Academy Testing
Naruto grinned when he looked over the scheme he had worked out. Thanks to teaching basic seals at the academy for about six months now, and he had got three months of that on end where he could actually hold classes all days of the week, as Kakashi sensei had finally managed to find enough competent team leaders to give Naruto some break from missions to concentrate on the teaching, his classes were now ready for an actual test of what they had learned.
Nothing worked as well as a real-life scenario to make students that took the academy too easy wake up without getting killed against a stronger opponent. Especially his subject required concentration and precision, which many children had trouble with. Like his former classmates during the mission where the jonin senseis of their team pitted them all against him, the academy students would learn by all kinds of seal applications that they better took all their training serious, not just the parts that were considered cool.
He would do this for all age groups and none of the groups that had already done the test would be able to talk to those in other years until he was done with administering the test. He certainly would have a lot of fun with this.
Konohamaru and his classmates stood at the edge of the training field closest to the academy. They didn't know which of the specialist teachers would take the class today, but so far, these lessons had been fairly interesting. When it was time for the class to begin, Naruto appeared in front of them in a body flicker.
"Good morning, everybody. Today we will see if you have actually practiced what I taught you over the past six months," Naruto started, looking serious, "I have arranged with all your other teachers that you are excused from all other classes for today, as you will be doing a training exercise, which doubles as a test for my subject, fuinjutsu."
The students looked at each other torn between elation of not having boring classes like history, and having an unannounced test sprung on them.
"You will be put into teams of three students, similar to how you will be put onto genin teams. This is also a simulation of your ability to work with your classmates on a common goal. Seals can be used by you or against you on any kind of mission. Your homeroom teacher has helped me with putting together basic equipment sets that are standard for D-rank missions, which this will be similar to. Each team will get one set of those and you aren't allowed to use more than that, except you can get it without having to buy it in a store. Those won't be around on missions either after all. The main area for the mission simulation will be the forest and the training grounds around Konoha, but it can happen that other places are included as well," Naruto explained, "I won't give you more information, as part of this simulation is to gather information. To determine the teams, we will let coincidence decide. As you can see, I have spread coloured balls all over the training field. You will pick one. They can be screwed open and the same numbers are one team."
This would ensure that nobody could cheat and create a team with just his friends. He wanted them mixed up to not have any advantages. This was after all one of the younger classes and team set-ups were still years away.
"Each team will get a mission objective from me, once the teams are determined. How you go about the task, is fully up to you. Just know that you have to be at the top of your game to get a passing grade for this. And it will be influencing your overall grade for the year," Naruto revealed, which made some frown.
"But why wasn't this test announced, if it is that important for us?" A boy asked annoyed.
"A ninja has to be ready for a mission at all times. You are training to become ninjas, so you should get used to that mentality early on. Not to mention that surprise tests aren't uncommon in any subject. If they didn't happen so far, the other teachers were coddling you, which will be dangerous for your development. Being a ninja is no walk in the park, it's hard work and never being content with what you have already achieved. There will always be somebody that is stronger, smarter, faster or trickier than you. If you want to survive and become good at this job, you better take it serious," Naruto declared sternly, "Alright, line up and on my signal, go and get yourselves a ball. You have thirty seconds."
The children scrambled to get a good spot at the border of the field and when Naruto whistled on his fingers, they ran forward, snatching up the closest balls. The smarter ones ran to the back, where there wasn't as much crowding for the balls.
"Okay, time's up," Naruto announced and thankfully the children had all collected the balls, "Now open them up and when I call out your number, step forward and collect your mission objective and equipment."
Naruto started from one and handed out sealed envelopes with the tasks for the children next to three pouches with equipment for each team. They all held different things, but they would find that part our on their own, he wouldn't inform them. He also wouldn't tell them that he had a small army of transformed shadow clones all over the village to observe the behaviour and progress of the teams. Once the tasks were handed out, he had the teams line up, similar to how it had been done after the second round of the chunin exams.
