The first genjutsu Kudo had ever experienced was the Demonic illusion: False surroundings technique. One thing that he hated was the nausea, and you couldn't trust your surroundings, especially in a spinning world. Even with his ninjutsu knowledge, he failed to break the genjutsu until Akiko sensei started teaching them how. Near the end of her teaching period, she upped the scale to Demonic Illusion: Tree Bind Death.
The feeling of being constricted and loss of mobility made Kudo shudder as he thought back to the moment. Amongst all the students, only Sakura had shown promise in becoming a skilled genjutsu user.For now, Kudo was content with understanding how to break genjutsu; according to the library, genjutsu began at rank D, which remained out of reach for him at this time.
After lessons in genjutsu, they began learning about team formations, specifically 3-man and 4-man team formations. For 3-man teams, the triangle formation was the most efficient, and for 4-man teams, the kite formation was ideal, followed by the square formation, which was effective in separating a battlefield into two. They learned about support roles—medical ninjutsu, sensors, and their placement within a typical formation.
In a kite formation, the rear was often a Jonin sensei, and the lead was someone with an arsenal of wide-area effect jutsus. Sensors and medical ninjas were often placed at the wings of the formation. From the academy training ground, they moved further into a wider training ground in the village. Kudo didn't know of such places, but he welcomed them; his backyard was restricting how much damage he could do. In the wider and longer training ground, they practiced formation movement in mission scenarios and ambush scenarios on the route to a mission or from a mission.
Iruka started teaching them how to set up camps and traps around a camp if on an extended mission outside the village. The training focused on using the 3 jutsus intensively as they used the least amount of chakra and could mislead enemies in an ambush. From then on, they moved onto team battles in various terrain, from the woods to hard ground, mountain-like hills and lake-like areas. Unlike what most had expected, the training of all senior classes exploded, unlike other previous years. As such, Kudo felt time-constrained; he decided to postpone his learning to become a sensor ninja to a vacation period. During this training period, some students proved to the team captain candidates, while others only indicated that if the team wanted to fail, they would elect Naruto.
Ino despite her protests was put into a team with Shikamaru and Choji, Sasuke with Naruto and Sakura. Kudo was in a team with Sarutobi Ai (fifth ranked) and Manemi Hatake (11th rank); of course, these were not set in stone as genin teams, and they did rotate members every week.For teammates, Kudo preferred Sarutobi Ai and either Manemi Hatake or Enya Yorisuke.Sarutobi Ai was the daughter of a senior elder of the Sarutobi clan. She had a strict and unyielding personality, often focused on achieving the objective, while she didn't disregard morals, she didn't put emphasis on them. She was also a few months older than Kudo, currently 9 years old.
Hatake Manemi used his clan's kenjutsu style, fast-paced kenjutsu supported by lightning ninjutsu, except that only his kenjutsu was developing, and he used Electric shock on his blade. The number of shinobi in the Hatake clan had steadily risen to 95; they would soon be welcomed back into clan meetings in the village. There were two ways to attend the clan meetings: either be unreasonably strong like Jiraya or have a clan with at least 100 shinobi.
Enya Yorisuke had sharp instincts; his mother belonged to the Yamanaka clan member but his father was not, therefore it was likely he would be taught Yamanaka secret techniques, in the recent storm to strengthen clans even distant clan members were actively sought out and became extended members of the clans.
If someone non-blood related wanted to enter a clan, they either had to be strong enough to be considered for marriage, not the clan or talented enough to be adopted into the clan. Kudo's family had been extended an offer to join the shinobi clan villages due to Kudo's performance being unshakable; to constantly retain fourth place showed remarkable talent and levels of self-control. Many had concluded that he was stronger, at least as strong as Sasuke Uchiha, but he kept himself in fourth place.
Days turned to weeks and eventually months as the winter season came to Konoha. Being relatively warm, it did not experience harsh winters like Kirigakure, just cold weather and subtle snow in rare years.
Academy,
Ding-Dong, the bell rang pointing to the end of class. "Enjoy your winter vacation and remember to keep practicing unless you want to fall behind." Iruka left the classroom. "Soo-, What are you gonna do for fun?" Naruto asked, showing up at Kudo's desk. Kudo packed his things and then replied, "I am going to learn how to become a sensor. What about you?"
They soon walked out of the class together; it wasn't a rare sight anymore to see Naruto with Kudo, given how the other students avoided him like the plague."Hmmn, maybe eat ramen and go pranking in the village- Ouch! What did you do that for?!" Naruto asked, massaging his head, "I hit you because you were being stupid. We have 30 days, use them to learn something or at least sharpen your skills. Your ninjutsu still needs a lot of work, especially your clone jutsu, or you won't be able to graduate." Kudo advised.In a slump, "I know, it's just for some reason harder for me to channel chakra, but with other things like taijutsu I can do ok." Naruto furrowed his brows; it was something bothering him intently."I know," Kudo replied, but he also didn't have a solution, or rather, he proposed that Naruto keep working on his lead exercise and wall walking to refine his chakra control.
Naruto, at the start, could do a basic clone, but after 2 years, he could form two solid clones, enough to be acceptable, but he was still focusing on making 3 perfect clones. Given his lack of seriousness and how busy they were, Naruto wasn't the type for extra effort or at Kudo believed he hadn't found something worth an extra effort.