Team 8 was peacefully and lazily training on their usual training ground, unaware of what was happening in other parts of village. Not yet aware, it was going to change, really, really soon as a matter of fact. Suddenly they were surrounded by three squads of ANBU with drawn weapons.
„Haruno Sakura you're under arrest." Said one of ANBU, while other two walked to her to restrain her and before anybody could notice what was going on, they were gone with Sakura.
„What was that?" asked Kiba, when he saw what happened
„Propably someone found evidence to arrest her. Don't really know, at least not officially." Shrugged off Hana and Kiba somewhat nodded.
Meanwhile in other part of Konoha. Haruno Mebuki was awaiting return of hired nuke-nin when she felt that she couldn't move. When she looked around he noticed four new presences inside of the room.
„Haruno Mebuki you're under arrest." Said one of them
„I'm council member and you can't arrest me." She screeched
„We can. You're under arrest on Hokage-sama orders. Tori restrain her." Ordered Neko and mentioned ANBU nodded and quickly tied her hands behind her back. Before anybody could blink they were gone with prisoner.
Through the gates of Konoha was walking person last seen here over twelve years ago, it was Toad Sage Jiraiya, one of Densetsu no Sannin, student of Sandaime Hokage and teacher of Yondaime Hokage. „Sensei said it's urgent. I wonder what it is." He mused while walking towards Hokage tower and up its wall, he rarely used doors, he preferred using windows to get inside the room.
„Jiraiya how many times I need to tell you that there is thing called door?" asked his irate sensei, once he spotted him.
„Too many." Replied his student and leaped inside. „You said in your messages that you need me here and now. Care to enlight me why?"
„Two things. Minato legacy and tracking down Tsunade." Said Sarutobi and chuckled when he saw look of horror on Jiraiya face.
„She will kill me. But Minato legacy sounds interesting." Replied Jiraiya
„No she won't. It's too long for her to ignore her family and about Naruto he needs to get Toad summoning contract and you need to teach him sealing. He should be in Senju compound and has week long break after his last mission, so you should be able to catch him." Said Hokage and Toad Sage nodded.
„Week long break? That kind is assigned after S-rank. Don't tell me he just came back from S-rank." Said almost pale Jiraiya
„He did. It was supposed to be simple courier mission to Kiri, but they ran into few unexpected obstacles. About tracking Tsunade you will have Team 7 accompany you." Said Hokage and gave Jiraiya four folders and mission scroll. Which were opened by him and quickly read.
„Not bad. Kakashi is as good as usual, Naruto looks promising, Uchiha might be useful, especially if he has Sharingan, Hyuuga is always nice." Said Jiraiya, once he read it.
„He has Sharingan, but it's not in official data. During last mission they ran into ROOT and we don't want Danzo to be even more brave." Replied Hokage and Jiraiya nodded. It made sense. „Now go meet your godson, he has inhuman strength of Senju and Uzumaki temper." Added chuckling Hokage and Jiraiya paled. He didn't like it, not at all, last time it ended with twenty six broken bones, concussion and human shaped hole in the wall.
„I will see him." Said Jiraiya and jumped out of the window ran towards Senju compound, which wasn't hard go find. After all it was one of biggest inside whole village, bigger problem was with getting inside. It was riddled with seals, traps and other gifts for unwanted visitors. Thanks to his previous visits here he knew how to pass them without getting poisoned, turned into senbon pincushion, burned and paralyzed. Finding Naruto wasn't hard, he was like giant chakra beacon if anybody had slightest sensing skills.
„Gaki, you should learn how to mask your chakra." Said Jiraiya, once he was directly behind Naruto, who jumped and looked who was standing behind him.
„White hairs, hitai-ate with kanji for oil, red marks on face. That's Jiraiya." Thought Naruto, once he took a careful look of person behind him.
„Jiraiya, I see that you finally decided to see your godson." Carefully said Naruto, with slight amount of venom in his voice. When Jiraiya took few steps backwards, he rose with smile on his face. „But I'm happy that I can finally meet."