"Now, you will open your envelopes once you have separated from the other members of your class, and are on your own. After all, only your team is allowed to be privy to the mission you have got. That is a common occurrence with higher-ranking missions. It might even happen that you will be in direct competition with other teams for a mission objective. You have until three in the afternoon to fulfil your task and return to your classroom at the academy. I will be there, waiting for you, taking your reports about the task.
"One bit of warning, you might be confronted with the need to do first aid if one of your teammates is injured a little. In case something really bad happens and you need to go to the hospital, the mission is considered failed and you will receive a zero for the test. Exception is the very unlikely case of outside interference, but that is something I will deal with, should it actually happen."
The children nodded, understanding how serious this test was.
"Okay, it's eight thirty now and you will want as much time as you can get. You may go to a place to read your instructions. Oh, any you might want to take your lunch boxes with you, as buying lunch at a shop would also be considered failing the mission. If you happen to find some edible plants or fruits in the forest, they are fair game."
Naruto vanished from his spot and the children separated from the other groups to get their task started.
Naruto reappeared next to the homeroom teacher of the class, Atakuro, who had watched the meeting between Naruto and his students hidden from the classroom window. Atakuro wore the standard Konoha uniform, had short brown hair and wore rectangular glasses.
"You think they are ready for this, Naruto?" He asked.
"Not really, most haven't taken the class as serious as they should, but they will realise their mistake today. Some know their seals and are also doing well in the general classes, so they should be able to direct their teammates into the right direction. It will also allow me to put some of them onto studying the intermediate material, if they show good results today. But I believe in confronting children with a simulated, downgraded version of what expects ninjas outside of the village on missions from an early point in their studies on. This way, they won't have to learn things they slacked on the painful way, by being injured on missions, or lose a teammate.
"Better they see how much work they still have to do while they still have the safety of the village to fall back on, instead of when they don't have the time to correct their mistakes. It was one thing my own year lacked greatly. I know that during peace times the requirements of the academy are lowered, but you don't help the children that the council, the instigator of the previous curriculum, supposedly wanted to allow a profession as a ninja. It isn't a job for everybody," Naruto answered.
"Very true. I'm much happier now that the new curriculum has been implemented than before. I always feared that we were sending out children that were simply not ready by far to survive in the field. And honestly, while there is nothing wrong with a team staying genin for two to three years, simply because the training beyond the academy curriculum takes time, and some things need more individualised teaching, on average, a team stayed genin for five years, which is really long," Atakuro commented.
"I especially like that we now have the option of keeping the children that try for the ninja path in mixed classes for two years, before we make the first cut. Those that clearly can't make the training work, because they don't have enough chakra, will be redirected into different paths. The idea of Lady Tsunade to train those with very small chakra reserves up to become employees at the hospital for low-level injuries and help mixing common medicine, next to other jobs that don't need much chakra was very good. This way, the children don't get their hopes up too much about being a ninja, but still doing something valuable for the village."
Naruto nodded, while watching how the last groups left the school grounds. Tsunade, as one of the advisors of the Hokage, specifially in charge of the overhaul of the hospital, had given Kakashi many suggestions for how they could firstly reduce genin casualties in the field, and secondly, increase personnel in lower level jobs, which still couldn't be given to pure civilians. It was one of the new projects the Fifth Hokage had started.
They lacked properly trained personnel for many jobs, which fell under the jurisdiction of the ninja side of the village. Some was covered by the clans, who sold things to the general public, like the Nara were known for herbal remedies and the Akimichis for long-lasting travel provisions, but they were quite expensive, as they were created on a case-by-case base normally. The clans only had limited means to do this.
Other things were in administrative positions, which required having taken oaths to keep secrets, which normal civilians wouldn't be allowed to do. Many of those that would have dropped out of the academy and the whole military before, could now be redirected early on and trained to take up these normally hard to fill positions. Some retired ninjas worked in them, but most of the time the active ninjas had to do them on top of their normal jobs, as they simply lacked numbers.
