Chapter 1: Introducing the Knucklehead

"… and then I managed to summon Lord Fukasaku instead of the chief!" Naruto said. Sakura looked at the knucklehead knowingly. "What did you do then?", she asked him, knowing that he would tell her anyway.

"I was amazed to see such a small toad appear after the amount of chakra I burnt to perform the Summoning. But the Pervy Sage told me that Lord Fukasaku was an elder and even he was amazed that I had managed to summon him. He even asked the old frog afterwards why he even answered the summons, and the frog told him that he had felt that nobody apart from Jiraiya had summoned him before. He was surprised and so he decided to show up to see who had summoned him." Naruto grinned sheepishly, while Sakura looked at him, still amazed by the ability of Naruto to do the impossible. She said, "I meant, what you did about the fight, baka!"

"Oh yeah! Well, at first I thought that this Summoning hadn't worked out, the old geezer frog had a lot of power for his age. He told us to distract the wolves for a minute while he meditated and when he was done, he casually picked up the wolves as though they were small cats. And he threw them so far away that even I couldn't sense their smell anymore. Needless to say, they never came back to that area again. But then when I realized that the frog was an Elder, it seemed kinda obvious for him to have such strength, didn't it?" Sakura nodded.

It had been just over a month since they had rescued Gaara from the Akatsuki. Well, more like brought back from the dead, considering what had transpired and Lady Chiyo's sacrifice. They had been waiting at the gates of the village for Kakashi sensei, who as usual was keeping up his reputation of being tardy. However, this time Naruto and Sakura had not minded as much as they would normally have, having a lot to talk about in the years of absence of Naruto from the village.

"Yo!" Kakashi said as he shunshined in front of his two students. All thoughts vanished from the minds of the two as they dramatically pointed at him in practiced synchronization and bawled out, "YOU'RE LATE AGAIN!"

"Well, a black cat crossed my path and…" Kakashi began and then barely ducked as two kunai were flung straight at where his head had been a second ago.

"Don't you give us that lame crap again sensei, we don't fall for it anymore. Were you at the Memorial Stone again?" Naruto queried. Kakashi rubbed his head, sheepishly nodding, and said, "Well… yeah I was…" before trailing off. But then he gave them his famous eye smile, "I have some news for you guys. The Hokage has given us a week off for some intense training!"

Sakura's expression remained neutral while Naruto jumped with ecstatic joy, all his anger forgotten. "All right, sensei! That's just what I needed right now!" Naruto shouted.

"I don't mean any offense Kakashi sensei, but can I know why we suddenly were given a week off for training? I can't quite get my head around it." Sakura asked, still carefully neutral. Kakashi nodded knowingly, and said, "I knew you might ask. I asked Lady Tsunade the exact same question. But her answer made me realize how right she was."

"Well?" Sakura asked while Inner Sakura groused, "OUT WITH IT ALREADY!"

Kakashi looked at the two of them seriously, "The Hokage believes that we need to get in some serious training, not only because it has been a long time since we have worked together, but also because she believes that the two of you must really work on your teamwork. 3 years ago, Sakura had only just begun training in medical jutsu and didn't serve much of a team partner in combat. We were the ones who did the fighting while she hung back, waiting to heal us or to protect any client."

"But things have changed now," he continued, "Sakura has become a full-fledged Kunoichi now, able to take hits and punish others as well. Her raw strength, coupled with your stupidly ridiculous endurance, Naruto, will be more than enough to take out huge amounts of enemies in a fight. So the Hokage decided to give us this week off to learn new strategies, new combinations of attacks, and of course, new jutsu as well."

Sakura nodded, knowing that 3 years ago, she probably would be worrying more about her hair getting spoilt rather than taking her training seriously. She wondered how much stronger Naruto must have gotten in the past 3 years. She could see the lean figure he cut now, because of his uniform being a little tighter than the old orange jumpsuit. She wondered how much time he had spent training, though, considering that he was trained by the biggest pervert in the world.

"Well then, that being said, if you guys are up for it now, I'll show you the place where we shall be training," Kakashi said, to which both of them nodded.

The three of them stopped at a small clearing around 10 miles outside the village. It was a small plain ground, surrounded by fruit trees on all sides, with a small stream flowing down at one side. Kakashi looked around, and said, "I was partly responsible for creating this place." Sakura looked at him so fast that she cricked her neck. She put it back in place with a snap, still looking at him incredulously. "How, sensei?" she inquired.

