed an order through his channels, and a yellow combat suit with red gloves and boots would be ready in a few days.
"Saitama, a shinobi needs to know his way around the world," Anko began. "You are required to study geography. I'm amazed you couldn't even remember the names of the countries — to say nothing of the hidden villages. It seems like you're just messing with me…"
Mitarashi folded her arms across her chest and frowned.
"That's not true," the bald young man objected. "I know perfectly well that I'm in the Land of Fire."
"No surprise there," Anko snorted. "It says right in your ID: 'Saitama. Special Jonin of Konoha. Land of Fire…'"
"Does it?" Saitama raised an eyebrow. "I hadn't noticed what was written in it."
Mitarashi closed her eyes and slowly exhaled. The girl couldn't figure out whether the young man was messing with her, was genuinely dim, or simply didn't care.
She shook her head. Geography was evidently not Saitama's strong suit. So she decided to approach from a different angle.
"Fine, to blazes with geography. You were listening carefully to me yesterday, right? I was talking about Kage, and specifically about Hokage. Do you remember who the Kage are?"
"Of course I do," the young man nodded. "Rulers of the hidden villages. Cool guys everyone respects. And Hokage rule Konoha. Even Naruto wants to become this Hokage. I just don't understand why…"
"Let's leave Naruto's wishes aside," Anko interrupted. "Good. You remembered that. Now a question on Konoha's history."
The bald shinobi frowned. He liked stories — especially adventure ones. And yesterday he had tried to listen to the kunoichi carefully; he had particularly remembered some cool tree-controlling guy who had founded Konoha. Or had he not been tree-like himself, but merely controlled trees?
Didn't matter. Either way, the hero had retained some facts. Anko certainly wasn't going to quiz him on the plot of "Come Come Paradise," but he was ready to answer questions about the village's history.
"So," Mitarashi cleared her throat, "answer this question. Who is Namikaze Minato?"
The bald shinobi thought for a moment. He had definitely heard that name before. Anko had mentioned it. He just couldn't place the context.
"One of the Hokage?" Saitama guessed.
The kunoichi smiled:
"Correct, well done. Namikaze Minato — the Fourth ruler of the Hidden Leaf. Also known as the 'Yellow Flash.'"
The young man nodded with an air of authority. Anko then asked the next question:
"And what was Minato known for, and why was he called the 'Yellow Flash'?"
The bald man frowned and began working through the question, trying to bring all his mental resources to bear — he even attempted to apply logic. His expression was so amusing that Mitarashi couldn't suppress a quiet laugh. Saitama didn't notice.
Suddenly an idea struck him, and he placed his hands on the table and assumed a self-satisfied expression.
"Got it," the hero nodded. "He was called the 'Yellow Flash' because he…"
Saitama raised an index finger and smirked knowingly:
"Kept hitting trees, right?"
"What?!" Anko stared at the young man.
"Well," Saitama hedged. "You know — like, he kept striking trees, like lightning…"
The kunoichi's palm met her own face. Her shoulders drooped. The girl slowly rose from the table and walked just as slowly to the nearest wall. Then she began gently but methodically banging her head against it.
"Hey, what are you doing?" the young man said with concern.
Anko didn't answer. Continuing her rhythmic impacts against the wall, she only murmured with resignation:
"This is impossible. Teaching Saitama anything is impossible. This mission from the Third is completely undoable…"
With each passing moment the blows against the wall grew harder, until at some point Saitama couldn't take it and jumped to his feet.
"Would you stop that!" he said with genuine concern. "I just got this house yesterday and you're already damaging my property. Go to the training ground and bang your head there!.."
Mitarashi let out a bitter sigh, but ceased the assault on the wall.
"Alright, Saitama," she said calmly. "I'm going to the shop for notebooks. When I get back, you will be taking notes on what I dictate. After that, you'll read what you wrote aloud."
Saitama grimaced as if from a toothache, but gave a reluctant nod.
Mitarashi temporarily departed, and the young man went to the kitchen to make himself something to eat.
"I don't see why I need any of this," the hero said mournfully, pulling food from the refrigerator. "I'm already twenty-five, and I have to suffer through this like some kind of schoolkid…"
"Well done, everyone," Kakashi said, walking up to the disgruntled genin. "Dismissed. Same time, same place tomorrow."
The next moment the jonin vanished with a pop.
Sakura growled:
"What kind of sensei did we end up with? He even sends a clone to missions!.."
Today Team 7 had their first D-rank mission. Weeding garden beds. Sakura had complained at length when she found out. Though she had started showing her displeasure much earlier — and the reason was, again, Kakashi.