Kakashi also already planned, but which hadn't been announced to everybody yet, Naruto only knew because he was told to look out for a certain type of student for a pilot project while teaching at the academy, to set up specialised branches of low-level ninjas that were only there to do D-ranks that came down to assist with physically taxing jobs, which could be made easier with chakra. Like the missions that team seven had taken in the beginning, like painting storage halls, tiling swimming pools, cleaning out fields for farming and so on.
Ninja craftsmen teams would mean that the village wouldn't have to rely on professional craftsmen from the outside. The plan was to have local craftsmen take on several trainees to teach them their craft to a point that any type of normal repairs could be performed by the teams. The fully trained craftsmen would be in charge of larger projects and over a period of about ten years, the Hokage wanted to have enough teams running around to cut that part of D-rank missions out of the roster completely.
Genin, while they needed to have a way to earn money, shouldn't have to be forced to do D-rank missions all the time. They should train to be ready for C-rank missions in at most six months, normally it should take three months for the easier types of C-ranks, which were basically D-ranks, just outside of the village. If the village had teams that were trained for craftsmen jobs, which made up basically sixty percent of the D-rank pool each month, they could ask for more money, as the jobs would be done to higher standards. The craftsmen genin, the current working title, would be paid with a basic salary each month, plus standardised commissions, depending on the type of job and the number during that month.
The base salary for genin, which all genin would be getting for the first four years of their time as genin, was just enough to pay for rent and utilities each month, for a small apartment that didn't have much space. Anything more had to be earned. But it at least allowed a genin to participate in things like chunin exams away from the village, which was currently a real problem for some that didn't have a family to fall back upon. The current system was that genin would only get the payment for the missions they did, which, considering that most teams mainly did D-ranks, wasn't that much.
Kakashi had delegated working out procedures and financial concerns to the Third Hokage and the two elders, Koharu and Homura. The three had promised to have it done by the end of the month, to start the pilot phase.
"How are you going to prevent that the students tell other years about the test once they are done for today?" Atakuro asked.
"I have put a seal onto the 'mission scroll', meaning the papers in the envelopes, which prevents them from talking about it for two weeks. By then, all years will be done," Naruto replied.
"That's ingenious. Can that also be applied for normal missions?" Atakuro was curious.
"It already has become standard for missions that the jonin and ANBU take. I mainly know about it, as I am one of the people that supply the Hokage with the needed discreetly prepared paper. The seal is written in invisible ink, which means, you need a seal master to draw it, as you can't check it over for mistakes," Naruto explained.
"I take it the other person to make them is Dark Phoenix," Atakuro stated.
"I assume the same. I don't get informed about all people involved in projects that deal with fuinjutsu, as long as the teams don't get a place to exchange their ideas and work on them together. That has also happened in the past, but isn't the standard procedure. Mainly because you don't want to have all your sealing specialists in one place regularly to prevent targeted assassinations."
"True, seal masters are always top priority targets when enemies want to harm a village," Atakuro agreed. This was standard knowledge for those of rank chunin and higher.
"Well, I will better go and observe my part of the test area. I will also replace deactivated seals for following groups," Naruto grinned.
"It would otherwise be too easy anyway," Atakuro nodded and Naruto left with a body flicker.
Naruto grinned silently while watching how the kiddies from the academy faced his 'missions'. He had done this the simple way. It was a modified capture the flag situation. Each group had been given the location of one item. Three items of different colours made a set, which needed to be brought back to the academy within the time limit. This meant, it was impossible that all teams succeeded in the mission. Two thirds would fail. At least. All items were secured with seals, which the groups had to deactivate or trigger in a way that didn't harm them. And he had added storage seals that held knock-out gas in them.