„I would visit you sooner, but we couldn't risk getting more attention focused on you. Talking about attention, we need to work on your stealth, sensei told me that you want to sign Toad summoning and learn seals, but first we need to work on hiding your chakra. You're giant chakra beacon and it should be nothing, so you won't be discovered very easily." Said Jiraiya
„How I can do that? Sensei never mentioned it." Asked Naruto, while they walked towards one of training grounds inside of compound
„Because it's skill vigorously guarded by ANBU and spies. If you know how, you can sneak unnoticed wherever you want. Since you have perfect chakra control learning it will be rather easy. Normally chakra in untrained person system is like violent storm, if you are trained in control it will be storm, but only inside your tenketsu and pathways. To hide it you need to calm it, so it's as calm as still water." Explained Jiraiya
„How can I do that?" asked Naruto, eager to learn it, so he could hide more easily during survival exercises.
„There are two things. You need to calm your chakra and second is Meisaigakure no Jutsu. Jutsu that allows users to blend with surrounding, however it won't mask your smell and sound made by your body. Also moving might cause light distortions and those might give away your position. It's sort of genjutsu, so dojutsu won't be fooled, same as good sensors. But on rest it will work." Explained Jiraiya and Naruto nodded.
„It's same jutsu as one used by ANBU to stay hidden?' asked Naruto, who saw ANBU disappearing into walls or furniture inside of Hokage office.
„Yes. Seals are as follows Dog - Hare - Snake - Rat. But it's only half of success, second thing is masking your chakra signature. You need to calm it down, so you're not picked up by every ninja in mile radius and you could safely work with ANBU."
„How I can do that?" asked Naruto, his interest piqued by such words.
„Your chakra control is really good, but now you need to learn how to suppress it without much thinking and do that subconsciously." Explained sage and Naruto nodded „Normally chakra is moving through your body without much control, when your controls over it improves and your body mature it's getting more calm and limit to pathways." Naruto once again nodded. „You need to limit it to pathways and tenketsu and flare it when you need it and want."
„So how I can train it?" asked Naruto
„Best and fastest approach is to meditate and try to block my attacks without losing concentration on meditation. When meditating your chakra is calming down and if you can achieve same control over it without meditation you will hide it almost completely." Explained Sage and waited for Naruto to start meditating before he started to attack him.
„Not bad, gaki. You're good few more weeks or months of training and you will be able to work with ANBU. For now it's good enough for simple hiding in one place. Next thing for today is fuinjutsu." Said Jiraiya and Naruto nodded. Previous few hours were hell for him, he was getting beaten and beaten by Jiraiya while trying to meditate which was hard thing to do.
„Fuinjutsu iż art of sealing you're using ink and chakra to form seals which have different properties. For example they can be used as beacons for Hiraishin or to block all senses of person or my favorite and most useful battle and trap seals." Explained Jiraiya and Naruto nodded
„Battle seals?" he asked, curious and very, very interested in them.
„You use seals to store jutsu and weapons to launch them at the enemy. They're most difficult to make and use, one mistake and it will blow up in your face. But when written correctly they're useful, you can store multiple jutsu or even Kekkei Genkai jutsu inside of them. But last require fine understanding of chakra ratios necessary to make sub elements. But now we will start with basics, that is all basic components of seals and calligraphy." Said Jiraiya and Naruto pouted. „What's the point of calligraphy?"
„Well, one mistake in single kanji, one wrong line or even dot and whole seal may malfunction and you don't want that to happen with Hakke Fuin Shiki or Fuja Hoin. Or for that matter with any seal that is related to sealing curse or bijuu, same as most of battle or trap ones. So for next few hours we are going to work on your calligraphy." Said Jiraiya and Naruto nodded, minutes turned into hours and hours turned into days. Next seven days were hell for Naruto, Jiraiya decided to stay in Senju compound and his training regime was way harder than Yamato one, he was dropping dead at the end of day and his whole body was aching like hell. But finally after seven days of torture, it was time to go and search for Tsunade.
