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"Sakura-chan, Ino, Shikamaru, Shino, Sasuke, Chōji, Ten-chan, Hinata, Hyūga Neji and Rock Lee." Naruto listed off. "Aside from Asuma-sensei, none of the Jonin-sensei are staying here."
"Well most of them already have their own homes or apartments that they've lived in for years." Iruka pointed out. "It's no surprise that they're not upping sticks for this place. I wouldn't want to; I've lived in my house since I was a boy, and I find it a nice, comfortable and relaxing to live in. The draw of the familiar and comfortable is a strong pull, Naruto. Remember that."
"Hai, sensei." Naruto nodded. "By the way, thanks for stopping by and helping out here. I'd have thought you'd be busy getting ready for the new Academy class that's gonna start next month."
"Fortunately, I won the luck of the draw this time around." the chunin sighed in relief that he was out of that mess of fuss and feathers for once. "Hokage-sama's tapped me to act as supervising administrator for newest batch of Genin. I'll basically be helping your instructors make sure all of the bureaucratic and administrative stuff like accepting and reporting missions is done accurately for your first year as Genin. It makes things go a bit smoother until you all get some experience in handling the day-to-day minutia of being actual shinobi."
"I'm not looking forward to the D-Ranks." the Jinchūriki grumbled. "Ten-chan's told that they're basically people paying us to do chores."
"You have to get your feet wet somehow." Iruka responded sternly. "D-ranks are no-risk missions that you and your teammates can complete while still leaving you plenty of time to train and advance your abilities under your sensei. You all need a lot more experience and some actual combat training before you're ready for even a low C-rank. Even tracking down bandit lairs or guarding caravans isn't an easy job. Be patient and accrue experience and you'll do fine."
'I do get experience in a very literal sense, Iruka-sensei.' Naruto sweat-dropped. 'Thanks to [The Gamer], I'm a walking RPG character!'
"It doesn't make the idea of doing 'missions' that are just chores dressed up prettily any less boring." he groused aloud.
"Look at it as a training exercise, Naruto." Iruka advised wisely. "I'll admit, I thought much as you did back when I first became a genin, but I found a way to make the dull D-Ranks work for me; I used them to train my ninjutsu. Take painting fences, a pretty common D-Rank mission. I adapted Suiton ninjutsu to paint the fences instead of using brushes or rollers. For walking the Inuzuka Clan's dogs, I used it as a chance to get some good running practice in. Adapt to the circumstances and you'll see that all sorts of ninja skills can be trained by using the D-Ranks."
"Eh? How'd you get a Suiton jutsu to work with paint?" Naruto blinked in surprise. From what little he knew about Water Release techniques they were primarily designed to work with…well, water. He'd hear of a couple designed to work with oil and other liquids, but they had to be specifically designed to work with something other than water.
"Well, my Jonin-sensei was a Suiton expert, so he naturally knew and used a variety of techniques and tried to pass on some of his skills to us." the scarred chunin said with a thoughtful look on his face. "One that he made sure to teach all of us was Suiton: Suigun Suima no Jutsu (Water Style: Water Army Water Demon). It's a low-C-Rank jutsu that allows the user to either manipulate pre-existing water or create water to fire a short-ranged stream of water. It was actually designed to be used primarily for fire-fighting, but it's easy to adapt for other uses. The handsigns are normally Boar, Dog, Horse, and Tiger, but my sensei told me that by swapping out the Boar handsign for the Bird handsign, it makes the jutsu focus less on 'water' and more on simply 'liquids' in general instead. You have to be careful that you don't grab any other liquids nearby like puddles or even mud when you use it, but otherwise it makes painting a lot quicker and more efficient and its great practice for Suiton ninjutsu."
"I'll definitely have to look into that jutsu!" Naruto swore. No way was he going to get stuck doing boring-ass painting all day for some spending money!
"I'll look forward to you mastering it." Iruka said in amusement before remembering something. "I did stop by for something other than checking in and offering moral support, Naruto. Here, this is for you."
Reaching into his pouch, the chunin-sensei withdrew a couple of scrolls and handed them to his former student.
"Eh? What're these, Iruka-sensei?" the blond boy asked.
"The first scroll contains all of Mizuki's ninja gear, minus his flak vest and hitai-ate." Iruka informed him seriously. "All of his possessions were thoroughly checked over before being cleared to be awarded to you, Naruto. That's about four-hundred regular shuriken and kunai, a dozen of his Dai Shuriken, several reels of ninja wire, a couple of stacks of explosive notes and six scrolls containing various ninjutsu and genjutsu. The genjutsu might be a bit tough for you, but maybe Sakura and Ino can make use of them."
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