Tsunade had been nice enough to give him a version that wouldn't do more than knock the kids out for a few hours without side effects. He had taught them how to check for the contents of a seal. Contrary to what many thought, there were ways to find out what a seal held without opening the seal. And the kanji declaring the item inside the seal didn't always have to be truthful. Many of his knock-out gas canister seals claimed to hold kunai. Some actually did, as it was a legit way for the groups to add to their normal supplies.
But it would drive home to never take anything for granted, especially not seals that you didn't make yourself. If the groups were smart, they would use the masks that were part of the first-aid sets. They had seals on them that filtered poisonous gases, including any kind of sleeping gas. And he had covered those in class, while introducing the students to everyday uses of seals in Konoha. If they had checked their equipment properly, they would know it, otherwise, well, they needed to hold their breath and get creative.
If a team triggered the gas and was fully knocked out, one of his shadow clones would secure them and leave them in the hospital room of the academy, meaning they failed the test. They could still have gained some points, but it would be a mission failure, as the gas was set to last the full duration of the mission simulation. He had warned his sensei about this, to avoid angry parents coming down on him. Once the test was over, an antidote would be given, which would have the children fully awake after ten minutes.
To not make it too easy, each team had to decipher a simple code about the location of their item. To make it fair, each item was only the target of one team. Once the item was secured, the team would get a second message, which was located with the items he had hidden, which would inform them of the need to have three different items at the end of the day and that they could only be found with the other teams. As they were just the beginner class at the academy, Naruto had included a list which team had which item. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to get it done.
If they had paid attention which team was which, they would be able to plan properly. Another lesson that they needed to learn early on. Any kind of information could become vital on a mission, even if it was the set-up of rival teams or allies. After all, nothing stopped them from allying themselves with a team that had the same item they had and attack a team with the needed item with superior numbers. As long as they could agree that they would attack four teams overall as a group of six, they would manage to pass the test.
He had a points sheet, which each of his clones had with them. On it was a list of things he was looking out for and which would be used to decide the final marks for this test. It could happen after all that you failed a mission, but still won something. And this was a learning experience for his students. They were beginners, thus the requirements weren't as high as they would be for the higher classes, which would include harder hiding places, like up in trees, next to more advanced seals.
Konohamaru's team consisted of Riku and Nintaro. Riku was in the lower part of their class, as he never took things seriously and Nintaro was somewhere in the middle, as he struggled to keep up with those from clans and ninja families, but he worked hard to not fall back, which put him on Konohamaru's good side. He didn't like those that didn't work properly. After the telling off that he got from his grandfather for being rude to the children of the Kazekage, and Ebisu getting orders to finally teach him properly, not letting him get away with too many things, he had understood that being a ninja wasn't some game.
While he wanted recognition for himself, he wouldn't get it if he continued like he had done before. Not to mention that the village had got a new Hokage and his grandfather was now paying more attention to his development than he could do before, and drilled into him how he had managed to get to the level of Hokage in the first place. It took several years of hard work and always being out to learn new things to improve yourself.
When he found out that the hero of the invasion of their village, Naruto Namikaze, who was also the son of the Fourth Hokage, and therefore in a similar position as himself, would be teaching fuinjutsu, he decided to not goof off. He took the lessons serious, even if the precision needed to make proper seals could get annoying. Still, his grandfather had told him how this art had been deciding to win the Third Shinobi War for Konoha, as the Fourth's Flying Thundergod jutsu was mainly based on fuinjutsu. And Naruto had mastered his father's jutsu and was even more devastating with it than him, as he could combine it with the shadow clone jutsu by now.
Konohamaru wanted the respect that he saw Naruto was getting, even if he wondered why there also were some hateful looks.
Their mission paper told them to go to training ground twenty-three and collect an item there, then they would get more information. They had needed to decipher a code to find out that much, but Nintaro was very good at this. He loved riddles of all kinds and had always got high grades in the classes about description of messages and could use four Konoha codes easily. Konohamaru knew three perfectly and a fourth in parts.
