Inheritance

The Beginnings of Training

Previously:

"It's impressive isn't it?" Naruto whirled around to confront the voice, that seemed to have come from behind him; only to be confronted with the purple haired woman he had seen leave the Hokage's office a few days before-hand.

"Uzuki Yuugao. A pleasure to meet you."

Naruto paused panting slightly, whilst uncharacteristically considering his next move. His new Sensei was good. Like, really good. They had been sparring for around twenty minutes now and he hadn't managed to land even one hit on the the woman. She was relentless too. Constantly pushing him, probing him for weaknesses in his form and forcing mistakes from him every time he went on the offensive. And not a single error or slip in his defences went unpunished either. Every time he presented an opening it was ruthlessly taken advantage of. Quite frankly he was running out of ideas, and already he could feel the slow onset of fatigue; a relatively alien feeling, and one that he hadn't been forced to experience too many times before.

Uzuki Yuugao, on the oher hand had an entirely diferent train of thoughts. On the outside, the polite smile she seemingly always wore when her face was not covered by an ANBU mask, was kept firmly in place; refusing to slip as she seamlessly blocked aloppy attack after sloppy attack from the blonde in front of her. It was a wonderfully easy way of masking her emotions, as the smile fitted her physique and demeanor perfectly. Whilst wearing that smile she was the docile, polite and kind girl that never had a bad word to say about anybody that was constantly underestimated by enemy shinobi.

After all, how could a harmless little girl like her be a capable shinobi?

That of course was before the enemy realised that same 'harmless little girl' had just driven a katana through their chest cavity, brutally puncturing a lung before leaving them to drown in their own blood.

So it was fair to say that over her relatively long (for a shinobi, anyway) career, she had perfected that smile and mastered it, until it was just as much of a weapon as her katana. This of course meant that she was incredibly good at keeping that smile from cracking due to her emotions, no matter how strong they were.

And make no mistake, despite the frustratingly placid smile she religiously worked to maintain as she sparred Naruto, Uzuki Yuugao was furious. So furious in fact, that the smile had on more than one occasion nearly fell from it's place as she carefully analysed the blonde's movements. It was blindingly obvious to her, that he had been sabotaged. The taijutsu he was using was sloppy, almost like a street brawler as opposed to a shinobi. But it was not down to him not having memorised the forms he had been taught, or that he had not worked hard enough to make what he had learnt instinctive. His combat instinct wsa spot on too. He recognised the makings of attacks very quickly and instantly moved to counter. Only to find that he could not move in the way he wanted to, or that his body was in the wrong position to defend himself.

His taijutsu was as butchered as the Academy records told her. But it had not been butchered by Naruto. All the signs were there, she could see where the 'corrections' to the standard Academy forms had taken place. Things that would seem unimportant to Naruto as he learnt in practise, but they were things that in combat could mean the difference between life and death. Things like how his left foot was angled ten degrees further right than it should have been, preventing him from being able to pivot effectively.

It was quite monstrous really. They had actively altered Naruto's taijutsu in order to get him killed in the field, and she was willing to bet most of Naruto's other deficiencies could be put down to sabotage. However, this left an entirely new problem. Naruto had worked incredibly hard to make these forms almost instinct, just as he should have done. Which now meant he was going to have to un-learn it, which was both a difficult and time-consuming process. He would have to practise anything she taught him, use it in spars, until it became more instinctual than what he had already learnt.