A Measure of Darkness - indefinite hiatus -

NARUTO

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This Impossible Task — Expiration
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September goes by, the month when I can work out a reasonable schedule between training, my first year as medic, studying, and socializing. Clone Me sure puts a weight off my shoulder, but I'd really love to have three or four clones. But one will do.

No longer having to study 20 hours a week because of med school, I can devote so much more time for training myself. Taijutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu, survival skills. The Legendary Children are attending a regular Year One classroom environment which is a nice change of the brisk learning from last year. Unlike normal students, class time isn't anything normal.

Officially, the Leaf can't offer special services for accelerated or slow students. The brand Legendary Children only applies for the Hokage and Jounin-sensei. Obviously, the advanced children will get better teams and sensei when graduating versus the average crowd who'll likely repeat the Academy forever. The children will brag to other clans. The status makes clans feel stronger.

Unfortunately for us Legendary Children, lessons are way more boring.

So I've got an obscene amount of free time. I devote that time to training.

The first thing I train is my sense of smell. I've always had a funny feeling I had a good sense of smell growing up. But it's nowhere near an Inuzuka. Ken is glad to help me out, provided that I buy him ribs and steak later. We meet up in the park and run deep into the woods. We meaning Ken, me, and three ninja dogs he's babysitting.

"If I'm the bad ninja," Ken says, his fifth time editing the rules for my sake, "you have to find where I'm hiding and kill me."

"But I don't have any blunt shuriken," I say again.

"You don't use shuriken, moron!"

"How am I supposed to kill you, O wise one?"

"With a rock or straw, somethin!"

I grab a stone at my feet and toss it. It's an okay shuriken. "Fine. It's not how we play at the Academy. I got it."

"Me and the dogs are gunna hide. You count to whatever makes you happy and find me."

"Okay."

To find him, I can only rely on smell. Ken makes it easy for me, covering his tracks with his own scent and having one of the dogs, Agaku, run in pond. His tracks reek of wet dog smell.

So I begin to sniff, grateful how light the breeze is today. I find the fudge-color puppy Koinu and the hot dog shaped puppy Maitai easy enough. Agaku takes me long with how generalized the aroma becomes. The hardest to find is Ken's, whose scent fades faster than the dogs—as strange as that sounds.

Until I find a strong, unnatural scent.

I'm following the scent with three puppies following along excitedly, despite not understanding what's happening. While I bend over to get a better scent, Agaku trips over Maitai's long body. All of them start barking—similar to a group of friends laughing at the stupidity of one guy in particular, who has just embarrassed himself. Especially if it's recorded.

I continue through the trail, seeing very slight indicators a person had been here: bent grass from heavy footstep, disturbed creatures whose nests lie close to ground surface, et cetera. The puppies don't care much for the smell. Fine by me. Keep them out of the way so I can focus.