Naruto - The Wind Calamity

Chapter 11 : Improvements

The academy life continued in this manner for the first six months. After six months, Genki had to report to Hiruzen on the progress of his class. He reached the Hokage office at the appointed time and knocked on the door.

After being allowed in, he entered the room and respectfully said, "Lord Hokage"
Hiruzen nodded and said, "It's alright. How is your class fairing? Any talents?"
Genki replied, "It's going pretty well. While it's still too early to say, I believe the majority of these kids will become elite among chunins, and few probably will become Jounins.

Senju Teru and Uchiha Yori have been showing the most talent, as expected from someone in those clans. Hyuga Hoka and Hana have also been performing really well. Shimura Nobu is also pretty good. The remaining three from Senju, Uchiha, and Hyuga clans and the lone Aburame are decent as well.

Among the civilians, we've had a surprise. The orphan, Suzuki Fujin, has been progressing pretty fast. I've spied a little on him, he is very diligent and works very hard. He is definitely someone we should nurture for the future. There's another among civilian kids, Aoki Nori, who is performing very well. The other kids are doing okay. On average, the talent in this batch is higher than the previous one."

He said enthusiastically. But then he sighed and said, "Sadly there's no one like Itachi in this class."

Hiruzen nodded and said, "That's alright. We can't get someone like Itachi every year. But your report still sounds very promising. If in the next 15 years, we get a dozen jounins and have remaining at chunin ranks, then it'll help the village a lot. You've done a good job. Keep it up. You'll be responsible for raising this batch into good shinobi for our village."

Genki nodded his head and respectfully said, "Yes Lord Hokage" and exited the room.

After he left Hiruzen thought, 'Looks like we will be having another good crop of Shinobi. Still, to think we'd have another diligent orphan. I wonder how his story would turn out to be.'

The praise that Genki had for Fujin wasn't undeserved. Fujin improved a lot in these six months. A lot more than Genki gave him credit for. After all, even he couldn't know the fact that even at home, Fujin spent most time training in a very planned manner.

The most important improvement was in Fujin molding the chakra with hand signs. The speed had finally reached an acceptable speed and he was able to do six random seals one after another consecutively. He decided that it was finally time to start learning the basic jutsus.

In Earth nature transformation, he managed to crumble the rock. The clay molding was also coming along well. He could now manipulate the clay freely. And could partially harden it, but couldn't harden it entirely. Fujin noted that his progress with Earth nature was much slower than wind nature. But that was understandable as his affinity was wind. Fujin also managed to create deep cuts in stones using his wind nature.

In Taijutsu, he also adapted to the academy style very well. He frequently sparred with Teru, Hoka, and Yori in the academy and now ranked within the top 4. Senju Teru in particular was kind of becoming a sparring partner to Fujin. In the tournaments, he also noted that his stamina was very high among his classmates. With only Teru being able to match his stamina. He wondered if this was only due to having a more trained body or was his chakra also higher than others. After all, it made sense for Teru to have higher chakra level thanks to him being a Senju.

Shuriken throwing was coming around properly too. He was able to hit all 6 shurikens on the target with his right hand. Though not all used to hit in the dead center yet. But left-handed throwing still needed a bit of practice as he could only hit 4 out of 6 with it. He decided to practice till he can consistently hit the dead center with both hands. Then he can try to hit the target while running around. In the weekly shuriken throwing competitions, Fujin slowly climbed into the top 10.