"We have to get out of here, There are at least ten of them." Hana nearly yelled while panting at the same time.
"Where are they coming from? How much time do we have?" asked Yorou.
"From directly behind me, they will be here in minutes."
"Shit. We can't be seen by the caravan. That means we will have to go through them. Daichi, take point, Hiiro you're right behind him. You two have to make an opening for us. If you can, go for the kill. Everyone else stick together until we run into the enemy. Me and Hana with her ninken will split to the right, leaving the rest of you to the left. If there are a few enemy we can quickly handle then we flank them, otherwise we run for survival. Michi, take care of them. Naruto, have a few clones get rid of our camp here. Now let's go home. Double time everyone."
"Hiiro and Daichi jumped into the woods quickly followed by everyone else. They took off at a angle that took them closer to Iron country, as Iwa was likely to have patrols hostile to Konoha. In less than a minute the group of 6 plus three dogs ran into fighting. Daichi was using a tanto to attack a hostile shinobi, while Hirro held back another two with his chain and sickle and some kunai with explosive tags.
""Eveyone pass them by and attack along the way!" Yorou ordered and jumped to the right with Hana."
Naruto made ten clones and followed his team to the left, Sasuke used the Housenka jutsu to attack the two shinobi attacking Hiiro, Sakura and Michi threw a few kunai and shuriken at the enemy. On the other side, Hana with her ninken distracted Daichi's enemy long enough for Yorou to shoot a water jutsu through him, killing the man.
Hiiro and Daichi were again left alone (with Naruto's clones) but they quickly finished off the injured single enemy shinobi.
"Listen kid" Hiiro said "How many clones like these can you make?"
"Around a hundread before I start getting tired."
Hiiro whistled "That's great. Do that then, and have them split up leaving false tracks everywhere. Daichi and I can find our own way to Konoha easily enough, alright?"
"Got it" the clone said and popped
The original Naruto quickly said what he was told to do to everyone there and no one argued, so he let loose a small army in practically every direction except iron country.
From what his clone that he left behind to read up on them remembered, the samurai from there were extremely vengeful, contacted everyone before acting, used chakra, had little care for their self preservation and despised intruders. If he got in there, he would likely make an enemy of an entire country. While those samurai were capable, relatively smart and strong, the real reason everyone left them alone is that they didn't quit. Ever. There were several Kage level shinobi that got overrun and killed for pissing off the samurai. Usully around a thousand samurai died in thee process, but they were disturbingly ok with that. Since samurai specialize in a single area of combat, they are much easier to train. Another thing they have going for them is their training to counter common shinobi techniques. Even though the greater shinobi countries could defeat them and take them over, no one bothered since it would just draw their own enemies into the mess. Those who sided with the samurai were later rewarded with great quality tools and weapons. The country was not called Iron for nothing after all.
Soon enough some of his clones ran into the enemy. Some ran, and some fought all together. The fighting clones mostly lost, but they were cheap anyway. Another benefit was that he now knew how the enemy fought. There was one kid he managed to kill, but the others used weird variations of sound based weapons. One of them even gloated about his gauntlet and how it attacked the inner ear. But the most memorable one was a guy that used his bones as spikes and spears. As soon as he told his team about him, Yorou interrupted him.
"Shit!" he said and slammed his fist into a tree trunk "That sounds like a kaguya. They were supposed to be extinct! Bloodthirsty bastards. Where is he?"
"He and his team are using the most direct route towards Konoha." answered Naruto
"Then that's where we're not going."
"What's so special about a guy using bones?" interrupted Sasuke.
"Most direct physical forms of combat tend to be useless against them." Yorou said "I know you can use some fire jutsu, and you're not the only one, but he would be too much of a risk. We would gain nothing by it. Naruto, can you draw where you found the enemy so far?"
"Yeah" said Naruto and got to work drawing all the enemy groups and their direction of movement.
"All right Naruto! We can use this." said Hana "can you use your clones to draw them away from this roundabout route?"
"Sure" said Naruto as he made and dispelled a clone to pass on the message "They're on it."
They moved on towards the roundabout route uninterrupted after that. Naruto got the memories of losing all his clones that were fighting alongside Daichi and Hiiro. They fell to a fat guy that could absorb their chakra, and a foul mouthed read head with a flute.