Not only had the jonin shown up three hours late to meet his charges, he had also, after accepting the task, settled under a tree in the shade. The genin meanwhile worked in the sweltering summer sun.
It was a good thing Naruto had immediately created a dozen clones, so they managed to finish relatively quickly. Without Uzumaki it would have taken until evening.
And now it turned out that a clone had been with them all along. Either Kakashi had accepted the mission himself and then quietly left a clone behind with the genin. But that was beside the point.
"Is he even going to train us?" Sakura continued to fume.
"That's not the half of it, Sakura-chan," the blond said. "One-Eye-Sensei didn't even mention our pay."
"Our what?" the girl drew out.
Naruto then told them about mission ranks, about mission pay, and about how genin were supposed to receive compensation even for low-rank missions.
"So he pocketed our ryō too?" a vein pulsed in Sakura's forehead, and her fists clenched until her knuckles cracked.
"Yep," Naruto nodded. "On average, a D-rank mission pays 5,000 ryō for the team. I can't wait until we can take an S-rank mission. Those pay from 1,000,000 ryō and up. Can you imagine — a whole million, dattebayo!.."
Uzumaki's eyes went dreamy and he rubbed his palms together.
Sasuke, frowning, asked:
"How do you know so much?"
"Heh-heh," Naruto scratched his nose with a grin. "Lately I've been doing a lot of reading."
"Reading?" Sakura raised an eyebrow, momentarily forgetting about the money. "I didn't know you could. Idiots don't read, do they?"
"Sakura-chan, you're cruel," Uzumaki said with exaggerated offense, pressing his lips together.
But a moment later his face lit up with a bright smile, as if he had just remembered something.
"Alright, guys, see you tomorrow. I'm off to train. The daily quota isn't going to do itself."
After that Naruto ran off briskly, leaving the genin alone. The girl shifted her weight from foot to foot, casting an adoring look at the Uchiha. Sasuke was gloomily watching the retreating blond.
"Sasuke-kun," Sakura began timidly, her cheeks going slightly pink. "Maybe we could… you know…"
"Pff," came the reply. "I'm training too," and the Uchiha shoved his hands in his pockets and walked in the direction Naruto had disappeared.
"But, Sasuke-kun, wait…"
The boy turned sharply. If looks could kill, Haruno would have dropped dead on the spot. Fortunately for the small kunoichi, the genin did not possess that ability. A couple of heartbeats later he looked away.
"Sakura, out of the three of us, you are the weakest and most useless," he said without inflection. "I don't know why you even became a shinobi."
The kunoichi's eyes filled with tears, her lips trembled. It seemed as though she was about to cry.
Sasuke, giving the girl a contemptuous glance, walked away.
"To kill him… for revenge, I have to get stronger. Right now I'm too weak…" the Uchiha added in a whisper.
On Training Ground 66, Uzumaki continued to torture his body with hellish exercise. He was doing jump squats while balancing a massive log on his shoulders — and doing it standing on water. In other words, after each jump he didn't sink into the lake but landed back on its surface, keeping chakra active in his feet.
"Nine hundred ninety-nine…" Naruto rasped. "…One thousand!"
Exhaling loudly, the blond tossed the log toward the bank — fortunately not far away. Then he flopped fully into the water, arms and legs spread wide, floating like a starfish. After lying there for a while, the boy crawled toward the bank where his belongings were.
Uzumaki managed to stand only on the third attempt. On legs trembling from overexertion, he shuffled slowly toward his food bag.
Naruto had been training in nothing but shorts. His tanned body gleamed in the afternoon sun. Push-ups, sit-ups, and squats were done. Only the run remained.
Master Saitama had permitted him to do fewer repetitions in order to spend less time on training. But in return, the genin was expected to use his imagination to make each exercise as difficult as possible.
Now Naruto did a thousand reps on each exercise — with a log weighing a couple of hundred kilograms.
During push-ups, the log adhered to his back via chakra — the genin controlled it simultaneously, training his chakra control — and performed the exercise in a planche, meaning supported only by his arms with his body held parallel to the ground, legs off the surface.
During sit-ups, the boy hung upside down, anchored to a cliff face with chakra, holding the log in his arms — also adhering to it with chakra.
The jump squats were done with the same log, but now standing on water.
His run was also planned with that same despised log, and to maximize the difficulty, he would be running on water. The only relief was that the required distance was a mere ten kilometers. Should take about half an hour.
This was the so-called advanced level of training, which the boy had been practicing for two days now. It was even more exhausting than the standard sixteen-hour sessions that had come before — but now the training lasted under seven hours, leaving plenty of free time for rest and recovery.