There was much more to being a ninja than he had naively believed, but he wouldn't give up. He would become the best and one day he would be Hokage, to not only be seen as the Third Hokage's grandson. At least at the academy the teachers had strict orders to not treat him any different to his classmates. Nobody there called him honourable grandson, which was a nice change to before. And, from what he had overheard from the older students, the curriculum had been changed in major parts recently, shortly before he got to start there. It was now much more demanding in the physical parts, and theory was compressed during the class hours. Much you had to work on for homework.
His normal school day started with basic conditioning classes, as they were called. Running, obstacles, climbing, doing weight training, exercises to train muscle growth and balance and so on. Each of the classes at the academy would start with one class period of that, which meant, all classes of a year did this at the same time. One of the homeroom teachers would lead the students through the exercises, while the other two walked around, correcting them if they didn't perform them properly.
Then they got two class periods on the theory topic of the day, ranging from maths to geography or history. Then they had twenty minutes break to play and eat breakfast. After that it was weapons training or taijutsu training, switching from day to day, until lunch. After lunch one period of strategy and tactics, then specialist classes on three days the week, the other two days were for obstacle course training. He knew that the higher years had one mission simulation a week, but they didn't do this until today.
It was cool that they would be able to put the things they had learned to use in a practical setting. He didn't want to fail; therefore, he took this really serious.
"Okay, let's get to training ground twenty-three!" Konohamaru declared.
"Shouldn't we make a plan beforehand?" Nintaro pointed out, "I mean, we were warned regularly that rushing into any situation could kill you."
"Of course, we will scout the location before we enter, especially for hidden trap seals," Konohamaru nodded, "But Naruto sensei couldn't have trapped the whole village. It would have caused trouble with the civilians that go about their days. I don't doubt that there are surveillance seals around that help him observe how we do in the task. My grandfather once mentioned a training exercise that pitted all the genin from last year's graduation group, against Naruto Namikaze, and he had a week to prepare the field, so to say, and he owned them. But even then, he wasn't obvious about it. Traps can only be placed successfully in places where you are sure to hit the target you want to be hit, except you go for mass panic, which isn't part of this mission. This is a training mission for us, not real life or death, meaning that civilians aren't allowed to be targeted."
"What a drag," Riku sighed, "Well, let's get this over with. I don't want to deal with whatever punishment our sensei can come up with, if we fail."
The other two nodded and took the normal streets towards the area where the training grounds were located.
Naruto was a bit disappointed how fast the first two teams had been taken out of the running. They hadn't checked their equipment, they had barely managed to decipher the code to the location, and he had intentionally chosen the one that was taught first at the academy, to make it fair, as these were the youngest students there, and when they reached the hiding place of the item, they failed to look for seal traps and were taken out by the sleeping gas.
They definitely needed remedial training in basic situational awareness. Well, their grades would be reflecting this failure. His shadow clones had taken them back to the academy and left them there to wait until the test was over. He only needed to replace the triggered seals and then could leave the spots the way they were. Some other groups might come across the mission papers, which he intentionally left lying where the other teams had dropped them, and could secure the information and items for themselves. He wasn't sure if any team would think about that, but it was an option.
He hadn't given the group many rules, and anything that wasn't forbidden was allowed.
Next to the fast failures of the two teams, there were also positive observations. Many teams had done the basic stage well and had deciphered the code they had been given and were on the way to their destinations. They stopped long enough to get an idea of what kind of traps he had set up and then put their heads together to work out a useable approach. They would definitely get points for that. Nobody needed to know everything, especially not when they were just beginners, but the academy stressed that teamwork was important.
Especially with the new curriculum. One team had been smart and had sketched out where which seal had been place, and in case they didn't recognise one, they had drawn it as well as they could and then consulted the other team members to make sure what they were dealing with. While not all teams checked their equipment immediately, they mostly did so when they reached their destination. He could live with that. It was their first scenario of this type after all. He would point it out during the after-mission briefing, meaning the lesson he would have with them tomorrow.