They would never see either Kazinski brother again.
"In their retreat Yorou was giving orders about how they were getting back to Konoha until he was shot with a golden kunai through his foot.
"Spread out! Now! Now!" he yelled even as he fell to one foot and got up again only to have to jump aside to dodge a barrage of kunai.
"Shit there are too many of them" Hana yelled. The enemy had gotten reinforcements during the chase.
"Yorou made a split second decision and threw a scroll to Hana. "Don't let the enemy get that Hana. You're the fastest one here. Go!"
Hana knew this was a diversion even as she ran away pulling most of the enemy with her. Sakura was carrying the documents they copied from their mission. He was the diversion. Whatever scroll he gave her was most likely just a smokescreen. The kids would need all the help they could get. Yorou fought for a while with a few jutsu and explosive kunai but he was whittled down even with Naruto's clones greatly prolonging his life. Being immobile and surrounded by at least 15 enemy shinobi was too much for him. He activated his last remaining explosive tags so that the enemy would not capture him alive for interrogation.
One of Naruto's clones witnessed this. The genin were feeling the stress and fear of being hunted and their allies disappearing and dying. They were getting winded. Especially Sakura. Michi was forced to make a decision as the senior shinobi.
"We cannot outrun them, so we will hide." he ordered team 7 "Naruto, I will need one more group of us fleeing in the direction we were going to misdirect the enemy. Remember, only one, any more could arouse suspicion."
Michi and Naruto used their wilderness kits to hide themselves, Sakura and Sasuke in a nearby bog in the jungle, and not ten seconds after Michi used his jutsu soundkiller and scentkiller, the enemy passed them by. There were now at least 25 of them. The foursome spent a miserable night in the bog. During that time Naruto kept showing handsigns to them to tell them what the clones knew before popping. The bone guy returned and destroyed most of them, but one clone overheard that Hana escaped.
Eventually Michi decided that four in the morning was a great time to disappear, so a recharged Naruto made new clones scout to around without making any sounds (and clones do not smell), while everyone got the bog leaches off themselves. Naruto's clones found Yorou's remains partially eaten by scavengers as well as those of several enemy shinobi. Particularly the young ones. Apparently the older enemies did not die in the pursuit. Other than that the jungle was blissfully shinobi free. Following a roundabout route got them to a city, and then to the border. After that they got to Konoha in record time.
The whole team was stressed and worn out. Sakura was in shock, Sasuke was angry at himself for not being able to do more, and Naruto was tired and depressed about the three deaths. Michi kept a facade up the whole way back. When the gatekeepers saw them, Izumo immediately went to get a medic nin or few, and Kotetsu asked them about the mission.
It turned out that Hana never returned either, and a quick squad was formed to track her down. If Hana had come before them, they would be the ones greeted by the retrieval squad instead. After Sakura handed the scroll over to some chunin working at the mission office, they were all separated and rushed into the hospital. Naruto was diagnosed with exhaustion and malnourishment. The nurses told him to take it easy and that the rest of his team was going to be mission ready in a week's time without any long term issues. Finally even Hana was dragged in after a few days. She would get a new scar from the mission.
A single day out of the hospital and he was already bored out of his mind. For some reason just getting back into training didn't feel right. After making life and death decisions and fighting overwhelming odds, walking on mud seemed trivial and pointless. He knew it wasn't, it just felt that way. Even his clones were being lazy. What he needed now was another way to fight. Maybe a heavy hitter technique, or something. The archives did not offer that to him. Maybe to a chunin, or more likely to a jonin, but genin got intros. That's all.
He slowly started taijutsu practice again, and thankfully some clones were cooperative enough to be useful. Some went back to the archives dressed as several people, others trained in mudwalking, handsigns and chakra control.
The humming bird style was made for those that do not use taijutsu as their primary weapon. Mostly for genjutsu users and medics, but some long range jutsu users as well. It was in it's essence a hit and run style. Against Naruto's nature to do so, but useful with fragile clones. If he could find some way to make a good deal of damage stick, it would be devastating.
Luckily Kakashi came back. By the time he came around to see Naruto training, he had been briefed on their mission and visited the rest of team 7.
"Hello Naruto-kun, it's been a while, hasn't it?" he said with one of his patented eye smiles looking at the army of blondes.
