The Teacher

Narumi ended up having to do light training for the kids for the next three days after the vicious all out fight. She told them to keep up with the regime she had already set up for them and to be very careful with their pre and post-training stretches.

It was nice to see them realizing how lacking they were even after they pulled every trick out. Shikamaru seemed to be doing a lot of mental jumping around in his other classes, according to Iruka, and not napping nearly as much. Neither one was sure if Hinata had grown more confident or more self-conscious, but it was clear there was some change.

Choji was going back and forth between meat and chips for a while before settling down with some meat whenever he felt hungry. It took a while though. He had been talking about the ways to make meat taste good that he hadn't known before. He seemed offended, Iruka joked with twinkling eyes.

Naruto signed up for the side classes of sealing and though it was hard work, he was trying to catch up with the course work already done. He had approached her about it during their semi-regular training and then Iruka after she told him to talk to him. Iruka seemed happy assigning homework for him, telling him what different things meant, what was the difference between the Konoha standard script and the Uzumaki elaborate one.

Konoha was formal and kept everything in lines. It was very straightforward and relatively simple, but because of that, complex work using this script was impossible because it was adapted from the Uzumaki one. The Uzumaki script was complex, it wrote down parameters for everything and trying to learn it made people's head spin. If you missed a parameter, it could or could not go wrong, depending on various environmental factors.

To seal anything with chakra was even more complex because there were multiple parts of chakra. Medical seals were one of the easiest seals to create because it generally either accepted or gave out pure chakra with perfectly balanced yin and yang, with no elemental input. It was also the reason most medics found it hard to use elemental chakra.

But it was still recommended that if you were going for the medical field, to achieve neutral chakra before you tried your elemental affinity, because otherwise, medical chakra would become hard to produce instead, and people always wanted more medics than ninjutsu specialists.

Either way, Uzumaki sealing that Naruto wanted to stubbornly try for, seemed to quite difficult, but she was sure he would come out the other side glad he had at least tried it, even if he failed.

The regime's results started showing within a month. The next assessment, their stamina became higher, their body became stronger. They crushed their previous assessments and whatever the other instructors had thought about their future achievements.

Sakura got muscles that she showed off proudly. Narumi helped increase Sasuke's weights. Naruto came at her, trying to cook a couple more recipes, and on the the break days for the class, she called Sasuke, Aime and Naruto to her home again and taught them one dish of their choice.

Naruto chose- obviously- ramen, Sasuke chose cherry tomatoes and Aime shyly chose dofu.

They set off again. They were more experienced cooks in the month they hadn't caught up, Sasuke and Naruto were still quite hostile but somehow the bitterness between them seemed to have been reduced significantly. Aime talked more. She asked about Narumi's personal life a little and after she deflected it with questions at her, Aime talked about how she had been reading more books the last month and there was so much about chakra and- could she please show Aime how to make chakra strings ohmygoditssocool.

When Aime started talking, she gushed like a fountain. Both the boys were quite startled considering the last time Aime had barely even talked. Narumi approved, so she explained as much of the basics as she knew and told her to practice chakra control via leaf exercise to start off.

Iruka had been teaching them about the Academy Three and chakra control for two months already. Naruto still blew off his leaves while Aime had pretty good chakra control, and Sasuke was about average.

They talked about random things, not touching anything big. Naruto once talked about how he had painted the whole chunin headquarters a few years ago and she was laughing so hard her stomach hurt. Sasuke definitely laughed then started snarking when caught red-handed, when Naruto described the way a man walking in on him mid-paint then walked out with blank faced with glitter all over his body.

She laughed harder when she recognized who Naruto was talking about. Naruto had pet names for a lot of shinobi around by their characteristics, and he described some while she tried to place a name on them. Even Sasuke joined him. Narumi added some extra information that she could remember about them, but surprisingly, there were a lot of people she just didn't know.

One month in the job, and she hadn't even gone in for drinks with some of the other shinobi yet. She had spent time with Iruka, who knew many people but she had refused when he asked if she wanted to join in any social events. She had been spending all her time with either her students, or training or her student's training. It was surprisingly a sad realization.

"Maybe next time, I'll be able to name a few more," she ruffled Naruto's hair fondly who took it with a smile and affection in his eyes. It was nice to see he still liked her when some of her other students, like Sakura and Shikamaru were glaring at her and swearing she was the devil reborn. Maybe, Sakura would be too happy with her newfound muscles to glare at her hatefully anymore. That seemed to be the case for a while, at least.

The night ended well, and Hokage-sama asked her in for a status report. It was casual because he wanted to talk more about the kids too. He asked jokingly-or not so jokingly- if she had traumatized them yet.