„Team Kakashi I have a mission for you, it's S-rank. You're ordered to accompany my student Jiraiya on his search of Tsunade and bring her home. He will meet you in thirty minutes at the North Gate." Said Hokage and team nodded. Naruto simply disappear and appeared inside tree near North gate and wondered if someone would spot him. There was good chance that none will do that.
In thirty minutes Kakashi, Sasuke and Hinata were looking around for their teammate and Jiraiya, who was seen walking from inside of the village.
„Did any of you see Naruto?" asked Kakashi
„He is here. You need to find him, I decided to test your tracking skills with this simple exercise. You can only use chakra sensing abilities and Kakashi is banned from participating, because he knows how to search for such source." Said Jiraiya and Hinata and Sasuke started looking around with their dojutsu active.
„I found something in the tree, but his chakra is too weak to be Naruto. It looks almost like civilian." Said Hinata after a moment
„That's Naruto, he is suppressing his chakra." Said Jiraiya „Naruto get down, we need to get going."
„So Jiraiya-sama any idea where we need to search?" asked Kakashi, once Naruto dropped onto ground.
„Any big gambling city or place with sake festival. She is gambler and drunk, but her luck is so bad. That whenever she wins something bad is going to happen. Last such thing happened twelve years ago on October 10th." Explained Jiraiya
„October 10th sounds familiar." Said Sasuke
„Because Kyubi attacked on that day. Previous day when she won something was when Nidaime-sama got killed." Said Jiraiya and when he mentioned it, through everybody spine went shiver of fear
„Since you're genin, we will use this trip to train. Naruto try to hide during running through treetops and Sasuke and Hinata you need to find him." Said Kakashi and his genin nodded. Naruto disappeared into treetops, while Hinata and Sasuke tried to find him.
„They remind me Minato team. Hinata as Rin, Naruto as you and Sasuke as Obito, or other way around." Said casually Jiraiya and Kakashi nodded. Those teams were really similar.
„I would say Naruto is Obito and Sasuke is me." Said jonin and Sannin nodded, while they were walking.
„First our stop will be Tanzaku Gai, it's last known place where she was, but there are reports of Orochimaru in the area. And if we will be forced to fight, take Hinata and Sasuke out of fight and let me, Tsunade and Naruto deal with Orochimaru." Said Jiraiya
„But he is just a genin." Tried to protest Kakashi and Jiraiya just snorted „He has as much chakra as Kage and rather impressive arsenal of jutsu. He can summon battle Toads, so he will do fine. Besides if it will get out of control he can use Mokuryu and create dragon for himself."
„I see your point." Managed to say Kakashi, under the gaze of elder sage. It was evening when they left the forest and appeared at the outskirts of Tanzaku Gai. It was large city with small castle built in middle of it.
„Kakashi find our some rooms in one of hotels. I will go with Naruto to look for her, he is sensor so he has best chance of all of us in finding her." Said Sage and everybody nodded. Sasuke, Hinata and Kakashi walked towards one of hotels, while Naruto and Jiraiya walked towards center of the townhouse. „Look for someone who is hiding and has perfect control of his chakra."
„I have two sources with near perfect control in one of casinos and one source with perfect and one with good in hotel in northern part of town." Said Naruto and Jiraiya thought for a moment.
„How much chakra do they have?" he asked after a while
„One with good Kage level, one with perfect middle jonin." Replied blonde
„Orochimaru and Kabuto. We need to hurry, I don't want to fight him here." Said Jiraiya and Naruto nodded, they started walking towards casino where was Tsunade, who was drinking heavily. When she spotted them her eyes widened and she blinked few times, just to be sure she was seeing Jiraiya and chibi Yondaime/Nidaime.
„What do you want Jiraiya?" she growled, while looking at him.
„Sensei wants you back in Konoha." Said Jiraiya and was forced to duck under flying sake bottle.
„Nice aim Baa-chan." Said Naruto and on Tsunade forehead appeared tick mark and towards Naruto was hurled whole table with sake bottles, cups, poker chips, everything on it. Naruto punched it and sent it back, or what was left of it towards Tsunade. Who jumped out of the way, but people that were behind her weren't that lucky and got showered in splinters and other things.