Most of the clones dissappeared upon seeing Kakashi and the real one walked over sporting some new bruises.
"Heya Kakashi-sensei, how'd your mission go?"
"Maa, as well as could be expected, better than yours from what I hear."
That turned Naruto quickly serious.
"Maa, maa Naruto-kun, none of it was your fault, one could even say that the fact that there were survivors in the first place was thanks to you. The higher ups think there is a leak in Konoha's intelligence, and that is the reason why you were ambushed."
Naruto could only nod to that, and Kakashi continued.
"I'm proud of how the whole team acted, seeing as you are not ready for something of that caliber. Unfortunately, the shinobi lifestyle rarely waits for someone to be ready. Because of that, I've decided to speed up the team's training a bit. I could see what you have in your arsenal from your training, and I can only say that your taijutsu and bukijutsu need work. Now, now, no need to get upset, I already have ideas for fixing that if you could stand some eccentricity."
"Naruto squinted his eyes "Not sure if that's a word Kakashi sensei."
"Maybe, maybe not, either way, I have a few ideas for later. Now, I would like to show you a bit about chakra nature."
The man rummaged around his pouch for a while before drawing out a small blank paper.
"Try pushing your chakra into this would you?"
Naruto did, and it split in half.
"Wind, huh? Naruto, this paper is used to show a person's chakra nature or natures plural. It shows which techniques you will have a talent in. That does not mean that you cannot do other techniques, merely that it would require more work and chakra, and chakra control."
"So, what, if I want to do a water jutsu it'll never be as strong as that of someone with water chakra nature?"
"As you are now, and if you were both of similar power and skill, yes. However, chakra natures can be obtained with a great amount of effort. Most jounin have two or three. That is something they spent a great deal of their lives perfecting.
"You see Naruto, This is usually a chunin level exercise. But the way I see it, you have behaved like a true chunin on your last mission. Sasuke slightly less so, and Sakura still less. Though I'm sure that if they had any additional skills to help with they would have, they still let their emotions effect them a bit much. I've read the reports from Hana and Michi. You have also made great strides in your chakra control."
Naruto couldn't quite keep the satisfied smirk off his face after hearing that and Kakashi chuckled at him.
"Maa, back to the training now. Wind chakra is primarily used to cut or attack with blunt force. I know that the training for the cutting part of wind chakra is done by cutting leaves just with your chakra before moving on to bigger things. I'm afraid I don't know the training for blunt attacks with it, but I'm sure I could look it up soon enough. Seeing as I don't have wind natured chakra I've never done this training myself, but Asuma has. I'll be able to teach you a few jutsu, but..."
"Wait a second sensei" Naruto interrupted "Those guys that attacked us could use sound as a weapon, is that related to wind?"
"Sound huh? Possible, but I'm afraid I have no idea how to go about learning that. In any case, you'll soon have the chance to bug Asuma about it. For now, be sure to try it out so you have all the right questions for him."
"Hai sensei, but how would I go about getting new chakra natures?"
"Oh, that's simple." Kakashi eyesmiled "It's all explained in the chunin area of the archives." and he shunshined away before Naruto could anything else.
"Dammit!"
He dived right back into training, except now, there was a bunch of clones trying to cut leaves with just chakra.
"Michi found him later exhausted, lying down in the middle of a worn out training field. He grinned at the sight. "Hey, Naruto!" he yelled to wake him up. Honestly, if the kid couldn't wake up when someone showed up, he was taking his training too far. Situations like that just weren't safe in the ninja world
Naruto did manage to wake up soon with a good deal of grumbling and saw who it was.
"Michi-san, good to see you."
"You too kiddo. I came here to tell you that the funerals will be held together two days from now. Do you have any formal wear?"
"Uh, no not really."
"Well, best get some then, ... by the way, are you interested in continuing your stealth training? You have a real talent in it kid, and as you could see in the last mission it's very useful."
"Of course Michi-san. Should I look for you after the funerals?"/
"Nah, I'll find you. See you around kid."
"Bye."
"Orochimaru was reading the information about the chunnin exams location change. They were supposed to be held in Konaha and he was planning to use that to his advantage for a slight invasion, but that was apparently delayed for a year now. It seems Jiraya caught wind of what was going on, and now the exams would be held at a not yet built (supposedly neutral) location. That was scheduled for a year from now ruining his plans for the moment.
