Chapter 9 - Genin

Tetsuya strode along the streets, unlike previously, he now wears Hidden Leaf Village's standard infantry cloth, dark blue shirt under a green flak jacket as well as dark blue pants. His forehead protector however is somewhat loosely worn around the neck, not too tight as to bother him, but not too loose as to leave its place in the middle of a battle.

Even though a month has passed, Tetsuya noticed that he seems to have hit a bottleneck, maybe it's because of his age, or maybe for other reasons, but the amount of progress he can gain from his training is close to zero.

Now that he reached this level, maybe the best thing to do is start putting his knowledge into practice.

Sighing at this predicament, he made his way to the Academy.

The way how the vast majority of the mission assignments work for Hidden Leaf Village's ninja is quite simple, all you need to do is go to the Academy, and head to the back buildings where the Hokage's office is, on the ground floor there is a wide-open ornate building called the Mission Assignment Desk.

Usually, the Hokage wouldn't be here but as tradition, every shinobi and kunoichi receive their first assignment from the Hokage himself.

Kneeling on the floor, Tetsuya lowered his head and spoke. "Hokage-sama, I'm ready to receive my mission!"

At this time, Kakashi appeared from behind a corner and spoke in annoyance. "You're late, Tetsuya."

"Eh? Kakashi? What are you doing here?"

Hiruzen who was smoking his pipe put it down and answered on Kakashi's behalf. "It's unusual to have early graduates, both you and Kakashi are outstanding Genin even if you just graduated, I don't want your abilities to go to waste, so I decided to put you two under a temporary team, team-1 led by Tokubetsu Jonin Umino Ikkaku."

Kakashi who knew he would be working together with Tetsuya was also surprised at this, he had thought that two of them would be working without supervision but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Hearing the name, Tetsuya muttered for a moment and asked in confusion. "Hey, Kakashi, isn't that surname the same as Iruka's?"

"Hm... now that you mentioned, that does seem to be the case."

As they pondered over the matter, neither of them noticed the man that flashed behind them.

"Heh, so you two know my brat? I hope you haven't bullied him in the Academy, if you did so, I'll be teaching you all a lesson."

Hearing this voice, both Tetsuya and Kakashi jumped back in surprise, Kakashi had his hands on his sword and Tetsuya was almost pulling a kunai from his pouch. Seeing his face, they both gasped in surprise, the man's appearance was quite similar to that of Iruka.

"Ikkaku, this will be the new additions to your team," Hiruzen spoke as he grabbed a file from the table. "Also, this will be your first mission."

Grabbing the file, Ikkaku went through it a matter of seconds and nodded. "Don't worry, Hokage-sama, we will complete the mission safely."

Hiruzen nodded and turned to look at the two kids who were still dazed by the news. "Remember, no matter what, you're still kids. The Ninja world is cruel and doesn't have mercy for anyone, if you put down your guards at any moment, only death will await you!"

"Yes! Hokage-sama!" Nodding to him, the two followed Ikkaku out of the Academy and gathered at one of the vacant training grounds.

Looking at the two, Ikkaku nodded slightly and said. "Our first assignment as team-1 is a C-rank mission. Lord Orochimaru needs us to collect some rare herbs and hunt a venomous fox in the Forest of Death, we have only two days to finish the mission, and be warned that the place we are going is also known as the rookie graveyard, despite being a C-rank mission, combat is almost guaranteed and there is a small chance of death, understood?"

The two nodded and Ikkaku smiled at how brave they were. "Very well, let's go then!"

[ -------- ]

The forest of death was one of the training grounds of Konoha, it was an artificial ecosystem created to assist both Chunin and Genin in their training, more than 10 km wide it was habitat to all kinds of dangerous and strange creatures.

In order to test those two, Ikakku's method wasn't to simply challenge them, geniuses like them would surely be able to take the bells from him if he was to use that method to test them.

Having no doubt about those two's abilities, he wanted to know how they would act in the face of danger.

"Team-1, status!"

"Team 1 Fang, ready!"

"Team 1 Blast, ready!"

Inside the forest, Ikkaku coordinated the team, Fang/Kakashi, and Blast/Tetsuya, were each positioned in one of the branches of the various giant trees of the forest of death.

Below them, drinking from the water of a flowing river, was a big white fox with purple sharp eyes.

Looking at its size, both Kakashi and Tetsuya were beyond astonished, it was their first time seeing a fox that was 4 meters high.

Seeing their surprise, Ikkaku smirked and thought. 'Let's see how's your information gathering ability!'

"Blast, what information do we have on this beast?"

Part of the academy books was a bestiary, written by Tobirama and many researchers over the years, it held information on the many Chakra beasts across the lands.

Thinking of what he studied, Tetsuya explained quickly and clearly. "The White Fox is a beast with poisonous blood, due to its special physique, every part of its body is full of poison, the fur can paralyze on skin contact, and its bite can kill in five minutes without treatment!"