„Maybe we should talk in more civilized way?" quietly suggested Jiraiya and Tsunade nodded. „Than I know great place for such talk."
Twenty minutes later they were safely seated around table in hotel where Kakashi got them rooms, even genin were allowed to sit there, but they stayed away from Tsunade. Especially after they remembered that she had same inhuman strength as Naruto.
„So sensei wants me, because Senju clan seat on council opened?" she asked „And offers spot as head of hospital and medical corps?"
„Yes. Plus that you will help with his heir training." Said Jiraiya and Tsunade eyes widened, when she heard those words.
„Who is his heir?" she warily asked, knowing what council could do.
„He is sitting with us." Crypticaly said Jiraiya and Tsunade looked over every single ninja, looking for subtle signs saying that they were used to giving orders and had this subtle aura of danger surrounding them. There were only three such people Hatake Kakashi, Jiraiya and surprisingly Naruto. Who looked like weird mix between Nidaime and Yondaime Hokage, he was young but his chakra felt powerful and dense. Only Jiraiya and sensei had chakra similar to his, rest looked like flowers compared to his, which looked like powerful and fully grown tree. Kakashi had almost equally powerful one, but his was drained by his Sharingan and looked like good sized tree.
„It's either Naruto, you or Kakashi. Rest is just too weak. Also Naruto chakra feels really, really familiar." Said Tsunade
„It's Naruto and his chakra is so familiar, because of his Kekkei Genkai. Somehow through weird mutation or not, he awakened Mokuton. But it kind of make sense it was passed from your grandfather, but it just needed time to stabilize and three generations were enough. He also inherited Tobirama Suiton ability." Said Jiraiya and Tsunade eyes widened
„I won't believe until I see it." Replied Tsunade and was shocked when suddenly ball made out of water formed in Naruto palm and there was no visible source to it. „Okay, that's enough." She replied, a little stunned by such thing.
„So tomorrow we are returning to Konoha or you want to beat Orochimaru before it?" asked Jiraiya
„How do you know that he is here?" asked Tsunade „Oh, Naruto is sensor." She said and received nod in response.
„Orochimaru? Isn't he a traitor." Asked Sasuke
„He is. I'm in no mood for talking with him. So we will quickly move out of this town and hopefully miss him." Tsunade said and rest nodded „If not I guess we will have another summons battle. Question is who has summoning contracts and which ones."
„I have Dog one, but it's mostly tracker. So it will be useless." Said Kakashi and Tsunade nodded
„I have Monkey and Toad one." Said Naruto and people reactions were different. Jiraiya simply nodded, Tsunade fell from her chair, Kakashi muttered „Kai" just making sure he wasn't under influence of genjutsu. Hinata eyes widened and Sasuke blinked.
„Monkey one? What did you do to sensei so he gave you this contract, which was given to him by my grandfather." Asked Tsunade, once she overcame her shock.
„Nothing, I just suggested it and he agreed." Said Naruto
„But why do you need Toad one?" asked Kakashi
„Because Toads have key to seal keeping Kyubi and they're battle summons. Big and nasty." Said Naruto and Jiraiya nodded in confirmation.
„Also his father was Toad summoner, so it was natural for Naruto to be summoner as well. If needed he can summon battle Toads, so we shouldn't have issues with fighting Orochimaru." Added Jiraiya, they finished their dinner and left for bed. They were going to left at the first dawn. They didn't want to meet any unwanted people, such as Orochimaru who was in the area and fight with him could completely destroy landscape. And nobody wanted to explain to Fire Daimyo why one of his towns was turned into half destroyed ruin.
„I may take new apprentice." Said Tsunade, when they were walking out of town. „And I think I found perfect person, don't you think Shizune that Hinata would do great as medic?" she asked, while looking at her friend and assistant.
„Yes. Hyuuga chakra control and anatomy knowledge are great foundations for medic." Said Shizune and Tsunade nodded in agreement. She always wanted to teach Hyuuga, but she never had opportunity to do that.
