The shadows

ch8

After pulling a trigger, kunai and shuriken would be thrown at him, and he had to dodge them accurately. However, the whole area was wrapped with ninja wire, so he could only move in specific directions.

He was doing all this while blindfolded. A clone would change the course after each round so he wouldn't memorize the terrain. It was good training for his senses. While he could detect people's chakra, inanimate objects didn't have that quality.

One thing he learned early in his the was not always to trust his sensing abilities. The lesson was deeply engraved in his memory, along with the lifeless body of Lee with a kunai on his neck. He was reckless. He believed himself invincible.

It was a mistake. He was tired and trying to push back an army of Zetsu to make way for others to retreat. One moment he fought along his clones. The next, he felt someone push him to the ground.

It didn't even register in his mind that Lee was hit until his lifeless body fell on top of him. He doesn't remember much after him except a feeling of rage, but the next day, he was found in a crater with hundreds of Zetsus dead beside him.

After that incident, he spent all his downtime training himself to fight without each of his senses. This helped him prepare each of his senses to perfection. If he couldn't see an obstacle, he would try and hear or smell it and vice versa.

Right now, he was trying to hear the incoming objects and send small unnoticeable pulses of chakra to locate the wires. It was similar to echolocation but with chakra. His primary element was wind so that he would stretch his chakra, and through the air, he could feel the wires.

It was hard for him to do this in the beginning since all the info would mostly tell him the distance of objects, and he had to make a three-dimensional map in his head. He never got around to this kind of training in his current life.

With his limited reach and shorter limbs, it was easy to miscalculate his moves, but the ROOT training gave him a head start. The first few runs weren't so good. he was using stones instead of kunai and shuriken to avoid serious injuries.

He could dodge most of the stones but kept tripping over the wires. After some time, he was aware that he had an audience. He couldn't recognize the chakra, but it wasn't hostile. Just curious. So he decided to ignore it and keep training.

It was near dusk when he decided to end the training. He finally got around to dodging all stones and started using natural weapons, but he would still throw them too slow for his liking. The person watching him left a while ago, but Naruto wasn't worried.

After all, it was his goal to get recognized by people. He packed his stuff and went back to the base for the night. He wrote his report and put it on a stack near Danzo's office. He had dinner and went back to his room for the night.

Naruto didn't like to think about team 9 very often. Neji was the first to die from the rookie 12. Still, it was the beginning of the tragic fate of others. Lee was never the same after his death.

Lee was a lot quieter, and when he thought no one was watching, he would often have this far away look as if he was forcing himself to ground to present.

Tenten often cried at night when she was alone but kept pushing herself to help everyone in the war. She was a combat seal maker and a master of many weapons, so they all needed her.

She would also teach everyone basic fuinjutsu to help them in combat. Her seals helped prevent many deaths before Naruto was ready to become a seal master. During the war, Naruto started learning the art, but it took him very long to become a master.