Team Placements Part 2

"Wait a minute!" Kiba exclaimed, making a scene. All the genin sighed in embarrassment for what they knew was coming next.

"Yes Kiba?" Minato asked with a tired expression. There was always one.

"Why does she get special treatment!? I should get to be in a special unit!" Kiba ignorantly shouted.

"Shut up Kiba!" The genin in the room were surprised that Sakura would come to Kamui's defense. "Sasuke should be the one with that privilege!" And everything made sense again.

Minato gave Sasuke a side eye, taking no small amount of pleasure in his discomfort. It was glorious to see someone else suffer what he went through during his academy days. As popular as Kamui should be, she really only interacted with the clan heirs due to their higher maturity levels. She had no civilian friends. It actually made him a little sad that the civilian side of the leaf was so far behind in the maturity scale. Then again, that was the intent behind the changes. To let them be so and still give them the opportunity to succeed. Kids are meant to be kids. There's always time to grow up. With the leaf village's current strength, child soldiers can be slowly phased out.

"Well, I certainly don't mind re-evaluating Kamui's position if one of you can beat her in a spar." He said with a glowing smile.

That shut the two up. Boast as they might, but no one in this class could do that. The little incident with Hinata was only the first of many times Kamui has come up with 'basic' moves to counter clan jutsu; they had learned that the hard way. There were no small number of times where she was called to their clan compounds to instruct their clan members on the counter strategy so it could be accounted for in their teachings. Like the fourth said all those years ago, she simply thinks differently than the others and had the ability to perceive things no one else could. Those factors enabled her to understand the essence of the techniques being used.

The Nara clan almost threw a fit when she demonstrated the counter to their jutsu by creating a shadow clone and having it perform the jutsu she was trying to counter. She inadvertently admitted that she learned their jutsu. That was another nightmare since the other clans realized pretty quickly that the Nara weren't the only victims. According to Kamui at the time, the jutsu were pretty easy to learn even without her eyes. It just took a little experimentation. One of the phrases she used was 'if an average clan genin can be expected to learn it, it's too easy.' That was another wake-up call to all the clans to innovate faster.

"I'll pass." Sasuke and Kiba said simultaneously. They had their pride and they didn't want it crushed publically. Sasuke knew she would do it too. There were these times when Kamui's calm persona would shift into a sadistic phase where she would take pleasure in tormenting the impertinent. This would probably count as being impertinent and would therefore have the chance to bring that part of her out; the scary part was the set of reptilian slits that would replace her pupils when it happened. He could even see the trace of that sick smile on her face.

This was something she earned and she dared them to challenge her for it, to insult her.

No. He wasn't going to be that stupid. Kiba was of a similar mind, though it was more for the basic knowledge that he didn't stand a chance and Hinata was watching.

"Good. To be transparent though, Kamui's skillset doesn't mesh well with any of yours. At your current skill level, you wouldn't be able to keep up and she would take away the suspense in any mission you're currently able to go on. It would stifle your growth. This compromise allows me to send her on higher level missions and keep you on missions that will challenge you, but won't put you in excessive levels of danger. Yugao was one of my only Kunoichi that had a skillset she didn't have, strong Kenjutsu. Their partnership would be very effective." Minato explained, causing the group to nod in understanding.

"Alright. I have one last bit of news for the 10 of you. I've made you the pioneers of a new style of learning. While you will primarily conduct missions in your squads. We've built a joint training ground for your generation. Since these jonin specialize in different fields, it would be counter-productive to limit them to three genin who likely won't need that skill set. Take Kurenai for example. She's this village's best genjutsu ninja outside of the Uchiha clan. Her squad is composed of Hinata, Kiba, and Shino. Do any of you three see yourselves branching out heavily into genjutsu?"

The three of them shook their heads. Kiba was a no brainer. The Inuzuka were physical-based fighters that primarily relied on taijutsu combinations with their summons. They've recently been working on combination ninjutsu, but that's taking their full effort. It just wouldn't make sense to add genjutsu. Hinata was in a similar position. The Hyuga were considered the kings of close range, so that was something Hinata had to work on. She wasn't very talented at it, so she had to invest even more time on it. Then, she added senbon needles to close chakra points at a range along with longbow training to add long distance assassination to her repertoire. A little bit of misdirection-based genjutsu would be good, but anything more complex wouldn't be practical in the near future. Shino had his hands full increasing his proficiency with poisons to supplement his parasitic insects. Long story short, Kurenai wouldn't get much use out of her specialty with this group.

"That's the point of this new endeavor. During training, the Jonin will have time with their primary squad, but they'll also be available in the joint training grounds to help anyone else. It'll be really helpful with this group, since there will likely be a lot of downtime for them. Clan heirs take quite a bit of time to train with their clans after all. Using Kurenai as the example again, Sakura, Ino, or Kamui would make great use out of her skillset. The same could be said with Kiba to someone like Asuma or Kakashi. Overall, it should maximize the growth between this group. Any questions?"

Shikamaru raised his hand.

"Yes Shikamaru" Minato asked.

"Will the training grounds be big enough for this large of a group? With some of the jutsu and maneuvers we'll be practicing, I'm sure we'll need a lot of space." Minato smiled at the question.

"Of course! We actually had it built by combining multiple training areas; we included areas that mimicked the natural environments of all five great nations as well. We even had to use our village's wood style specialist to build the necessary structures, or facsimiles of them. Truly, It's the first of its kind. It's called Training Ground Alpha and it's as big as five independent training grounds combined. In the future, I plan to use it for large scale training exercises, but for now, it's your independent training ground!" Minato proudly said with a goofy smile on his face. Everyone could clearly see how proud he was of this effort. It would be interesting to find out what its true purpose is in the future. After all, you don't put that much effort into the construction of something like this to help kids train.

"Now, the majority of you will have your tests tomorrow, but Kamui will do her test today. Her and Yugao have a mission tomorrow. Now, you guys can spectate if you want. Mikoto and Kushina will be joining me in the audience at their request. Technically, it's supposed to be a private event, but technically she's supposed to be in a three-man squad, so it's not a big deal." Minato said with a smile prompting his daughter to do the same and Yugao to give an annoyed grunt.

"Yay! This should be fun. We finally get to see Kamui lose in front of everyone!" Naruto shouted, taking pleasure in Kamui's eventual loss in this bout. That's all it really could be with their kind of team.

"Hmph. You need someone to beat our sister for you loser?" Sasuke asked, while giving Naruto a mocking side eye.

"Jerk." He muttered to himself. "I just want to see someone else get the works for a change." Naruto said in indignation.

Over with team 10, Shikamaru sighed.

"Troublesome. I really don't want to see how behind we are." He complained.

"Oh, come on man. It'll be fun. Maybe she'll even use your jutsu in a creative way. She never uses mine." Choji joked.

"What a drag…." Shikamaru complained again.

"Oh, shut it! Let's just get to the show." Ino loudly complained. She may still be disappointed that she wasn't put on the same team as Naruto, but these two were technically still her friends. Their clans were joined at the hip after all.