Second Chance

Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Another Tyrant
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A month had passed following the official end of the chunin exams and many of the shinobi were already back to their normal routines however, it was still common to hear gossip surrounding the promotions of an entire graduating class. The shinobi in question had merely thrown theirselves into their training more determined than ever to continue to improve to prepare for the fourth war that was looming in front of them. None of them had slowed down and it had become common to one of them or even a whole team barely dragging themselves back to their homes at night only to get up and repeat the process. Everyone one of them believing that they could still be better skill wise and the improvements could be seen on every mission as they reacted, ended fights and completed missions faster and faster each time.

Each of the former genin had been working with the resurrected kages to improve in multiple areas. Shikamaru, and Shino spent a lot of time with Tobirama getting advice on improving their skill with jutsu creation as well as improving on the weaknesses of each jutsu they had already created. It had been surprising how well the three seemed to bond while never speaking of anything but jutsu. Fu, TenTen, Karin and Naruto spent a lot of time learning their clan's style and hidden jutsu from Mito as well as getting Fu the needed assistance to create the same bond with Chomei that Naruto and Kurama had as well as controlling the chakra. Ino's training was split between clan training, training in poison creation and interrogation with Anko while also working extensively with Hashirama on her mokuton jutsu. With Hashirama's advice and training methods combined with creativity and unpredictability she had picked up from Naruto, Ino was occasionally teaching Hashirama a new creation of hers.

Choji and Lee were spending time with both Hashirama and Gai to smooth out the rougher edges of their taijutsu while slowing but surely identifying and eliminating many of the elements that caused the harmful backlash in their styles. For Choji this had meant a diet change and modified poison resistance training. Which slowly but surely was making him immune to the harmful effects of the special food pills as well as learning how to do the transformation without them. For Lee this meant more training focusing on building his body's endurance and strength to resist the effects of opening the gates and getting his body used to internal nature transformations.

Haku and Hinata were working together to improve their flexibility and working with Tobirama to improve their chakra control to a point that they were starting to compete with the late hokage over who had the best control. Tobirama had also found something of an apprentice in Haku and had been working on making her control over water on par with his. This also helped her hyoton as well as she was learning how to draw water from even the driest condition, something that she had never been able to do. Meanwhile, Neji had been consistently ignoring the the clan in favor of training his new style of Juken. It was something he was finding to be quite enjoyable and cursed himself for not doing it sooner. The more he trained in his new style the more he realized just how limited and ignorant of the Juken's obvious weaknesses the clan had become. He was quite happy he had seen the truth before it had been to late.

It hadn't been just the genin that had been training non-stop. After witnessing three genin making it all the way to special jonin in less than a year of graduating, they had become determined not to be surpassed that quickly. Irregardless of the fact that two of them were time travelers and the third had been being trained by them. Kakashi had already been increasing his skills so that he wouldn't become to reliant on the sharingan as he had been and to try and keep ahead of his genin. Something that he was finding increasingly difficult. Asuma, Gai and Zabuza had also thrown themselves into a near suicidal routine to catch up.