Naruto: A New Perspective

Chapter 5

Disclaimer:I don't own Naruto if I did this story would be true

"Good morning Aiko!"

"Good morning Naruto." Aiko waved back at her blonde teammate as he approached. He was the last one of their team to arrive, except Kakashi of course.

"No Kakashi-sensei, huh?" Naruto asked, as if reading her mind.

Aiko nodded, "Yes, but I figured we could train in taijutsu. Right, Sasuke?"

The Uchiha boy grunted, but didn't look at Naruto. Sakura stood a little ways off, staring at the sky. Apparently she still remembered Sasuke's treatment of her the night before.

The four genin moved to the middle of an open field in the training grounds, Aiko gestured to Naruto, "Alright, did you read the taijutsu scrolls?"

Naruto's two bunshin had finished both the taijutsu scrolls and the academy's book on chakra. They had both stood over his bed, so when he awoke he nearly had a heart attack to see the two clones staring down at him.

The blonde nodded, and Aiko nodded to Sakura, "I think the best idea is to have Sakura fight you, since Sasuke and I don't use academy style fighting."

The two Uchiha moved back, and their pink haired teammate got into what Naruto recognized to be a basic defensive stance of academy taijutsu. Naruto awkwardly adjusted himself into a similar stance, although he knew the stances now, he'd never actually done them before.

"Move your right arm an inch to the left, Naruto." Sakura told him, verbally correcting his stance. Naruto did so, and also shifted his left foot, as per her next instruction. Now straightened out, Sakura went on the attack.

Keeping all the different stances in his head was hard enough, with Sakura attacking him; he quickly descended into his old routine of fighting, attacking without any defense. Sakura quickly had him down on the ground, kicking his unguarded legs from under him.

With a sigh, Sakura helped him up, "Naruto, there's a reason we learn taijutsu styles, they're made by people who find all the little weaknesses in defense and fix them by adjusting arms or legs so you can block or evade quickly... do you understand?"

Naruto nodded, ashamed at his inability to even defend against Sakura for even twenty seconds. Instead of starting another fight, Sakura instead led him through several of the academy katas, which were basically run throughs and repeats of the forms in a continuous order, as if simulating a fight.

This way, Sakura explained, he could go through all the different stances very slowly, eventually falling into them on instinct in a real fight. Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto could see Sasuke and Aiko also sparring, moving much quicker than Naruto could ever hope to. They clashed and moved away quickly in a seemingly exotic dance, Naruto's heart sank as he realized how far behind he really was.

Naruto looked back at Sakura guiltily as she ran through another kata for him. "I'm sorry." The blonde said suddenly.

Sakura glanced at him in surprise, "For what?"

"I'm wasting your time, you should be training yourself, instead you're helping me..."

Sakura smiled, "Its alright, if you weren't here I would probably just be sitting and waiting for Kakashi-sensei." She admitted, "I can't keep up with Aiko or Sasuke-kun either."

The two continued until Sakura was sure Naruto could move through all of the katas she had showed him, and then she set him to practice it on his own. By the time Kakashi had arrived, he had made some progress... but it wasn't much.