She told him about Shikamaru hateful glares but he didn't seem traumatized as of yet, so that was okay. Naruto, Sasuke and Aime, the three support-less orphans in her class liked her, specially because she taught them how to make good food fast for themselves. Sakura, the top kunoichi seemed happy to not only have brains but also brawn. She almost punched a desk in half a few days ago. They were a good class, she concluded. By the time the year finished, they might all end up chunin level easily.

She smiled when she talked about them, and she talked about them proudly.

"I knew you didn't like wasted potential," he said, "but I never expected you to show such tremendous results in a single month." He gave her a kind smile. "Keep up with your own training as well."

"Yes, Hokage-sama! I won't fail you." She said, bowing.

"Dismissed, chunin." He smoked his pipe and she left the room and closed the door.

How was that man so good at making pride bloom in her chest when she had already known all that? Calling her chunin and telling her to train...She sighed when she felt not even a twinge of resentment. The Hokage was a terrifying person, as always.

She went to the mission office after, to finish up for her last day in the office. She was editing her student's profiles when a tokubetsu jonin- by the looks of it- dropped by. She sighed and put files aside.

He handed over his mission report before glancing over her student profiles. He did a double take before reassessing her. The senbon between his teeth went from one side of his mouth to the other, while she noted down the completion status of their mission, the leader's mission report -his- and finally writing down his shinobi number.

"Yes?" She looked up at him when he didn't move after she was done.

"You taught these monsters?" He grinned, "They're vicious little kids. One of the girls from your class came after me with a vengeance, following me around until I taught her how to throw senbon." She broke out into a smile.

"Would that be a pinkette or an ash blonde haired kid?" Because those two were the only girls who actually tried really hard. Even Ino wasn't that into her regime and who knew what even was going on with Hinata. By next month, she would have to edit both of their regimes though. Sasuke's too, actually. He had taken to it like fish to water.

"The pinkette." She raised a brow, pleasantly surprised. Sakura had been getting good, so like Aime, she might have wanted to diversify a little more. "She doggedly followed me into the jonin station, and then walked right in behind me." She chuckled, un-surprised.

"If she had her eyes on you, she's never gonna stop." Then she rethought what she had said. Potential hunter quality? He leaned over a little, hand on the desk, a smile on his face.

"There are a few people meeting up in the bar tonight. A few of them watched that fight a month ago, and were quite impressed. You should come over sometime." He pulled away. She smiled at him, pleasantly, a little pleased.

"Thanks, I'll come over tonight after my shift then. It's been a while since I went there, anyway." He grinned at her.

"By the way, name's Genma." He waved at her before leaving. She blushed just a slightest bit, before going back to her work. It has been a while.

-x-

The bar was a little musky from people smoking, when she entered. She recognized the bar-tender with a glance and nodded at him. There were quite a few chunins and jonins hanging around in clusters already. Some alone, and some in pairs sat on the bar table.

She noticed Genma's senbon and walked over to the table, surprised to see the people there.

A couple of the Anbu that was following Naruto around, Tsume Inuzuka who was surprisingly cozy with one of the Anbu- she seemed drunk, so that made sense- and Gai, a recent jonin-sensei who was a taijutsu master. They had totally different styles, but she was pleasantly surprised to see him.

She had fought a few taijutsu specialists already and she was actually kind of excited to talk to him.

Genma introduced her to everyone, and ended with Gai who was his genin teammate, apparently.

Sweet.

"Could I have a spar with you sometime, Gai-san? I'm a taijutsu specialist so it would be my honor if you take some time to spar with me sometime." Gai laughed loudly.

"YOSH! IT WILL BE MY PLEASURE TO SPAR WITH A BLOOMING FLOWER SUCH AS YOURSELF." Then he gave a hick-up. She sweat dropped. Probably not the best time to ask something like that. One of the Anbu nudged at him. What was his name again? Asahi?

"You're too loud again." Gai gave him a thumbs up. He rolled his eyes. She hid a grin. Then, a sleepy Tsume opened her eyes and spotted her.

"You're that sensei Kiba keeps talking about!" She grinned viciously, suddenly looking more awake. "You made him puke in one of your classes."

"I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, with the way you're looking at me," she told her bluntly. Tsume laughed loudly.

"He got crushed by a civvie with barely any before hand training. Trust me, he has more of a grudge against you than I ever will." Tsume told her with a grin. She poured her a drink.

"You'll be needing that with what the kids have planned." She raised an eyebrow, but accepted the class.

"They have something planned? And here I thought I was running them ragged." Tsume took in the amused glint with a bark of laughter.