"When I was in the ANBU, my team was sent here to ward off some Stone ninja, who were trying to infiltrate the Leaf. Needless to say, the battle was quite fierce, and of course, the Stone ninjas don't give a damn about trees. I was quite famous back then for my Sharingan, and copied one of their techniques and used it before them. I didn't even know what it was going to do but I was young and foolish and consumed by darkness…"

Sakura allowed him 30 seconds of reminiscence before loudly clearing her throat. Kakashi looked mildly embarrassed and continued, "Anyway, the entire area was covered with a thick barrier of hot stone which burnt all the trees it hit and also killed all the Stone ninjas, except for one. After a while the jutsu stopped and the stone automatically disappeared, leaving me to wonder whether it was a space time manipulation, or something of the sort."

"The only Stone ninja who survived had his leg burned so badly, it was later amputated to save him. He later told us that he was part of a group of ninjas who were exiled from the Stone village. They had tried to infiltrate the Leaf so that they could steal vital information in order to buy their way back into the Stone village. He was given a chance to live as a normal civilian in the Leaf village and jumped at the chance. He is Iguromo, the man who runs the largest ninja supplies shop in the village. We learnt from him that his crafting skills are extremely well refined and gave him a chance to prove his loyalty. And it seemed to work out well."

"Anyway," he said, "Enough talking about the past. I found out that despite the circumstances around the creation of this plain, it is an extremely convenient place to train, being far enough from the village not to be disturbed, but close enough should we have to return in an emergency. So I thought we would rough it out here for a week rather than risking suspension for destroying any training grounds, considering the strength that both of you have, combined." Naruto and Sakura smirked at him.

"Well, what are we waiting for Kakashi sensei? What do we start with?" Naruto said, before he noticed the 'You're a retard.' expressions on both Kakashi and Sakura's faces. "What?" he asked defensively.

"I don't know if you're ready to sleep on the ground Naruto, but I sure as hell am not," Sakura replied. "We'll need to get our tents, sleeping bags and other supplies as well. Right, sensei?"

"Absolutely." came the reply.

"Well, couldn't you just say so?" Naruto grumbled.

"We'll meet here tomorrow at around 8AM, and be sure to bring in some weapons, we can practice those throughout the week too." Kakashi said.

"Alright, sensei!" both his students said.

"See you tomorrow, then!" said Kakashi and vanished from their view.

Sakura and Naruto took to the trees, discussing what types of training they might undergo under their sensei. As they reached the main gates of the village, the bumped into Ino, Shikamaru and Choji. "Hey Naruto and Sakura!" Choji and Ino said, while Shikamaru lazily nodded at them in a most, 'Whatever these guys said' expression.

"Hey, you guys! Heading out for a mission, are ya?" Naruto smiled.

"Yup, you got it! B-rank mission of some sort. We don't exactly know any details because this mission is on a need to know basis only, but the Ino-Shika-Cho formation was specially requested. So we're off to the edge of the Land of Fire," Choji said, while biting into a potato chip as he spoke.

"Alright, well good luck, guys!" Naruto said boisterously, as they nodded to the duo and then took off to the trees. Naruto couldn't help but notice the curves and slender legs of Ino, what with his training with the Pervy Sage, and his own peeping habits. He suddenly felt a killing intent unleashed at him, and turned around to see Sakura staring at him, cracking her knuckles as though she would like nothing better than to beat the stuffing out of him.

"What do you think you were doing right now, staring at Ino's backside like that, NARUTO?" she yelled. Naruto quickly replied, "I wasn't. I was just wondering what kind of mission they could have which was on a need to know basis only."

She looked at him again, not entirely convinced, but accepted his explanation anyway. Naruto heaved a sigh of relief and praised himself for his improved ability to lie so smoothly. Just then Raido, who was at the village entrance, keeping a watch, got a call. The two of them hung back, listening in. It was fortunate that they did, because Raido said, "It was Lady Tsunade. She wants to see the two of you."

"Anything urgent?" Sakura asked, with a hint of worry lacing her voice. He replied, "Didn't sound that way, though I can't be a 100% sure," He frowned, "Either way, you better get going right away, keeping the Hokage waiting is never good for one's health, you know?"

Naruto blanched.

Author's Note: Hey, what's up guys, I wanted to tell you something. Yes, I have taken parts of my story from other stories, and I've already obtained permissions from all of them. So, if you feel that I'm stealing stuff, I'm not. I wasn't going to post this, but one guy opened my eyes and told me that I could get banned if someone reported me, so I had to post it. Thanks to BlueGlass54 for pointing it to me. Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this chapter, and I'll talk to you guys later. Oh yeah, Happy Reading!