“Start.”

Sasuke rushed at Hinata who was waiting for him. Sasuke threw Hinata a fist. Hinata dodged slightly and countered. Sasuke’s hit missed but Hinata’s hit connected with Sasuke’s shoulder with so much force that Sasuke’s body turned. He tried to jump back but he flinched as soon as he put his weight on his hurt leg. ‘Damn. How did Hara kick Sasuke to hurt his leg like this?’ Before Sasuke could jump back, another hit connected with him, on his chest. Sasuke grunted and took a step back to find his balance. But Hinata didn’t seem like she had the intention of giving him any time. She attacked Sasuke with another palm strike but Sasuke threw himself to the side at the last second.

Now Sasuke had some room for himself but he was on the ground. Hinata acted fast at attacking him, preventing him from getting up. Sasuke for his part seemed like doing well on protecting himself with an odd stance. Though he was not having an easy time if the sweat that’s coating on his forehead is anything to go by.

Hinata attacked and Sasuke defended for a whole minute. Then Sasuke made a mistake. He tried to attack but Hinata’s answer came like a lightning and he fell on his back. He tried to get up quickly but he was pushed out of the taijutsu ring for his troubles.

“Yes! Hinata, you are great!” Naruto yelled enthusiastically.

Hinata for her part touched the tip of her index fingers and stuttered. “T-thanks N-naruto-kun.”

I smiled at the exchange and walked to downed Uchiha. When he looked my way, I reached with my hand and asked, “Someone said no one can beat him here. Who was it?”

Sasuke took my hand and shook his head. “It was your fault. And Naruto’s too. First, you made Hara hurt my leg then had Naruto create a monster out of Hinata.” He stood up and dusted his shorts and shirt, then continued, “I saw her fighting before. She was never this aggressive.”

I nodded, “How was she?”

He sighed, “As I said, she was like a monster.” He said, respect apparent in his eyes.

I chuckled. “Now, now. You know Hinata likes Naruto right?”

Sasuke smirked. “Well, we are young. Who knows what will happen in the future.” I shook my head and we walked to the others. There Naruto was talking animatedly to a red Hinata and others were listening to them.

“Eavesdropping to others is not a good thing you know.”

Everyone turned to me. Sakura snorted, “We are going to be ninja you know. It’s what ninja do.” We chuckled.

I looked around to find Iruka-sensei and found him talking with Mizuki. They turned to me when they noticed me walking to them and stopped talking. When I was close to them Iruka talked, “You won our bet. Thanks to Hinata. As I promised you, I will teach you the rest of the katas but I can’t teach you another taijutsu style, because I don’t know myself.” I just tilted my head and he continued, “Generally, it takes years to master katas to perfection. So when someone needs another taijutsu style, they either have enough experience to create their own style or has access to the ninja library’s necessary level to learn taijutsu from scrolls. But I have none.”

I nodded. “I understand sensei. My current focus is on mastering Academy Taijutsu Style anyway. I can worry about learning a better, or more specialized taijutsu style later.” He nodded, “So, when are you going to teach me? Today, after the class?”

“That’s okay with me. Though I doubt you will be able to learn the rest of the katas as easily.” I looked at him quizzically. He chuckled, “You didn’t think Academy Taijutsu Style doesn’t have any complex katas right?” I nodded. He continued, “You were wrong. The reason I didn’t teach you these katas was because of my fear that you might feel bad when you fail to master them as fast. But a promise is a promise.”

I nodded. “I am excited to see these complex katas sensei. If you don’t have anything to say to me, I will return to my friends.” Iruka nodded, so I made my way to my friends. They were talking about something when I arrived there. “Hey, what’s happening?”

“We are talking about Hinata’s stance. We think Academy Taijutsu Style has a kata that looks like the one Hinata used while attacking down.” Ino explained.

I tilted my head. “It could be but I don’t see anything important about it.”

“It’s important. Why? Because if Academy Taijutsu Style has something from Jyuuken, it might have something from other taijutsu styles as well.” Shino said, and after lifting his eyeglasses he continued, “So if we can understand Academy Taijutsu Style well enough, we can create other styles making it as a base.”

I sighed, “Iruka-sensei said something like that too.” Everyone started listening to me intently. I coughed awkwardly and continued, “He said when someone with experience mastered Academy Taijutsu Style, then they might create their own style. If as you say we can use it as a base, that means our only limit is our imagination which was always the case. I shook my head. “I think I still don’t see this as important as you see.”

Shikamaru sighed, “We don’t talk about imagination or something like that. We can put other moves from other taijutsu styles and seamlessly integrate it to Academy Taijutsu Style, without forgoing everything we learned about it.”

I hummed. “Well, you can do that but I intend to create a taijutsu style from the ground up. ‘A style with monstrous stat bonuses.’ Though I believe mastering Academy Taijutsu Style will help me with it. Why?” I turned to Shino and smiled then continued, “Understanding the logic of a style will help me know what kind of stances my style needs.”

Ino shook her head. “Well, if you do that, then who are we to create a new style, right guys?”

“Troublesome.”

“Hn.”

“Y-yes.”

“Hm?”

“Sigh. Lazy bastards.”