"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."
Four sets of ten of pushups.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."
Four sets of ten for sit ups.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."
Four sets of ten for laps around a field. He would be doing ten sets of ten if he was at his best, but seeing as he had gotten hurt at his last mission, he was restricted to his minimum.
"One, two, three, four, five-"
"Dope!"
Naruto looked up at Sasuke and glared. Can't he get come peace and quite while he was training. He didn't bug Sasuke, only because he would die if he did. Ever since Naruto and Sasuke were little they have hated each other. Naruto figured if they ever got into a fight of life and death, he knew he would kill Sasuke without remorse.
Sasuke had always belittled him every since they were little, always beating on him and teasing him about his dead parents, just like everyone else in the Village, he hated the Demon spawn and took every chance he could get of bringing Naruto down.
"What do you want Sasuke." Naruto asked. He didn't like to be interrupted when he was training. He hated it when he was interrupted by Sasuke because he always commented on what he was doing wrong to the last detail, but it must be important if it was Sasuke who was interrupting him.
"Tsunade wants both of us in her office in the next fifteen minutes." Sasuke said smugly.
"When did she tell you?" Naruto asked knowing this was usual Sasuke. Sasuke always waited until the last half hour to tell Naruto that Tsunade wanted them. He never told him in advance. This time, it was 15 minutes. Sometimes he didn't even tell Naruto and another ANBU would have to come and fetch him. Most non Ninja folk in the village thought it was to defy the Hokage.
Kakashi and Tsunade knew better, the only two people in the village that thought there was good in him, well besides his mentor, but he was never around much anyway.
"Two days ago. We are going on a mission. A ranked." Sasuke smirked at the mad look on the blonds face. It didn't matter that this was a usual occurrence. He loved to make the blond nuisance angry. It was so funny. He smirked again when Naruto bumped him with his shoulder.
"Real mature, you have a whole earth of space and you didn't have enough room to get past me?" Sasuke said nastily. Naruto looked back at him and glared before breaking out into a run as to not punch him in the face. It's what he deserved anyway and much more in Naruto's opinion. Why Tsunade trusted him Naruto, he would never know or understand.
Everything is normal in the Land Hidden in the Leaves. The Hokage was in her office frowning at the paperwork in front of her. She didn't want to send Team Kakashi out so soon after their last A Ranked mission. Naruto had gotten hurt the last time and he was still recovering, but the scroll needed to be delivered. There was no ANBU team that could go, they were all already out of the village and she needed to keep her guards close to her, even though she hated having them around.
The scroll needed to be delivered within the next two days. It was about an important subject and she had no choice but to give it to Team Kakashi. They were the only available team.
Kakashi entered the room wearing his ANBU uniform. He had retaken the position when Naruto had turned 18 and became an ANBU as well. He was put on Kakashi's team along with Sasuke and Sakura. It happened often, if a Jounin became or retook the position of ANBU when his team became ANBU, then they would stay a team. It was bad for Naruto and Sasuke. They both hated each other and made it known every second of the day they were with each other unless it was for a mission. Then they were in nothing but ANBU mode.
The only reason those two were still Ninja was because when the time came to be a team, they were the best the Leaf had.
"Dog, we will wait until the rest of your team is here." She said and Kakashi nodded. He knew it was procedure to have the whole team here for the Mission review no matter how short it was. He had only known the Ninja rules his whole life. So, he stood there at alert in his ANBU mask and uniform, waiting for the two available members of his team.
"They are on their way. I saw Crow going to tell Wolf that you summoned us." He said. He knew that he didn't have to say it, but he knew that it helped her keep track of the blond. He knew how important Naruto was to her. After losing Dan and her little brother so harshly, losing people she considered family was hard for her. Though Kakashi didn't know what family relation she thought of Naruto as, everyone knew that she considered him family.
"You don't think I know that?" She said looking at him. She knew he was just trying to be helpful, but she was in a bad mood today. Team Raven should have been back yesterday and she had sent a search party out to retrieve them, as they were presumed dead. They were a rank lower than Hokage, if they didn't come back within the allowed time, they were dead more times than not.
"Sasuke!" Naruto growled out and pushed him into the Hokage's office -that last insult had made him mad- and glared at the Raven who just smirked. They all stiffened when they felt the Hokage become angry. ANBU were trained to feel emotions in the air. All ninja were. It was one of the things you needed to master before could actually be a ninja.
"Scroll, take it to Wind and get out of my sight!" She growled out and tossed the scroll at Kakashi. " Be careful with it. It's a matter of life and death. Be back in four days." She said and ordered them out. Naruto shivered and frowned at Tsunade. She was more on edge then he had ever seen her. Maybe JiJi hasn't reported back to her yet. He should be back in the village. He was due back an hour ago.
"Dolphin won't be joining you." Tsunade commented on their way out of her office.
"Is everyone ready?" Kakashi asked. Of course they were. ANBU were always ready for an attack even in their sleep. They were even trained to be holding a weapon while they slept. You see, ANBU operatives didn't let their mind sleep. They let there body rest, but never fully let their mind just settle down and rest. It was a hard life, being an ANBU persona, but it was to swear alliance to the Hokage, and if captured, die before they gave out any information pertaining to the Village and its Hokage or other fellow Ninja.