Apparently someone had intercepted some of his ninja and the intelligence they carried. The intelligence, while relatively harmless, had drawn a too intense response and still the infiltrators lived. This was all the opening Jiraya needed to make a mess of his own. He had lost a hideout and some valuable specimens to that. Someone would have to pay.
"The next exams were going to be held in Suna.
...
...
Maybe he could convince the Kazekage to take some of the clan heirs hostage and ransom them back to Konoha. They are hurting for money after all. For Sound however, apart from testing some experimental augmented shinobi, there would be no gain. He would not waste his own lab rats unless he was sure that he can hurt Konoha in the process. Getting new ones is difficult enough as it is.
Orochimaru started writing a coded letter.
The funerals came and went, Naruto didn't really know any of the fallen shinobi very well, so despite the somber atmosphere, he wasn't affected as badly as Sakura and Sasuke. Sasuke in particular was taking it poorly and medic nins had to take him away after the funeral so that he doesn't go training again before fully recovering. He seemed angry at their deaths and resigned at the same time. Sakura was just miserable and went back to her home to recover there before the week ends. Michi cried, and so did Hana. They now had a grudge against Oto(Sound) and whatever spy leaked the info.
Naruto continued his usual training the next day.
Michi and Kakashi came around to help him. Michi started teaching him about the seals used for safeguarding places or documents and was pleasantly surprised Naruto knew something about seals to begin with. The difference between normal sealing scrolls and these was in several factors. Normal sealing scrolls can be taken apart in such a way that when they fail the objects sealed inside are released regardless of how the scroll is locked these would destroy the contents, maybe blow up or respond in any other preset way in case of faliure.
Another difference is the release part. It can be made for a specific chakra nature, a precise amount of chakra, a series of pulses of chakra with pauses between, blood of a person, blood of a family/clan, ones that need a specific 'key' seal and naturally the various combinations of these. Then there were the responses for failed access. Michi only knew the self destruct one, but others included silent and loud alarms, reverse summoning, partial object release (which might fool someone into thinking they got everything, or release a poison cloud, explosives or whatever),...
All of a sudden Naruto had a lot of fuinjutsu to study and it put him in a chipper mood. It made the people who knew him like the ramen stand chefs nostalgic. It's been a while since he was last smiling so much.
Kakashi decided to pitch in and show Naruto how to make his own traps using explosive tags. He pointed out which part of the tag contained the trigger for the explosion, and how to connect it to a ninja string without tearing it up. When he learned about sensor arrays, he could start using those in combination too.
Kakashi also gave Naruto a few scrolls about wind chakra he dug up from the archives and taught him the basic Daitoppa (great breakthrough) technique, which was useful for speeding up or repelling projectiles and tripping over civilians. Naruto was pretty skeptical that the jutsu could be as powerful as Kakashi made it out to be. Supposedly it could tear through entire buildings with enough power. When Naruto tried to push more power in it, he just made it bigger. According to Kakashi his problem was control. As always.
It certainly made the clone practice wars more interesting though. One clone would blast another away, and while inside the jutsu the flying clone would cast it again, greatly increasing the destructive power. Also any clone that jumped was considered target practice and shot by at least a dozen blasts of wind. The training grounds were messier than ever those days. The clones never managed to ride two combined Daitoppa techniques since they would just pop. Naruto decided that testing that was a health hazard he didn't need at the moment.
For the following week or so his training was split on mastering wind and various stealth exercises with Michi. Those included moving through a crowd without getting his face seen by staying out of everyone's line of sight (neither of them was all that good with it but some people could do this), hiding weapons on his body that a superficial search would not find (as opposed to drawing seals on the body which could be detected by sensors), acting lessons (actual ones for actors, not taught by Michi), finding out the tells of a liar and eliminating them in himself, and special effort was placed on increased awareness. Naruto never got attacked in his sleep so much as then (the villagers didn't have to hide their hate), or while eating for that matter.
Kakashi occasionally visited, but said he was doing good, and that he didn't want to distract him too much, so he just read his porn nearby.