"You were. That's why they got vicious." They both grinned at each other in perfect understanding, clinking their glasses and drank up up. She shuddered a little with the taste. It had been a while.

Conversation flowed after that.

Genma had been about to tell her what he had taught Sakura before she shushed him. She wanted to experience it first hand instead of getting a spoiler. But Genma probably hadn't taught her any poisons. But just in case, she would keep an extra eye out for it.

Maybe there were more reasons for Sakura to be happy than she had expected.

The night ended pleasantly. More for her and Genma than anyone, to be honest. And next day, there was an apartment number by her bedside table and empty sheets.

She got up for class with a happy sigh.

-x-

On the monthly anniversary after the all-out battle between the students, she had something fun planned.

After she ordered her students out, she ditched her shuriken and kunai packs in the room and went back out. It felt a little naked, but she didn't want to instinctive grab and shoot. Those were the instincts she had been fostering for about a decade, after all. And she didn't want her kids dead if she got a little distracted.

"We're gonna do something fun today!" She grinned and a few of them shivered, "It's been a month since that all out fight between all of you and I'm sure you have contingencies for something like that now. You have all trained and become better. So! Let's have an all out me vs the class fight."

There was a pause.

"WHATTT!" Naruto and a few others screamed.

"But what if you get hurt?" Naruto asked, his eyes wide. She smiled indulgently at him. She was a chunin though her skill level was higher.

"I'll give you two minutes to get a plan up and running." She shot a look to the Nara. "Your job is to capture and disable. Feel free to go for a vital spot. I will be disabling you by using taijustu, no weapons, I'll be using the Academy three as well. Feel free to use your clan jutsu and co-ordinate well."

"Start!" Naruto started charging ahead before Sasuke caught him from the back and he started coughing and choking.

"Idiot! She gave us a two minute planning session." The kids huddled up. Sasuke made a basic plan, Shikamaru added more, Sakura pointed out a few things and even Ino was suspiciously asking about somethings. A few civilians nervously asked about a few things and they hush-argued a bit more. At least they were decent at hiding their voices from travelling too far from their planning session.

Narumi waved at the few people she recognized watching them. She seemed to have become the entertainment for the shinobi staying in-village. She sighed and when two minutes were up. She clapped.

"Okay! Start!" Naruto and Sasuke charged ahead, a few civilians not far behind them. When she went to disable Sasuke, Naruto would weave in and distract her and when she went to deal with Naruto, Sasuke brought out his kunai. A few civilians nervously got theirs out too, but barely got to use them when she disabled them with kicks and punches in between dealing with Naruto and Sauke. Shikamaru spread his shadow towards her, trying to be sneaky, weaving through Sasuke and Naruto.

She kawarimi'd away jumping in the middle of the Ino-Shika-Choji trio. This was going to be their specialty- capture a small group or one person. They didn't fail. Too badly, that is. Shikamaru changed direction for his shadow faster than a month ago, Choji came in trying to punch her in the face- that kid was probably still pissed at her, she guessed by the viciousness- Ino went for her feet. A senbon almost buried in her calf- probably Sakura- but she was faster. She jumped, twirled and kawarimi'd midway before any of the launched kunai could land on her in mid air.

She burst in on a small group of civilians along with Hinata and and Kiba. Hinata was good. She had a focused look on her, and Kiba actually snarled at her- cute- before going after her. Akamaru tried to bite her leg but she flamboyantly went on a handstand and kicked everyone back. There was barely any damage but it looked pretty cool, if she said so herself.

Then she went after Hinata, because she was the one who could disable her with a tap. Kiba was also good but Hinata was the one who deserved more of her attention. She probably made for a scary sight for the kid, but Hinata met her head on. Kiba tried to get her back, and a civvies threw a few kunai and shuriken wherever they found space, trying not to not the others. One almost hit Hinata but she ducked, weaved and tried to punch Narumi in the gut. Gotta say, that was impressive.

She disabled Hinata with a kick, and Kiba had barely a second to realize his distraction was gone before running into her fist. She made sure the rest of the unconscious civilians were a little farther so they wouldn't get caught in the crossfire. Shino came after her, then Aime weaved in and out, Sakura jumped from the sky with senbon hidden between her fingers. She caught Sakura by her arm, and using momentum knocked out everyone else.

Then with even less people, their fight took a turn for the vicious.

Sasuke and Naruto tag-teamed with Ino-Shika-Cho, with a few civvies distracting to stop them from become minced meat.

They actually hid a few times to recover energy while the other team distracted Narumi. They weaved in and out of fights, almost like they had done it a hundred times.

She was so proud.

