Chapter 4

The seed is strong part 3

Naruto

There are moments in every shinobi's life when they must endure great deals of pain to accomplish their objectives. He personally considered being tormented by a sadistic jounin to be such a moment. Based on appearances he'd figured Kakashi would at the very least too lazy to methodically disable every body of him with a throat punch that could've on its own been bothersome add in over 200 reminders and the compound pain from 5 direct hits and you had yourself one deeply pained Uzumaki.

He was too pained to move and he was too pained to look around but he wasn't too pained to hear. Listening on the otherhand was more difficult. Regardless what he'd heard had given him the feeling he loved most, the feeling of a job well done. He'd heard Kakashi dragging Momo out of a thick cluster of trees interogating her about the bells. Momo had just started crying causing the jounin to half interogate half consul the weeping ninja.

Satsuki brought out the bells not long after with confidence that defied the bruises and wear on her clothes. They all had been dismantled by the jounin but they had passed said jounins test "fine you all pass." Kakashi announced.

Naruto would have been jumping up and down in celebration if he wasn't hurting so bad. In fact the only person celebrating was Momo who'd only been caught after she hid the bells and without a fight at that. No matter the means they'd passed and were officially genin. The thought struck him a moments after Kakashi left.

He couldn't help himself. "yes!!!" He shouted. Bugger his throat and bugger the pain. He Was a Genin! The dead last was gold at last!

Two years ago, when he was simply orphan naruto deadlast of the academy he'd dreamed about being an official genin and building a name as a great ninja but by the time he was ten he'd come to fear failure in his ability. Worse even was how little faith the instructors had in him, complaining about his attitude and ranting about what a waste it was training someone destined for failure that didn't pay fees. It wasn't like it was his fault he was an orphan, they didn't understand. None of them did.

Iruka. Naruto's favourite sensei. His heart ached at his memory. ' I should have studied.' Was what he told himself this time and every time he thought about two years ago. He'd failed his graduation entrance exam instead of preparing for exam he'd pranked old man Koshi the shop owner near his building. Rotten fish hidden on the under side of his counter table. He laughed the whole afternoon at the old man searching for the source of the smell. The next day he failed his exam. He'd screamed at Iruka when he'd said he would have to wait three years to write the test again.

When all of his shenanigans following lead to Mizuki's betrayal and Iruka's death, Naruto had hit rock bottom. Guilty for the part he played and angry at a world that didn't care. He'd been dragged from one meeting to another retelling the murder of his father figure by his favourite teacher. By the end of it he was convinced he'd be locked up for the part he played in the case. Instead he'd been registered into the golden leaf roster and the rest was history. Every one there had laughed Naruto but he'd promised himself to be Hokage , refusing to give up he practiced and trained the shadow clone a gift from Mizuki. Naruto worked until he passed his graduation and classification exam on the same day. He wasn't the brightest but hard work payed off.

After Kakashi's test The squad began their mentorship under the man. Teamwork was the theme of their exercises and mainly against stronger opponents. Kakashi would create scenarios and then let the team think of strategies against them he'd add in his own comments some times to build upon ideas he agreed with and sometimes to sabotage them. They would then reenact the scenarios with Kakashi and anbu members as the targets. Day in day out they trained from morning to evening. What time they had for personal indulgence was spent resting for the next days sessions.

It was a bright and blistering day when the ritual training came to an end. Instead of training at 8 in the morning they'd been told to prepare for a mission outside of kanoha. The packing took a long time but in the end Naruto finished his packing before the team was summoned to the Hokage tower.

When he entered with the team and Kakashi he saw the old man hokage speaking to another jounin. Naruto shuffled as he waited for the hokage to address them. Finding himself starting to tire of the waiting he let out a loud "Ah hem!" which earned him slap to the back of the head from Kakashi.

The hokage turned his attention to Naruto and smiled. "Forgive me Naruto kun I didn't see you there. Hm hm." The hokage laughed at the blonde trouble maker.

"This is Kurenhai Yuuhi she will be guiding you to your objective. The protection of a bridge builderin the land of waves. The bridge builder is being targeted by international magnate Gato. I have decided to sponcer him protection for his bridge. Two genin teams had been sent to protect the man from bandits under mission rank c protocols. When the group was set upon by two chunin missing nin from kiri attacked Yuuhi san disbanded from the group to report the missing information on the matter. I have chosen your team to be our response team. You are trained to be the best of our shinobi your forehead protectors carry the weight of this village and our hopes. You will travel to this island and represent the interests of Konoha by diplomatically negotiating the alliance between the wave and our village."

"Yata! We we will save everyone believe it!" Naruto couldn't help but shout. He was buzzing with excitement his first official mission and it was to save his fellow comrades from Powerful enemies. The old man and the two jounin continued discussing the mission While the team waited at parade rest, well mostly Naruto was shaking with excitement. When they left the office after being ordered to prepare and meet at the front gates Naruto was chastised by Satsuki for being rude and unprofessional during meetings but he mostly ignored her and half apologised.

The time it took him to get to the gates was minimal as he only needed to pick up a prepared travelling bag so it was a surprise when he was the last one to arrive.

"Last again dobe." Sasuke said sneering at the knucklehead ninja.

"Shut up teme!!!" Naruto shouted, there was no way he was letting duck butt ruin his good mood.

"What took you so long anyway? We've been waiting the passed 10 minutes." Kiba explained.

Naruto couldn't believe it, how did they get here that much faster than him didn't they also fetch their gear he wondered. "I had to get my bag from my room didn't you?" He answered

"Tch, dobe." Mocked Sasuke. Earning him a glare from the so called dobe.

"We all prepared our bags into these storage seals, you see? They only cost 50 Chara at the seal store." Momo explained showing him the sealed paper.

"What!" Naruto couldn't help but exclaim at the discovery. He knew about written seals but he didn't really know what they were for or how they worked but he did know that his hero the fourth Hokage was known as the best user of them ever. Iruka had spoken on the topic he remember but what he'd said was fuzzy.

"we're all here so lets get going." Commanded Kurenhai while Kakashi read his smut." It takes a week for a civilian to get to the Wave from here. we should be able to reach them before they sail if we travel at chunin pace until sunset and again at dawn till midday. Whay do you think Kakashi? Can these brats handle it?" asked

"Well they are the best of their generation. They'll make us proud."