Uzumaki set about demolishing sandwiches filled with roasted rabbit meat, washing them down with green tea from a flask to speed things along.
After lunch he watched the clones training nearby. Fifty copies could already apply the Dragon Flame jutsu and Minor Fireball quite decently. Another fifty sat off to the side, attempting to slice leaves using wind nature. A hundred more were practicing leg strikes in the air.
Then came the memories from a clone.
Yeah, Naruto thought wryly. Just like Anko-senpai said — D-rank missions really are boring…
Taking Mitarashi's advice, he had sent a clone to the first mission, filling it with a fifth of his reserve. Naruto had noticed he could control how much chakra he transferred to his clones and had also identified their key property: the more chakra, the more durable and long-lasting they were. Moreover, other copies could create new clones, drawing from the original Naruto's reserve. So Uzumaki had decided to send clones on all subsequent D-rank missions. The main thing was to make sure his teammates didn't find out, and that Kakashi didn't force the original to show up for those tasks.
Another wave of memories arrived from the clones studying in the Academy library. Naruto winced, his head swam, and his body swayed slightly. He felt something dripping from his nose. Pulling out a cloth, he wiped away the blood.
This was his third bloodied cloth of the day.
All for the goal… Naruto grinned.
The next moment another batch of information arrived from the clones in the city library. His head felt like it was being torn apart. The boy clenched his teeth against the pain and braced a hand against the ground. Blood dripped onto the grass.
"No," Uzumaki shook his head, barely staying conscious. "All for the goal!"
"Please," Tazuna begged, gasping for breath. "A rest…"
Today this unhinged team was running a marathon again. At least it seemed like a marathon to the architect. Several hours of running — even at a very leisurely pace — had drained the man to his limit. His heart was about to burst from his chest. His legs ached as though red-hot skewers had been driven through them. Every movement sent waves of savage pain through him.
But his companions seemed to feel no strain whatsoever. The two in green were simply running figure-eights around their team with logs on their shoulders. The ones who had seemed more reasonable — the pale-eyed boy and the girl — also ran without the slightest difficulty. They hadn't even broken a sweat. Or breathed hard.
"That's it, I can't. I'm going to die right now…"
Stumbling, Tazuna fell. His glasses flew off his nose. Sweat blurred his vision, his ears rang.
"Oh Kami, I'd rather have been killed by hired thugs," he whispered.
"Rest stop!" bellowed the monster called Gai.
"Thank Kami," Tazuna murmured. A moment later the man's consciousness switched off.
A heavy thud was heard. Two massive logs fell from the jonin's shoulders. Another thud followed. A smaller log falling from Rock Lee's shoulders.
"Neji, let's spar!" the thick-browed boy announced cheerfully.
"Sorry, Lee, but sparring during a mission is a bad idea," Neji said coldly.
"As you wish. Then I'll do a thousand push-ups on my thumbs. And if I can't — I'll walk on my hands all the way to the Land of Waves! In the name of the Power of Youth!"
After that the boy dropped to the ground, assumed a push-up position, and began working on his thumbs.
"Sure," Hyuuga agreed flatly. "Do as you like."
Interesting — if he fails, will he cross the river on his hands too? flashed through Neji's mind. Setting the unnecessary thought aside, the genin turned to his duties as sensor.
Every half hour, Hyuuga scanned the area with his Dojutsu. Now was the time again.
The veins around his eyes bulged. Sweeping the perimeter with the Byakugan, the boy's brow furrowed slightly.
Ten-Ten, who had been bringing up the rear of their formation, approached the genin and raised a questioning eyebrow.
"We have company," Neji said, deactivating his Dojutsu. "Two at three o'clock. About a kilometer out. I don't know if they're after us or not, but we should stay alert."
The girl nodded and began pulling out scrolls of sealed weapons — then scrolls of food. She looked at the motionless architect lying on the ground and asked with concern:
"He's not dead, is he?"
Neji activated the Byakugan again, this time to examine the client's body.
"He's fine," the boy concluded. "He'll live."
"Will we get penalized for mistreating this Tazuna?"
"At the start of the journey, Gai-sensei offered to carry him," Neji began. "The client refused. Lee then offered to build something like a palanquin so we could carry the architect in pairs. The client refused."
"I see where you're going with this," Ten-Ten smirked. "You're implying it's his own fault."
"Not implying," the boy corrected the kunoichi. "Simply stating a fact."
"Guys," their sensei loomed over the genin. "How about some training?" the man smiled, blinding the genin with his trademark grin.