„But for that we need to get to Konoha and it will take us some time to get there." Cheerfully said Jiraiya.
„And first thing I need to do is beat sensei for what he did." Added Tsunade, while cracking her knuckles.
„What did he do?" asked Kakashi.
„He never ever sent a message with information about Naru-chan." Said Tsunade in angry voice and leaking some killing intent
„Naru-chan?" snickered Sasuke and received fist to the face and was sent into trees to the left of road.
„Anybody has any questions?" asked Naruto with sweet smile on his face and image of Shinigami behind him. Kakashi gulped when he saw it, it reminded him too much of furious Kushina-sensei, especially when someone got close to her ramen or called her Tomato. Jiraiya took few steps backwards, he saw similar smile on Tsunade face when she was ready to beat someone and Naruto looked like he was going to kill someone. Slug Princess nodded approvingly while Shizune ran after Sasuke, who crashed somewhere in trees and propably had broken bone or two.
„It's not that bad, only twelve broken bones." Said Shizune, once she emerged from forest with Sasuke.
„Only? Twelve? Broken? Bones?" asked Kakashi
„Yes. Last such punch ended for me with over twenty six broken and concussion, not to mention sensei had new window in his office." Said Jiraiya, remembering too painfully one of team briefings after mission.
„Before we kill each other we better be in Konoha. I'm in no mood for patching wounds." Said Tsunade and everybody quickly nodded and quickened their pace. When they entered the gates of Konoha it was already a late evening of the day and everybody wanted nothing more that good night sleep and rest.
„You can go I will handle sensei." Said Tsunade and dragged Jiraiya with herself and Shizune to Hokage tower, while team 7 stood there watching what was happening in front of them with mild interest.
„Meet me on our training ground in two days. We need to up your training chunin exams are in six months and I want to prepare you for them. I think you will have a chance to pass them, especially with upped training. In two weeks time we will leave for two months long training trip." Said cheerfully Kakashi and his team nodded. Sasuke went to his compound, same as Hinata, but Naruto veered off towards Inuzuka compound. On way to which he ran into team eight, which was missing a member.
„Where is Sakura?" he asked, once he saw Shino and Kiba. „I've been out of the village for last month and half."
„So you didn't hear fresh news that she is in T&I and is waiting for mental examination?" asked him Kiba
„No. I was in Kirigakure and today we got back from tracking down Tsunade." Said Naruto
„What? You were in Kirigakure and on mission to get one of Sannin to the village?" asked him Kiba
„Yep. I will tell you more once I see Tsume." Said Naruto and kept walking towards Inuzuka compound where he met Tsume and her canine companion. Who liked him and tried to get his attention, which was a little surprising for him, he never expected such thing. Not from Inuzuka ninken, which were wary of strangers. But it may like him, because of time spent by him in this compound.
„Where have you been for past month?" asked him Tsume, once she saw him.
„Doing S-rank missions and searching Sannin." Said Naruto and Kiba mouth was wide open when he heard phrase 'S-rank mission'
„S-rank missions? At this age?" asked Tsume
„First was normal C-rank that was upgraded, second was more of tracking and doing nothing. Also I signed summoning contract or two." Explained Naruto and Tsume nodded, but her eyes focused on Naruto when he mentioned summoning.
„Toads?" she asked remembering what Minato used to summon
„And Monkeys. But that's besides the point." He said and looked at Tsume, while petting Kuromaru. „Is there any chance that you could give me same ninken as Hana has?" he quietly asked
„I would need to discuss it with clan council and it would be no sooner than after chunin exams." Said Tsume very carefully and with narrowed eyes. „Why do you want to have ninken?"
„Because they're great companions and are useful as trackers." Replied Naruto and she nodded.
„As I said no sooner than after chunin exam and your performance during it will be crucial, at best your chances are slim." She said and he nodded, and left.
Meanwhile in Hokage office Sandaime Hokage was trying to survive wrath of his student.
„Why did you never told me that Minato had son!? I would return to Konoha!" shouted Tsunade and tried to beat Hokage into bloody pulp. „Why!?"