He had considered telling them today, when everything was still fresh in their minds, but he had decided that it would work better to let them think about the results one night, especially as it gave them more time for the task.
Konohamaru looked at the things in his pouch. Once they had reached training ground twenty-three, he realised that they hadn't even had a look into the pouches and didn't know what they had to work with. He had pointed it out to the other two. It was a bit embarrassing to have made such a beginner mistake. At least they had realised it before entering the critical area. It would have been really embarrassing if something in the pouches could have helped them pass this test and they simply didn't know about it, because they didn't take the time to see what they had to work with.
"Are these masks standard equipment?" Riku asked frowning.
"Not that I know of," Konohamaru replied, "Try channelling some chakra into them to see if they have seals on them."
Riku, who had the masks in his pouch, did so with one and a seal appeared.
"That's some kind of filter seal. Smart. I would bet that it protects you against things like sleeping drugs and poisons on missions. Which means, it might be that we will be confronted with that during this test," Nintaro stated.
"Very well possible. And Naruto sensei mentioned seals like these when he described useful seals that could save your life on a mission. I suggest we put them on when we enter the training ground. We might not need them, but it never hurts to be cautious," Konohamaru declared.
The other two nodded and tied the masks over their lower faces, checking that they sat properly to not let any air through without being filtered by the masks. The seals activated immediately, as they were made to react to being in general contact with the chakra points of a person's face.
"Okay, first is reconnaissance, we will carefully examine the training ground to find out what kind of traps there are, if we recognise a seal, we note the kind and position, but don't act before we have come back together. Try to not trigger anything," Konohamaru told the other two, who nodded, "We should take fifteen minutes to search for the item and the traps, then assemble, make a full plan and then act together."
"Sounds good," Nintaro agreed.
"Let's do it that way," Riku added.
They went into the training ground and split up, searching for anything out of the norm.
Naruto's clone watched Konohamaru's team. Training ground twenty-three was fairly standard, it had a middle-sized pond, for training in water walking, there were some training posts for taijutsu and weapons practice and of course many trees. He had hidden the item for this group in a hole in a tree that was about halfway into the training ground. It was of course now surrounded by simple traps with seals and without. Basically, weapons shooting arrays and the sleeping gas seals. There also were some paint bombs in the mix, to give them something else to look out for.
So far, they had done fairly well. They had found and disabled five of the six sleeping gas seals after they had come back together to report their findings and make a map of the training ground and the location of the item they needed. The sixth seal had been triggered, as it had been the one that was hidden best, but as they wore the masks, they didn't fall to it. They still quickly shut it down, as they didn't want to let too much gas stream out.
They had also neutralised the three kunai and senbon shooter seals and had taken the weapons inside. Nintaro had a very healthy opinion of getting more resources, meaning, stealing from the enemy was always the best way to proceed, as it saved funds on your part. Well, coming from a civilian family, he would know about the costs, as it would be outside the normal budget. Konohamaru had never had to deal with financial matters to replace training equipment, as he was the Third Hokage's grandson and Riku's family was well off, which meant he never had to worry about not getting something. Probably a reason why he was quite lazy. He never needed to work for things, they were just given to him.
The one paint bomb in the mix had been intentionally triggered, as none of the three knew how to stop it from going off, as Naruto had combined it with a seal that would trigger it if it sensed a chakra signature a certain distance away from it. Konohamaru had spotted the trigger seal, but didn't know how to disable it, even if Naruto had covered it in class. Nintaro and Riku didn't remember it either, but a safe way to go about a seal like that was intentionally triggering it while you were out of reach. A well-aimed kunai from Riku did the job, as he had directly hit the paint bomb seal. It was a valid solution to the problem, even if not the most elegant one.
Once they had double checked that no more traps were in their way, they collected the item, a necklace with a red pendant, from a hole in a tree, next to a second envelope.
"Okay, we managed this part, seemingly these are new instructions," Riku said.
"Are they written in code again?" Konohamaru asked.