"We may have to engage an enemy soon," the Hyuuga said. "So we'll need our strength. Spending it on training seems like a bad idea…"
"While the Power of Youth burns within us," Gai cut off his student, "no enemy is to be feared!"
The jonin struck his good-guy pose. Ten-Ten only sighed quietly. Neji showed no reaction to his instructor's words.
Seeing the genin's reactions, Maito smiled even wider. Then he noticed the unconscious client.
"Oh, the client-san has decided to take a nap! You can tell right away — a man who makes use of every free second for rest!"
Suddenly Gai's smile disappeared. He seemed to be listening for something. The thick eyebrows furrowed.
"Rest stop — ninety minutes. In thirty minutes, wake the client and feed him. Don't leave his side for a moment. I'll be nearby. I'll cover you if needed," the jonin issued instructions. His tone was serious.
The man picked up his logs and went off to train.
Thirty minutes later, the architect was roused — though not exactly woken. It turned out he had not simply fallen asleep, but had fainted.
Ten-Ten held a small bottle of smelling salts under his nose. Tazuna snapped awake.
"Am I not dead yet?" he asked sadly.
"Ten-Ten has basic first aid skills. So dying is not an option for you, no matter how much you might want it," Neji observed without emotion.
Tazuna gave a sluggish nod. The girl had already unsealed the food and was ladling it into bowls.
"Itadakimasu," the architect said with resignation.
The trio began eating at a leisurely pace. Gai and Lee were training somewhere by the river nearby. The girl was visibly nervous, while her teammate appeared to be the very embodiment of calm.
Whoosh.
A kunai flew into the bowl that had appeared in front of Tazuna — held by Neji. Tazuna's eyes went wide, and he looked back and forth between the genin and the bowl with the kunai sticking out of it. Then, swallowing loudly, he looked toward the visitors.
"Finally," the Hyuuga said with irritation. "They've shown themselves."
Two figures emerged from the undergrowth. Judging by their headbands and appearance — chunin shinobi from Kiri. The ninja were dressed in standard sealed-face suits of the Mist shinobi, with masks that allowed underwater breathing. Their apparent main weapon was shared between the two: a long chain connecting massive steel gauntlets, the chain bristling with a tremendous number of spikes.
"I assume your target is the architect?" Neji asked coldly, rising to his feet unhurriedly.
"Perceptive little brat," one of the shinobi rasped. "And if it is — what then?"
"Nothing," the Hyuuga said, activating his Byakugan. "Our objectives differ, so conflict is unavoidable. Knowing the bloodthirstiness and vindictiveness of the Mist shinobi, leaving you alive would be unwise."
"Such confidence… Kill him!"
The Mist shinobi lunged at Neji, completely forgetting about the kunoichi.
Ten-Ten, unsealing her arsenal, began hurling shuriken and kunai at the enemies. The shinobi either dodged or blocked with their gauntlets. The rain of metal temporarily cooled the chunin's enthusiasm somewhat. But they had decided to eliminate the Hyuuga first as the most dangerous.
"Protect the architect — I'll handle this," Neji said to the girl. She nodded and all but dragged Tazuna away from the fighting by the scruff of his neck.
With the projectiles no longer interfering, the Mist shinobi immediately caught the genin in a pincer, throwing the chain around him. The boy didn't dodge in time — he was wrapped from all sides.
"Heh-heh, say goodbye to life, Hyuuga!"
The next moment the chain sliced their target to pieces. Before they could celebrate the swift victory, however, a voice came from behind one of the shinobi:
"Gentle Fist."
Crack — the sound of breaking bone. One of the Mist shinobi dropped to the ground and lay still. The second spun around, staring at the genin in disbelief. Neji stood completely unharmed, the chunin's body at his feet.
"Gozu… my brother… no…"
Before the shinobi could recover from the shock, the Hyuuga was on him in an instant.
"Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms!"
A barrage of strikes landed on the chunin's vital points and tenketsu in rapid succession. After a few moments Hyuuga finished the sequence, and the shinobi dropped to his knees, frozen in paralysis for a time. He had roughly ten breaths left.
Neji walked over to Ten-Ten and inquired about Tazuna's condition. The architect was staring at the scene in disbelief.
"Dynamic Entry!" Lee shouted, crashing in mid-leap into the kneeling Mist shinobi. The half-dead chunin was sent a dozen meters through the air and slammed into a tree.
"Did I make it in time?" Lee asked his teammates.
Ten-Ten only shook her head with weary exasperation, rubbing her forehead.
"Tazuna-san," Neji began, paying no attention to the thick-browed genin's arrival. "We need to have a serious talk…"
The architect glanced sideways at the corpse and swallowed nervously.