"What about you? Did you get a teacher to teach you healing jutsus?" Tachibana turned towards Sakura and asked her out of politeness.
"Un! My teacher is the Head Nurse of the Konoha Hospital. She takes time out of her schedule to teach me the basics every day. Although I haven't gotten to any real healing Jutsu yet, I've been learning how to improve my chakra control so that I can do that."
"Heeeee~" Naruto held his head. "Am I the only one that's left behind?"
"Didn't you get a C-rank jutsu as a reward?" Tachibana asked with a frown.
"Ah…" Naruto looked away sheepishly and spoke with a little embarrassment. "I couldn't do it…"
"Hmm?" Tachibana was surprised.
'Even though he didn't have exceptional talent, his hardheadedness was enough to even get a jutsu as complicated as the Rasengan down in under a week…how did a simple C-rank jutsu stump him?'
"Which jutsu did you pick?" Tachibana asked having a bad feeling.
Naruto sent a glance at Sasuke and then looked at his toes which he wiggled a little before mumbling, "The fireball jutsu…"
Tachibana's mouth hung loose, "Did you check your chakra nature before taking the jutsu?"
"Huh? What's that? Chakra nature?" Naruto instantly perked up after listening to Tachibana, wondering if his problem could be cured.
Tachibana looked at Naruto, then he looked at Sakura and Sasuke. The two of them understood Tachibana's plight but offered no help.
"How did you pass from the academy?" Tachibana whispered, but before Naruto could understand, process and get angry about what he said, Tachibana explained in simple words. "Each person is born with an affinity to different elements. There are five elements, fire, water, earth, wind, and lightning."
"Hmm..?" Naruto was confused. "What does that have to do with why I can't learn the Fireball jutsu?"
"Because you likely don't have the fire affinity. It's like asking a fish to climb trees like a monkey, do you think it could?"
"Ah!!!" Naruto quickly realised with that analogy and then smiled. "So it was the old man's fault that I didn't get the right jutsu!!! That glasses person who gave me the jutsu looked shady too!! I will ask him to change it!!!! I wonder what affinity I have!! What affinity should I have Sakura-chan?"
'Hmm…people still hate him even though he's become a Konoha genin don't they…'
'Even in the show people only accepted him after he saved the village from Pain.'
'Hmmm...well whatever, not like I can do anything about his image.'
Soon Yamato arrived at the training ground and took each of them away with a clone, Naruto got the real body.
"What are you going to teach me about Yamato-sensei?" Tachibana asked with a smile full of expectations.
"Hmm…since you're a beginner in sealing why don't we start with something simple. How about learning the explosive seal?"
Tachibana almost frowned when he heard that.
'Shouldn't we start with calligraphy?'
'Oh…is the village wanting to teach me sealing without giving me the knowledge to make my own seals just yet?'
'They probably want to hold the knowledge as some sort of reward for my duty and contributions to the village since they know I want to research jutsus?'
'Hmm…I hadn't expected that…'
'Then I should show them just how interested I am in researching jutsus…'
"Is that true Yamato-sensei!!??" Tachibana asked with a big smile.
"Will I be able to simply touch my opponents and cause them to explode after I master the explosion seal!?" Tachibana asked with starry eyes as he looked at Yamato.
"The only other shinobi recorded to be capable of creating seals on an opponent mid-battle was the Fourth Hokage."Yamato was quick to douse Tachibana's enthusiasm but knowing how helpful it was for a student to be enthusiastic he quickly said-
"I hope you will be another one that will go down in history for being able to do so!"
"Then I will surpass the fourth Hokage!!" Tachibana said like a child who'd taken the bait.
With that Tachibana started to learn sealing with Yamato while the others did similar things to improve their prowess.
Sakura learnt genjutsu with her improved chakra control, Sasuke worked on sparing with Yamato to help acclimatise his sharingan and be able to control it better.
Naruto began training in wind nature and was practising cutting leaves with the help of shadow clones.
While Tachibana was doing two things. While he learnt the explosion seal slowly, he also showed his ingenuity by attempting to continuously modify the seal to make something new out of it.
He hadn't made anything meaningful out of it just yet, but he had a plan and he was working towards it.
'If I make a seal that gives me the ability to launch controlled explosions without hurting myself, I could incorporate them into my taijutsu style and even fly around using them like Bakugo from MHA or Shinra from Fireforce.'
'On top of that, since I have the ability to teleport around using flames, setting the area around me on fire with explosions would be quite useful.'
And so the four genin all continued working hard under Yamato for the preceding two weeks.
Tachibana mastered the explosion seal. He could make the seal in under thirty seconds as long as he wasn't disturbed and it was nearly three times more explosive than the normal seals on the market.
Tachibana practised uniquely.
Yamato made him fight Sakura purely using explosive seals, so he had to become faster and faster at making them, otherwise he'd end up becoming a punching bag for her.
The four of them also sparred each other often during the four weeks, and in simple taijutsu, Sasuke ranked first, with Naruto coming in at a close second since no one could match his stamina while Tachibana came in third because he had an uncanny ability to maintain balance.
Sakura was last in pure taijutsu.
The trouble came when the match became a free for all.
Sasuke was turning to become an absolute monster at using his sharingan for genjutsu. Sakura's genjutsu was tricky and confusing too. Naruto's punches hurt the most, but Tachibana was the worst offender among them all.
Tachibana's ability to spread around explosion tags and use them to teleport around the battlefield was almost at levels where none of them could keep up.
The worst part was, that Tachibana had several modified special explosive seals that he changed by adding multiple tricks like delay explosion.
He could set off two seals at the same time but one might explode much later than the other. And given how he would intermix them and spread them around his enemies, everyone would be left guessing which way he would teleport from.
He was a menace.
And so in the current spar, Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto had all joined hands to take Tachibana down.
They'd bought time after Naruto used his multi-shadow clone jutsu and transformed into them before escaping into the forest.
"What should we do?" Naruto asked Sakura and Sasuke, his eyes were trembling as he kept looking around, worried that he had missed a single explosion tag somewhere and Tachibana would appear out of it.
Sasuke thought for a while but then gave up and looked at Sakura.
"I have a plan, but it's risky.", Sakura said while biting her lips.
As soon as Sakura said that, Sasuke and Naruto's gaze sharpened.
They both had the same firm, steely look in their eyes, each saying the same thing-
'I don't care what it is. As long as it helps us in taking down Tachibana-kun it is a great plan!!'
Naruto and Sasuke could still feel the embarrassment they were left with on the first day they tried challenging him. They couldn't even sleep properly because of all the bruises on their bodies.
There were so many bruises that Sakura didn't even have enough chakra to heal them.
And Yamato-sensei had forbidden them from seeking treatment in the Konoha Hospital, it was to train them for real-life battles where fighting with injuries was more than important if you didn't want to die.