"There is just one line in code," Riku replied.
"What does it say?" Nintaro asked.
"No idea, I suck at remembering those code symbols," Riku admitted.
"You should really catch up on it, Riku. Honestly, this is the first code we learned at the academy," Nintaro commented and looked at the symbol, "Ah, it says, channel chakra into the scroll."
"Probably a seal will activate to reveal the message. Smart of sensei," Konohamaru approved.
Riku did so and two scrolls popped out of two storage seals that became visible with chakra.
"Invisible sealing ink. Wow, that's so cool," Nintaro exclaimed astonished.
"Definitely. It must be really difficult to draw a seal without being able to see it," Konohamaru mentioned, knowing how hard it was to do it while you could see what you did.
"Well, Naruto sensei is a sealing master after all," Riku said and opened one of the scrolls, "This has just normal writing on it. It says: 'To finish the mission, you have to collect the two other pendants in green and blue'. Where should we find them? Does the second scroll say anything about that?"
Konohamaru was reading that scroll.
"It has a list of the teams and the pendants they will collect first. It seems that we must find a way to defeat two teams that have the right pendants to finish this mission. The scroll has all teams and all colours on them, which means, we can determine which teams to go after."
"Do we know who was on which team?" Riku asked, "I mean, I know the ones on teams one and two, as some of my friends are on them, but not the others."
"Moegi is on team six and Udon on team eight. We are team five, then Hanabi is on team ten and Usagi on team eleven," Konohamaru listed.
Nintaro took out a notebook and write down what they knew, adding some names he remembered. They managed to get a fairly decent list put together, with at least two teams that had the pendants they would need each. They knew that there were about thirty teams overall in the test, but they could just get about half of that determined.
"This shows, any kind of information is valuable. We will have to remember that for future exercises. I mean, it would have been much easier to write down who was on which team in the beginning. And even if we didn't need that knowledge later, it wouldn't have hurt to have it either," Nintaro commented.
"Well, this is a training exercise after all, and I doubt we will forget this anytime soon, which was probably the reason Naruto sensei did it," Konohamaru deducted, "He seems to be somebody that prefers learning by doing, and making mistakes while they don't cost you too much."
"Seems like it," Riku nodded, "It will be hard to fight two teams. We don't know too much about their abilities, and we didn't learn that much at the academy either. I'm not that good at taijutsu. Any of the children from larger clans would beat me immediately."
"We have to try and ambush them. And avoid Hanabi's team if possible. I heard she already has her byakugan, which would make sneaking up on her team futile. That eye can look through walls," Konohamaru informed them.
"Shit. So unfair. Well, nothing to do about it. Her team has a blue pendant to collect, but the same goes for team two. We don't know where the other teams are. And we also need to avoid getting our pendant stolen, which the other teams will try," Nintaro pondered.
"How about putting a storage seal somewhere where nobody would think to search for it?" Riku suggested, "Like the inside of a sleeve."
"Good idea, Riku. That way it couldn't be stolen as easily, and we learned how to draw and transfer a storage seal in class," Konohamaru nodded and took out the sealing supplies that were in his pouch.
He took five minutes to carefully draw a storage seal and then activated it. After that he transferred it from the sealing paper onto the inside of Nintaro's left sleeve and Riku sealed the pendant into it. It wasn't visible from the outside, and most others would try searching on their persons or in their pouches for it. Once they were done, Konohamaru put the sealing supplies away and they left the training ground to find a team to battle for their item.
Naruto's clone nodded satisfied about a good plan and added some bonus points for the plan how to hide the pendant.
It was the end of the school day and all the teams were back at the academy. Konohamaru, while not fully happy with how things had gone after they had found the pendant on training ground twenty-three, was satisfied that they had managed to get all three necklaces and different pendants. It hadn't been easy at all. They had managed to defeat team twelve for the green pendant, after battling them, as the ambush didn't work perfectly, but getting a blue one had proven tricky, as they couldn't find any other team than that of Hanabi, who they couldn't beat. At least the other team also couldn't get their pendants, as they didn't find the hidden seals on Nintaro's and Riku's inner sleeves. They managed to make the team believe that they had lost their pendant and decided to try getting three new ones to still pass.
