Inheritance

CHAPTER 6

"Okay, Naruto-san. You may stop now, I have seen enough." Yuugao said, as she eyed the slightly winded boy in front of her. His stamina was good, but clearly needed work on.

"Yuugao-sensei, you don't need to bother with all that formal stuff. I don't really like it all that much."

"But Uzumaki-san, that would be improper..." She answered, eliciting a loud groan from the blonde. "...But if you insist, then I will stick to Naruto for the moment." She paused, waiting for the boy to realise she had been teasing him, and continued just as he figured it out. "Now then what did you think of our little spar?"

The blonde in front of her didn't need too long to come up with an answer.

"Well my taijutsu sucks, I couldn't land a hit on you! I was too slow to react every time you attacked, I could tell you were gunna, and then well... I couldn't move into the right position to do anything about it!"

"You're actually more right than you realise. You're basic form is all wrong, and it is preventing your body from reacting as quickly as you want it to. I was fighting at a Genin level, you should have been able to do much better."

"But I made sure my forms were all right! I spent ages with the taijutsu instructor getting them right!" Naruto protested angrily.

"I'm sure you did Naruto. Tell me, who was you're taijutsu instructor at the academy?" Yuugao prompted, already having guessed the answer.

"It was Mizu-" Naruto stopped as the realisation hit him. Mizuki had intentionally messed up his taijutsu! All because of that bastard fox! The voice of Yuugao-sensei distracted him from his thoughts, and he turned his attention to what she was saying.

"Don't worry too much about it Naruto. This is why I'm here remember. Perhaps I had better tell you about the secret purpose of these guarded training grounds."

Naruto perked up instantly, he had been curious about why they had come here as opposed to one of the other, easier to access grounds.

"These grounds are used by shinobi for one of two reasons. Firstly, they are used by small clans who do not have private training grounds, in order to secretly practise their family techniques. Secondly, they are used by shinobi who are developing their own techniques and need to field test them in secret to prevent others from stealing or copying them. In a village that used to have dojutsu such as the Sharingan, areas such as these became a necessity to ensure privacy."

Naruto's eyes widened as he caught on to what his new sensei was telling him.

"So, after realising that it would be incredibly difficult to find an existing style that would suit you; the Hokage decided that I would help you come up with a style unique to you. Hence, the secret training grounds. We can't have any one stealing your work now, can we?"

Naruto shook his head furiously in disagreement.

His own, totally unique taijutsu style? Yuugao-sensei was awesome!

The Sandaime breathed out a steady stream of smoke as he contemplated how one Uzumaki Naruto was getting along with his new sensei. He had already been impressed with Naruto's progress over the past three days. He had discovered the secret behind the Kage Bunshin on the very first day, and had used it incredibly effectively to catch up on what he had missed on the academy. Thus, he had been able to use his time with Iruka to improve his chakra control.

He had also been impressed with the amount of maturity that Naruto had shown. He had identified his weakest areas; and had, if somewhat reluctantly, worked furiously to improve himself. But that was not all. Naruto was still twelve years old, and ninjutsu was still ninjutsu. The Hokage had of course been aware of the blonde's extra-curricular ninjutsu studies, and had seen how the boy had not only limited himself to C-rank techniques and resisted the urge to head straight for A-ranks jutsu; but he had done nothing more that memorise what he read, until he had developed the appropriate control for the jutsu in question.