Most of the disqualified kids were already up, and everyone was watching with surprise the end with surprise. Sasuke and Naruto might not have had much time to actually learn to co-ordinate, but they had excellent instincts for each other.

She pitied the person who would end up on their team.

Or maybe...

Hmm. She really needed to ask the Hokage about a few team related things.

When Ino-Shika-Cho looked a bit of the hopeless side, she went over and disabled them.

Soon Sasuke and Naruto couldn't pull out any more new things and she knocked them out simultaneously by slamming their heads. They might have a bump there.

She was surprised to see she was grinning like crazy by the end of it.

Maybe she was a little crazy, who knows? But it was fun!

Then she placed her first ever assessment about where they were overall ranked in combat.

After that fight, not many were surprised to see Naruto and Sasuke ranked No.1

-x-

Hinata was upset, Iruka told her. When she came after the spar class vs her, she looked like she would start crying.

Narumi was tempted to talk to her personally, but-

She was a clan kid.

Clan kids are always over-protected, specially when Hinata was the one involved in the Hyuuga affair so many years ago.

So the next class was an in-depth discussion. Most were still dealing with aches and pains so, she did stretches then brought them back to class for an in-depth discussion for her every action, and asked for their reasoning for every action they took.

A few had answers like 'I panicked' or 'I don't remember exactly what I did...', and she explained that those were fine, those weren't uncommon and this was why people built their reflexes, so their body reacts faster to the threat before their brain even fully registers it.

That's why there's a rule for 'never sneak up on a shinobi' in the Village. They could accidentally end up dead and it would literally be the victim's fault.

Then she went into some un-spoken shinobi etiquette that anyone who had been a shinobi for any reasonable amount of time could pick up. Some people might say she was spoon-feeding them a few things, but she called it 'survival'.

Of course, she did leave out quite a few social things that they would pick up but something dealing with sneaking up, or older and/or injured shinobi or finding good places to buy and maintain weapons were things they needed to know.

She was trying to stuff a decade of tips in their heads and sometimes she found herself floundering about what to speak about when there was so much to talk about.

And time passed.

She had more cooking sessions, more drinking sessions, more classes.

She had a lot more training time with no more desk job and she took advantage of it, pushing herself harder. Sometimes, she called over a few kids who needed personal supervision while she trained so she could keep an eye on them.

Sasuke was getting good, and Aime seemed to be playing with her chakra a lot- she definitely needed to keep an eye on her, above average control with enough creativity and open mind to play with chakra? That girl was going somewhere- and she sometimes even sent a clone to watch Ganma train Sakura a little. Needless to say, she was glad one of those needles never touched her. She didn't need a cauterized hole through her body, thankyouverymuch.

Surprisingly, Shikamaru also dropped by sometimes. He didn't always do something, just watching her train while she watched all three of them, sometimes he asked her surprising strategic questions, some that she was genuinely surprised by. Well, she was supposed to train both mind and body, right?

Near the end, she would force Shikamaru to start exercising and while he did whine at her, he seemed to realize that at least she wouldn't push him till he broke, like she might do herself.

He got her a training manual.

She nearly busted a gut laughing.

-x-

Sadly, all good things came to an end.

The semester ended, Naruto tried to give the exam and failed, though he didn't seem that put out by it, surprisingly. Her class time seemed to increase and she was assigned the chakra portion of their curriculum as well, much to her surprise. Iruka took it well, saying she seemed to deal with the kids better though he wished she would be a little kinder in her punishments.

Two civilians got injured. They didn't follow the regime close enough and in one of her classes, they got injured. It wasn't a big deal, she dropped them off at the hospital and Ino along with a few civilians were horrified by their own slacking seemed to pick up the pace.

Shikamaru seemed to have a grim assessment of the field and he followed her regime like he was going to go to war. She wasn't exactly sure what was up with that, but she let him be after a few amused glances.

(He seemed to think she was an above average chunin in peacetime and the outside world was a far more dangerous place than his parents gave him an impression of, he was wondering if maybe they didn't have a little too high expectation of him when they said he would be 'just fine'. Shikaku deduced his thoughts and was amused enough to not correct that no, his instructor was at least a special jonin with a delayed promotion sitting on his desk because she was doing a few too many Anbu missions, she wasn't exactly average.)

Her class was improving really well. Their inter-class relationships had tremendously increased and they had become much much better at coordinating with each other with a glance. Naruto became their biggest distraction, Sasuke went for pincers with him; following them, the class seemed to form duos they could manage with, aside from Ino-Shika-Cho, it seemed. They were pretty good by themselves.