Once that week was over Sasuke and Sakura had fully recovered and team 7 restarted team training. The reason it took longer than necessary was that Sasuke was impatient and got injured again from training somehow. At least they weren't forced to do more than two D-ranks a week. Kakashi told them they were going to be splitting up and forming temporary teams with some other genin that his drinking buddies were teaching.
Naturally, the man never mentioned the why part, so Naruto decided to dig a little on his own. Naruto got Neji's place on team Guy, Sakura got Hinata's place on team Kurenai and Sasuke got Shikamaru's place with team Asuma. They would cycle through all the teams in a month.
Seeing as how Naruto didn't want to quit learning from Michi, his next week was exhausting. Guy and Lee put him through boot-camp from green leotard hell, and Tenten did her best to make him proficient with weapons. He would most likely not master weapon use any time soon, but he could take his time with it. His clones allowed him to learn a lot about various weapons and martial art katas. Guy agreed with his choice of taijutsu combined with the clones, but warned him not to rely on only one style as that would make him predictable. A dangerous thing to be. For himself, not his enemies. So he started learning a extremely short range brawler style all elbows and knees as well as a grappling style.
Michi meanwhile was having him relearn all his moves while being quiet and stealthy about them (that mostly meant sudden attacks or non telegraphed ones). At the end of the week everyone took a day to be with their original teams. Sasuke learned a new fire jutsu, Sakura started going into genjutsu and even learned three of them.
Kakashi had the team sit down and talk about what they learned so they could strategize better. Without having Sakura nag him, Sasuke was more relaxed around his teammates so he soon started venting.
"Freaking Jounin. Must they all be lazy? It must be something about their age. They can't have gotten as good as they are with out working on it in their youth."
Naruto suddenly jumped and yelled "FUCK!"
That startled both Sasuke and Sakura to jump in a defensive stance.
"What is it Naruto?" Sakura asked looking everywhere for an attack.
"Just don't talk about youth alright?" Kakashi started giggling at this and confused the two even more.
"The hell is wrong with you Dobe? I thought you stopped with these stupid pranks."
"I did. You'll see what's wrong with me when you meet Lee and Gai."
Sakura saw Naruto being tense about the subject and Sasuke getting irritated so she switched subjects to avoid getting into a fight. The whole flight from Sound ninja left an emotional scar on her.
How about we just say what new things we learned, and then brainstorm for what we can use them all for now. We can practice some situations later."
They both grunted and Sasuke started by saying he learned a Fire jutsu called Ash Pile Burning. He then demonstrated blowing an ash cloud in front of himself before clicking his teeth to ignite it to explode.
Naruto briefly described the terrible youth fanatics and had a couple of clones duke it out. Not very impressive because they have low durability.
Sakura showed them the genjutsu she learned. She had the one Kakashi used on her during their bell test, an area genjutsu that slightly changed the look of things around her and a genjutsu that made people loose their sense of direction. They could then be led into a trap.
Apart from the idea that the ash cloud could be under a genjutsu to look like something harmless, they made no tactical breakthrough.
For the next week, Naruto was with Shikamaru and Hinata under Asuma, Sasuke with Neji and Chouji under Kakashi and Sakura with Tenten and Ino under Guy. The whole of Konoha could hear the fangirl duo scream.
Under Asuma Naruto finished his leaf cutting exercise and moved on to cutting bigger things like rocks. He also started the blunt wind exercises that consisted of: blowing away leaves, blowing away specific leaves/putting out candle fires, compressing wind into a single wave (and later point) of effect instead of a stream, lengthening his punches and kicks with wind until he could punch rotten wood five meters in front of him with enough strength to damage it, followed by blowing away incoming kunai, shoving people around and finally staying dry under rain or a waterfall. Asuma explained his theory about the sound based attacks, so Naruto tried making his blunt wind waves come out in increasingly greater frequency. By the end of that week he could control his wind streams with mild accuracy. Natural wind still threw him off. Asuma also showed him how to add wind chakra to sharp objects like kunai and shuriken.
Apparently there was a whole science behind which metals to get for this as the common tools were interrupting the flow of chakra and diffusing it. Not to mention that forcing the techniques would damage the metal itself. Chakra metal on the other hand was almost perfect for using it with chakra enhancement, but without chakra it was far more brittle than normal metal. Only in the Land of Iron did they somehow create weapons with the best of both worlds. It was their most jealously guarded secret.