In the end, coincidence had helped them with the blue pendant, as they decided to see if any of the other teams that should have got blue pendants had failed to get them. It took some running around the training grounds, but on their fourth try, Nintaro spotted an envelope lying around, which they opened and deciphered the code. They carefully made their way to the hiding place, again using their masks to protect them from the possible gas attacks, and found a blue pendant hidden under a stone inside a trap circle, which they managed to disable easier than the first one on their training ground. They had some practice now after all.
Having all three pendants, they sneaked back to the academy, as some other teams had got the idea to set up ambushes for returning teams to get their pendants. Smart idea, but they failed to take into consideration that there were many entrances to the academy's ground, like through the obstacle course, where no team lay in wait. It was difficult to go through it without alerting the ones waiting for targets to appear, but they managed.
Right now, they sat in their classroom, the only other team there was team ten with Hanabi, and they also had all three pendants on the table in front of them.
"Damn, I really need to become better in that stupid obstacle course," Riku complained, "I didn't think it would be so hard to do things slowly instead of at a higher speed, like we normally do."
"True. I guess there are good reasons for all the physical conditioning we have to do during the week. But I have to say, this test was fun in a way," Nintaro replied.
"Yes, it was. I certainly learned much more than I ever did in class. I mean, hearing that things are useful to know is one thing, but finding out in action why and where, that's totally different," Konohamaru agreed.
"At least we finished the mission, meaning, we won't have to explain bad grades at home," Riku shuddered at the thought, Konohamaru and Nintaro agreeing with the sentiment.
When the bell rang, it didn't take long for their classmates to arrive, some with two pendants, some with one, others without one. And some of their clothes showed paint splatters, meaning they got hit by the paint bomb traps. That would definitely be commented later on. At the end, four teams were led into the room by Naruto sensei, and they all looked disappointed and looked to the ground.
"Alright, class. This exercise has hopefully taught you several important things about being a ninja. We will discuss the results of the test tomorrow. All the other classes will have their tests over the coming days. I have placed all of you under a seal that will prevent that you can talk about the test and what it entailed with anybody else, meaning you can't even speak about it with your parents. Your parents have got a note from your homeroom teacher about the test that I had you do today and that, to not give the older years an unfair advantage, you couldn't talk about it for two weeks.
"Those that fell prey to the sleeping gas, it isn't harmful, Lady Tsunade has personally made it for me to show you what can happen on a mission. Think about the mistakes you made, the things that you did right, and you can collect questions you want to ask during the class tomorrow. The second-years will be sent onto their test tomorrow morning and once that's done, I will do a debriefing with you. You will start the day normally with your physical conditioning class, like every day, after that I get the rest of the morning for the discussion of the test today. Now, I want each team to come forward and hand in the pendants they managed to collect," Naruto instructed.
He called each team's number and they walked towards the front and handed over the pendants they had collected, if they had any. Once all groups were done, he dismissed them to go home. Of course, the children stayed to talk to their friends.
"That exercise was so unfair!" A girl complained to her best friend, "It was impossible that all teams could pass."
"I know. And that trick with the sleeping gas was mean. We didn't even get to collect our pendant, as we were knocked out once we got to the training ground that our code told us about," The friend whined.
Others also mentioned things they didn't like, but the ones that had at least got two pendants, were quiet. Most of them had realised that this type of exercise was similar to a mission to retrieve something that had been stolen by bandits. And they wouldn't be fair about things. Otherwise they wouldn't be bandits in the first place after all. Once they left the room, they found they couldn't speak about anything in the test and realised what exactly their sensei had meant that he had prevented that they could talk about it. It drove home that seals could do much more than most of them had so far understood.
TO BE CONTINUED...