Sakura and Aime seemed to become thick as thieves and were ganging up on Genma together, though Aime didn't seem as interested. Aime took a few more first aid courses and leveled up, until her first aid knowledge was better than Narumi's though she could probably keep a person alive longer than Aime in the field. Field experienced was different from home-experience, after all.

Her kids took on side specialties, while she solely handled all their training. She had had to change up all their regimes at least two more times after the first time because they improved really really fast. Probably because they were still children, then she gave them their final test for the semester- a pure survival exercise with chunins coming to haunt them a time or two as enemy shinobi.

She kicked them into a training field that wasn't as bad as the Forest of Death, but only because nothing would straight up kill them there.

Some separated but most were in groups. She called in Iruka and a few other decent chunins too so they would all watch different groups and harass them when possible. It seemed their terrible two had struck again and a chunin actually got noticed and knocked out. When she found Sasuke and Naruto tying up the chunin, she had burst out laughing. Naruto kept poking him with his feet wondering when he would give up his trick.

She had spoiled them with her high skill level, it seemed. She just dragged the man back and dumped him with one of his friends.

The groups they formed was truly surprising.

Sasuke and Naruto were, of course, together, along with, it seemed Aime and Sakura. Aime had apparently saved their asses by pointing out no, Naruto. That's a poisonous plant.

Then Sakura was ready to huff away but Aime had looked at her with sad eyes, talking about how she was worried about Naruto and Sasuke being idiots and eating weirder things. It turned into a scolding where they sat on their knees in front of Aime while she glared them into submission, telling them how sensei had already taught them about food, and how could you not take her teachings to heart.

It was adorable.

The whole class was aware that she had claimed the three orphans as her favorites and pushed them even harder because they were under her eye more often, and some were actually surprised by how Aime, a nameless support-less orphan ended up being one of the top 10 combatants in their class.

Another group was Hinata, Kiba and Shino. These three hadn't always been together but they banded together as trackers and because their parents had pointed the other two out in the crowd. Hinata and Kiba's coordination had improved tremendously after their first fight against her, and Shino played full on support role behind them. Not to say, she hadn't made sure he could pack a punch when needed to, of course.

There was a group of five civilians who had various specialties. They became the comedic group. They wandered from one trap to another, somehow getting out of the previous trap before wandering to an unknown one. They had actually discovered a few traps most of the chunin didn't even know were still there.

It was hilarious!

(She was so so proud.)

There was a duo who fell to the chunin, but they also put up a good fight considering one was the brain and one was the brawn. They would probably end up separating though, but they would still survive the world. They were getting good, and who knew? Maybe in the last semester, they would become so good together they wouldn't even need to be separated.

The two injured civilians who didn't follow her regime weren't bad, but they brought their group down. They broke formation when faced with a fast opponent and let them get in the middle. It was too easy.

Out of all the teams, only four teams came out of the forest whole. The comedic five, Ino-Shika-Cho, the tracker trio, and the demolition group.

It felt like a joke, to be honest, but she was very proud.

Near the end, she had put up two average chunin going almost all out and somehow they all seemed to have managed. Ino had a new hair cut and looked like she would collapse where she stood, but she still stood by her own power by pure stubbornness. Shikamaru just seemed tired and Choji had a few cuts on his arm, but nothing deep. He did seem to have a bandaged chest though, under his half-shredded top.

Sakura had a mild head injury which was bleeding but Aime had used her first aid skills well. Sasuke's shirt was half burnt and he had a second degree burn on his shoulder, but he stood proudly in front of her too. Naruto had thrown off his eye-seering orange shirt and even his black shirt and pants had rips everywhere. (Did she need to teach him how to stitch his clothes?)

Hinata had a broken wrist, and Kiba looked a little feral, standing protectively in front of her. He probably knew better than most that Hinata was almost useless without her hands. It was her taijustu's main focus and she hadn't learned to use her other chakra points that well yet. Half of Shino's hair looked burnt off but he seemed mostly fine other than that.

The other five stood cluttered, not showing her their backs, looking around too often to be casual. They had been dropped in a few genjutsu, it seemed. They were in decent condition though, one seemed to have cracked ribs, with the way they were holding it; another had a fractured elbow. One of them limped but she wasn't sure what exactly was wrong.

They all stood in front of her.

And she was so so proud.

"All of you have passed your exam with flying colors. You faced off two unknown chunin and won. Congratulations, students! Now everyone, follow me to the hospital, and I can even show you how to get fast and quick check ups without being kept for more observation than needed!"

Aime snorted.

"Please, as if." Because she knew the medics well.

(Needless to say, she failed quite terribly. She got scolded in front of her students by the medic and it was like a drama with the way everyone stood around watching them.)