Ikkaku nodded in surprise, he knew the kid was good, but to remember the information with so many details was something that he wasn't expecting. Now that was just a minor test, the difficult part was the next.

"Blast, Fang, you know what to do, I won't intervene, if you can't even kill this beast without help, then, the both of you will be sent back to the academy!"

With a nod, Blast and Fang looked at each other in the eyes. No word had to be said, they knew what to do.

Jumping from the tree first, Blast knew that his actions were sure to attract the beast as it would perceive the sound of whistling air, with a kunai on his mouth and holding two others in his hands, he threw the first two and forced the fox to jump back as it roared in anger towards him.

As the bait, Blast's first job was to collect the highest possible amount of information on the beast's fighting abilities, and seeing it jump with such agility he was quite surprised. The fox rushed towards him and jumped with its mouth full of fangs opened, using the shoe's sole he stepped on the fox's face and jumped backward towards a tree.

The beast winced in pain but soon resumed its angry roars, once again showing its incredible speed, the beast crossed a few dozen meters in a mere second barely giving Tetsuya time to dodge. As the beast hit the trunk with its head and even shook it, he thought that it would be stunned for a moment and threw the other kunai he had been holding so far.

Crossing the air at high speed, the Kunai hit the fox's head, but surprisingly, it actually bounced off of its head and flew away spinning due to the impact.

"What!?" This information was never mentioned in the bestiary, he was completely unaware that the fox's hide would be so tough!

Even though it had suffered two impacts on its head, the beast soon recovered and lowered its head slightly, and started growling towards him.

The beast ran once more and a look of fear crossed Tetsuya's face, although he wanted to react, he was too slow for the beast, it accurately bit Tetsuya's lower half and crushed his body, separating him two halves. As the blood and intestine fell all around, the beast was first ecstatic that it had killed its prey, but before it could enjoy it, his dinner suddenly exploded in a cloud of smoke leaving behind a tree trunk bitten down into two halves.

Before it could react, the sound of Fang's voice reached its ears.

"Leaf Gale!" Falling from above, Fang delivered a powerful spinning kick, shoving the fox's head on the ground and creating a small crater. Jumping back, he drew his short sword and entered his favorite kenjutsu stance.

Even with all those attacks, nothing seemed to hurt the fox as the beast soon stood up again and growled at him with enraged eyes.

At that moment, Kakashi did something that surprised both Ikkaku and Tetsuya.

In a matter of seconds, he made a set of seals and a clone appeared beside him. However, there was clearly something different about the Clone, it wasn't like the one Tetsuya had learned at the Academy.

Watching from his hiding spot, he sucked a mouthful of air as he watched the clones run around the beast with their swords drawn.

Soon, the two of them started hacking at the beast as it tried to maneuver in order to bit or slash one of them, but Kakashi's agility was far superior, making it close to impossible for the beast to attack him.

"This... there's no mistake, it's shadow clone technique!" Ikkaku exclaimed in his mind, to think that the White Fang would spend a million Ryo just to buy the scroll of this technique in order to teach it to his son! Looking at the sour look on Tetsuya's face he sighed at the difference between those of civilian and noble origin.

As if that wasn't enough, Kakashi's next move made Tetsuya feel helpless.

When one of his slashes managed to cut through the hide surrounding its knee and reduced its ability to move, he and his clone jumped back, after a series of seals, the two shouted at the same time. "Fire Release: Flame Bullet!"

Two jets of flame shot forward from their mouth and hit the fox almost like a real bullet, the power of the impact was such that it threw the beast back, making it hit the tree with its back.

As the flames went out, Kakashi approached the beast without much care, thinking that it was done. Seeing this, Tetsuya frowned and didn't say anything, however, he still paid attention, and seeing its leg shaking for a moment, he frowned and shot forward.

The moment Kakashi approached, the beast suddenly moved and tried to bite him, he instinctively jumped back, but it seemed like it would be too late for that. Thankfully, Tetsuya flashed beside him and slashed its head. With the help of the flames that burnt the fox's hide, its defense was greatly reduced and his last kunai cut through the flesh like a knife cutting butter.

Seeing the beheaded fox motionless, the two of them sighed, it was a short battle, but still, one filled with dangers.

Because they couldn't touch the beast, Tetsuya was the most affected and could only play a passive role to assist Kakashi who had his sword and could still fight. Although it stands to reason that Tetsuya should have more weapons for similar situations, the cheapest sword costs more than 50 thousand Ryo, every kunai of standard quality was 1000 Ryo, and a package of shuriken consisting of 20 of them, costs a minimum of 5000 Ryo, he simply couldn't bring himself to use everything he had without care as the Academy only provided them with 5 free kunais and shurikens...

Ikkaku dropped from the tree and inspected the beast. Seeing that it was dead and the two of them came out unscathed, he smiled and praised them. "Good teamwork, good skills, good foresight, and optimum usage of resources. You used everything you had to the best of your abilities without wasting movements, chakra, or burning money, congratulations on finishing your first C-rank mission, you're all officially Genin!"