Naruto appeared before his students carrying coils of rope over one shoulder, and that alone was enough to make several of them visibly nervous.
Greg, especially, stared at the rope, then at Naruto, and then back at the rope again.
“Should we be concerned?” he asked.
“Probably,” Naruto replied cheerfully.
Several groans followed.
Naruto ignored them and dropped the coils onto the mat. It landed with a heavy thump that resounded in the gym.
For the past several weeks, most of their training had been devoted to chakra control, with long hours spent wall-walking, meditating, and repeating the same exercises until they became second nature. Important lessons, certainly, but not particularly exciting ones.
Today…
“Today we’re learning something practical,” Naruto said, crouching beside the coils and resting an arm on his knee.
That immediately earned him more attention than usual.
“One of the first things I learned at the Academy was a technique called the Escape Jutsu.”
Greg raised his hand.
Naruto pointed at him.
“Is this where the ropes come in?”
“…Yes.”
Greg lowered his hand. “Just checking.”
A few students snorted.
Naruto shook his head to hide his mirth before continuing. “People tend to imagine shinobi as warriors who fight their way out of every situation. That’s only part of the job. Sometimes fighting isn’t an option. Sometimes you’re captured and tied.”
His gaze swept across the group.
“When that happens, your first priority is getting free.”
No one spoke. Most of the students had enough experience with Brockton Bay by now to understand exactly why that might matter.
Naruto picked up a length of rope. “A shinobi should never assume a bad situation is hopeless. If you’re alive, there’s usually something you can do.”
With a practiced motion, he wrapped the rope around one wrist and secured it.
“Maybe the knot is loose.” He twisted his hand. “Maybe you can work it apart.”
The rope fell away.
Several students leaned forward.
Naruto picked it up again. “Maybe the knot isn’t loose.” This time he bound himself far more securely. “Then you look for another solution.”
Before anyone could ask what he meant, there was a disgusting pop from one shoulder.
Several students winced, and a few actually recoiled.
Sparky actually spoke up unprompted for once, “Did you just dislocate your arm?”
“Yep.”
“What the hell?”
Naruto slipped one hand through the binding with disturbing ease before rolling his shoulder again.
Another pop echoed through the room.
“Sometimes flexibility helps.”
Halle looked mildly horrified, Taylor looked fascinated, and Sophia looked thoughtful.
“That’s disgusting,” Greg informed him.
“It works.”
“Still disgusting.”
Naruto laughed. “The point is that escaping starts with your mindset. Most people panic when they’re restrained. They focus on the fact that they’re trapped.” He tossed the rope lightly from one hand to the other. “A shinobi focuses on how to stop being trapped.”
That earned a few slow nods.
“Now,” Naruto said, standing. “Pair up.”
The complaints began immediately, and they were ignored just as immediately.
The next hour was filled with knots, failed escapes, and increasingly creative ways to make things worse. Greg, for instance, spent nearly ten minutes accidentally tying himself to Taylor before Naruto intervened.
“How did you even manage this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You tied the rope around your belt.”
“I thought it was helping.”
Taylor buried her face in her hands.
Across the room, Halle and another student were having the opposite problem. Every time she almost worked free, she hesitated and somehow managed to tighten the binding again.
Sophia watched her struggle for another few moments before rolling her eyes.
“Stop hesitating,” she called from nearby.
Halle blinked. “What?”
“You keep getting halfway out and then stopping.”
“I’m trying not to make it worse.”
Sophia’s expression suggested she remained unconvinced. “And how’s that working out for you?”
Halle looked down at the rope, which was now noticeably tighter than it had been a minute ago.
“…Not great.”
“Then quit it.”
Meanwhile, Sophia herself had escaped three separate sets of bindings.
The first time took less than a minute, the second took roughly thirty seconds, and by the third attempt, Naruto had begun intentionally making things harder.
Sophia escaped anyway.
She sat cross-legged on the mat while the rope pooled around her feet.
“Again?”
Naruto raised an eyebrow. “You sound disappointed.”
“I kind of am.”
Several students glared at her, but Sophia looked completely unrepentant.
Naruto could not help smiling.
A month ago, she would have approached the exercise differently. She would have treated it as a contest to dominate rather than a lesson to understand. The difference was subtle, but it was there.
She was still competitive, still stubborn, and still unapologetically Sophia. But she was learning. They all were.
That became increasingly obvious as the afternoon stretched on.
Taylor eventually escaped a particularly difficult binding through sheer persistence. Greg succeeded after failing enough times that he had stopped quipping and became laser-focused. Even Halle managed it shortly afterward and celebrated quietly enough that only the people closest to her noticed.
The room gradually filled with small victories, each student overcoming a problem one attempt at a time.
Naruto watched them from where he stood.
The Rope Escape Technique was one of the first lessons taught to Academy students, and compared to the abilities they would eventually learn, it was almost embarrassingly simple. Yet there was value in such a simple lesson. And judging by the concentration on their faces and the determination that kept them trying long after frustration should have won, that lesson was landing exactly where it needed to.
Naruto smiled to himself and picked up another set of ropes, these ones much smaller than before.
“Alright,” he announced. A collective groan filled the room. “We’re doing it again.”
The groan somehow became louder.