"Yes Dog." They both said at the same time. They were no longer allowed to call Kakashi 'Sensei' as they had when they were Gennin through Jounin.
Kakashi nodded and tucked the scroll into one of the many pockets of his ANBU belt and nodded to them, signaling that they were ready to go. They took off in a flash heading toward the Village Gates, show them their signed note by the Hokage and were off once again hardly being seen.
It was an ANBU Operatives job to be unnoticed even by fellow ANBU. When you were a ANBU there is nothing more important then getting the job done effectively and quickly, without being seen, or detected in any way.
Naruto looked at the apartment that he shared with JiJi and nodded to the window. If he was there then he would feel Naruto walking past the building. He was a Sannin after all. Naruto had begun to live with him under the request of the old man when he turned 14 and the old ninja had come to live in the village once again.
Before that he had been roaming the Ninja and Non Ninja folk lands in search of research on anything that could help in the war he knew was going to come. A Great 4th Ninja war was going to be the hardest because everyone was going to be against the Madera who is the most dangerous Ninja on the planet. One Jutsu from him, and it could level a village the size of many villages.
It happened the day Naruto was born and so there for, everyone thinks him the spawn of the Demon that Madera took control of to destroy the village that was once his home. Naruto Uzumaki was the only baby born on that awful day. At least he had three people that cared about him. Three people were enough for him.
Naruto thought about all this as he jumped from tree branch to tree branch. He thought about it often and with Sasuke and everyone else he encountered reminding him every day it was hard not to think about it. The only time he stopped thinking about it was when he was training or in the middle of a Battle while doing a mission. He always concentrated during a mission. It was drilled into him, as were a lot of things upon entering ANBU ranks. And they were none to kind.
Their ANBU had to be hard core all the way to their heart. If they weren't then they didn't make it into ANBU ranks.
Team Kakashi knew how important this scroll was.
"Naruto, pay attention." Kakashi said while he looked behind. He always knew when Naruto was thinking about something hard because he wasn't totally alert. Sure he would sense danger if it was coming, but he didn't feel it before it was coming like when he was fully alert. Kakashi always knew when something was bothering or something had happened. Sure he was an ANBU, but Naruto could still not figure out how he knew about things going on in his life even before he knew it himself.
Maybe is just paid extra attention to him because Kakashi had been Naruto's fathers student. Maybe that was it. He was just protecting him because Naruto was the only link to his dead Sensei. Maybe he felt obligated to protect him. Who knows.
"As you know, this is an A Ranked mission, and I don't need to tell you how important this mission is. Stay alert at all times. It's a loss that we don't have Sakura here with us, but we will just have to make due." He continued and fell silent. None of them spoke until it was dark. They stopped for camp and they were all eating.
Kakashi had suggested that they camp an hour ago, but both boys wanted to go on, one of the things that they can agree on, one of the only things. So they had camped an hour later in a clearing close to the edge so that whoever was keeping watch could see from all directions of the clearing, just watching their back. It was an unspoken rule, being a Ninja of any rank or even before you were put into the lowest rank.
Always watch your back and never turn away from you enemy until you knew they couldn't attack you any longer. Most Ninja knew that rule, but the few that forgot the rule usually never spoke again. Its kill or be killed in the Ninja world. If you couldn't handle that then you became a medic nin. There were always a call for Medic nin. Sakura and the Hokage were two our of three best known and feared ones there were. The other being a Rouge nin, who is a Ninja who betrays their village and goes off on their own or in groups. Take the Akatsuki for example. They are all Rouge in one group, fighting everyone in their path and winning more times then not.
Naruto sighed as he walked into the forest, but still able to hear the hushed breathing of his team mates. He went through the motions of welding a sword in his mind. His sword was sealed into a scroll and he didn't want to wake up his team mates thinking that they were under attack or something. He did this often when he was on guard.
He usually practiced the motions in his head because he didn't want to waste the energy of unsealing the scroll.
He was in the middle of concentrating when he found a Kunai deep into a tree.
"What's this?" He thought to himself as he walked over to the dead looking tree. He was careful to not make any noise as he did so. He pulled out the Kunai to find it had three prongs. He instantly knew what it was. It was his fathers Kunai. Probably the only was that was left seeing as he had never found one before, not even when he had entered the Namikaze manor on the edge of the village away from all of the houses. He had searched soon after he became ANBU and found none.
"What is this doing here?" he asked himself as he looked it over in amazement. There was writing that he couldn't make out because it had been in the weather for more then likely twenty years. A lot of it was smudged. Maybe if he had found it when he was in the Academy he would have been able to read what was said. He had never seen one before. Only saw it as a sketch on one of the desks in the Manor. He didn't know what it did, but he figured out that it was some kind of teleportation Jutsu. The scroll didn't explain anything else and JiJi, who had been his fathers Sensei told him nothing about it and always changed the subject when he brought it up. Kakashi didn't even know what it did when he asked him about it and didn't even know that Minato was working on something like that.
Naruto put the Kunai away shrugging and promised himself he would inspect it later for further information and continued to practice his sword techniques until it was Kakashi's turn to keep watch.
He fell asleep peacefully, well as peacefully as an ANBU persona could in the middle of the forest, in the middle of an A Ranked mission.