For some reason or another Hinata found his training fascinating, but never really wanted to talk. It took no small amount of patience to change her mid, as her confidence was almost non-existent. He learned that she had an interest in learning about medicine. Her clan got in the way of this because they wanted to preserve their image of being bastards for some reason.
At the end of the week Sakura and Sasuke were again not impressed by the gentle wind streams and extra sharp kunai that occasionally fall apart.
Sasuke again complained about their sensei's laziness but was satisfied with the sparring. Sakura was a walking bruise. She had also completely given up on her diet. Kakashi was having fun making her and Naruto twitch by saying youth every now and then.
By this point Naruto had managed to gather that they were being prepared for the chunin exams that were going to be held in Suna in a little under a month. This bit of news apparently did impress his teammates, as they (and the rest of their generation) had no idea about this.
"I've got a few clones gathering info, but everyone I know like Iruka and Michi is being tight lipped about this. They were ordered to keep quiet, but I'm betting the genin that competed in the past weren't. Now, we just need to find a way to motivate them to share."
"Pain is a great motivator" said Sasuke "Just ask the people at the T&I"
"Um, we can't do that Sasuke-kun. They are fellow Konoha ninja. It would be illegal to harm them in any way."
He shrugged "Maybe we can get them drunk? Or bribe someone?"
"Bribing sounds like it would work for most non clan ninja." Naruto said "I'll have clones look for possible targets. You two keep and ear to the ground as well."
"Right."
"Sure."
The following week Naruto was with Kurenai, and he managed to fail at making genjutsu completely. He thought that, with the help of seals he could make genjutsu (so long as they molded chakra for him), but without them all his attempts were overloaded. He did manage to learn the basics of dispelling genjutsu, so the week was not a complete waste.
"According to Kurenai his chakra was too thick or solid for normal genjutsu so it does not react as genjutsu usually does, making learning genjutsu techniques a waste of time for him. After interrogating her a little (by sheer persistency) he managed to learn that medical ninjutsu uses thinned out chakra so that they do not cause accidental damage inside a person. It also makes getting chakra inside a person easier and uses less chakra in general.
Naruto's clones get the basic principles of how that worked from the genin level archives, learned the exercise and managed to thin his chakra to the point that he had finally succeeded in making a regular bunshin. He also got why Kurenai thought that medical chakra was not the answer. It made the chakra lean towards the Yang (physical) side and imbalanced most genjutsu. All in all it was a work in progress.
With that the joint training sessions were over for the time being and team seven was together again. Kakashi had them meet at training ground 7.
"Now, I want you three to tell me what you thing these past three weeks were about." Kakashi said. "Let's start with Sasuke."
"To get stronger and learn things from other specialists?"
"Is that a statement or a question Sasuke-kun?"
"Statement."
"Partially correct Sasuke-kun, now lets see what Sakura-san has to say."
"Um, we also trained with other teams, so we got better at adapting to different teams for the future."
"Also partially correct. Anything to add Naruto-kun?"
"Preparing us for the chunin exams."
"Yes, but again, not complete. What we wanted to show you was the workings of different teams. How they work from the inside, their strengths and their weaknesses. What strategies they can use, and finally where you would avoid them and where you would lure them.
Naturally the more you know about your opponents the more you can strategize, but even from a glance you can tell the odds of certain things like age, equipment, country of origin, bulkiness, condition of health at the moment and so on. By using your other senses you can get additional information. For example an Inazuka could smell if they carried poison, when Sasuke gets his sharingan he can roughly tell their chakra levels. The Hyuuga can as well. Sometimes you will be able to recognize what clan someone is from, and if you know the clan you can plan with that knowledge. That was really why you were taught so much history in the academy."
"In any case, I'm proud of you three for how far you've come. I'm sure you'll do great in the exams if you choose to enter. Seeing as they are in Suna, you will need to make your choice in the next three days if we are to get there on time. Here are the documents you will need to sign if you chose to go."
He handed them the official papers.
"One final reason why we had you train together is because in Suna you will have no backup, and Konoha ninja always stick together. No matter what."
With that he left.
"All right" Naruto said "Let's pool together what we know so far."