„We couldn't risk revealing his heritage! We were too weak and if you would appear to take care of him assasins would swarm on us." Weakly said Hokage, shocked by Tsunade fury.
„What! You're dead sensei!" she shouted before grabbing his desk and hurling it at him. He barely dodged it and Hokage office had new window to it and people walking on the street below it, were forced to dodge falling debris and this heavy piece of furniture.
„Calm down Tsunade-hime." Said Jiraiya „I'm furious too, but killing him isn't the best idea." Begging said Jiraiya and unfortunately for him, he was used as next thing to throw by Tsunade and screaming was thrown out of window breaking it and demolishing part of wall around it and landed inside woman hot spring. Where he received another serious beating.
„Ah yes, where we were. Care to give me one good reason, why you didn't inform me about Minato-kun child?" hissed Tsunade, while rolling up her sleeves and walking towards her sensei.
„As I said we were too weak and we couldn't reveal his heritage. But I also forgot about it." Said Sandaime Hokage and paled when he saw evil glint in Tsunade eyes, one that signaled her readiness to beat someone.
„But! You! Had! Time! To! Reveal! His! Status! As! Kyubi! Jinchuuriki!" she shouted destroying another wall and throwing debris towards her sensei who managed to dodge it. Soon followed by her monstrous punches, that turned most of office into battlefield and area around it didn't look to good. Some genins would have a lot of D-rank missions in next few weeks. And she didn't even visit hospital and discover how bad it was there and that would cause another tantrum of her and half of it would get demolished.
„What's going on?" weakly asked Hinata, when she walked out of her bedroom and heard shouts and sounds of crashing roofs.
„You were on mission to bring back Tsunade-sama?" asked her father and patriarch of Hyuuga clan.
„Yes, I was Tou-san." She replied and slightly bowed.
„Than that's famous Tsunade-sensei temper." Replied chuckling Hiashi and watched area with active Byakugan, trying to find her chakra. „Some poor genins will have a lot of D-rank construction missions. Half of Hokage office is destroyed."
„She was your sensei?" asked Hinata
„Yes. I was on her team with Uchiha Fugaku and Nara Yoshino." Said Hiashi, remembering good and old times. „You're on team with Senju Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke?"
„Hai"
„It will be interesting team. Can you invite Naruto to our compound? I have some scrolls given to me by Kushina-chan that should belong to him." Said Hiashi and Hinata nodded.
Night was long for most of Konoha citizens and after it Hokage tower was a lot shorter, it lost something like story in height and area around it was full of ruble, but somehow Hokage managed to calm down Tsunade, but even than she beat him to inch of his life and left the building destroying everything in her path and waking up most of Konoha inhabitants.
Two days later team 7 was waiting for their sensei on their usual training ground, team mechanics since last missions improved and it was safe to say that they were friends. Especially since fateful mission to Mizu no Kuni, when they were forced to save each other and similar experience can form strong bonds between people.
„Yo! Today is a little special, because of chunin exams that are in six months during next twelve days you will take part in survival exercise along with every other genin team from Konoha. You will be graded for your performance by proctors and after it there will be chosen sixteen teams that will take part in chunin exam. Today we will do light training in preparation for this exercise." Announced Kakashi
„Do you know where will take place this exercise?" asked Naruto
„Training area sixty nine. It's one of ANBU training ground, almost whole is covered in trees and there are couple of streams and lakes. It's twenty by twenty kilometers area and there will be placed caches with supplies around it for you to use. Content of them will be randomized, you may find couple sets of kunai, shuriken and ninja wire or some food or medical supplies. Maiming or killing is allowed, but you can do that only as last resort. Other important thing is that until start of exercise you may form alliances with whatever team you want." Explained Kakashi
„What about training?" asked Sasuke
„It will be mostly how to hide your chakra and how to mask your presence. It will be extremely useful for you, after that couple of simple genjutsu for your Sharingan and how to use them in fight. Last but not least how to move in such area when under fire." Said Kakashi and his students nodded. There was almost no chance for them to master those abilities, maybe excluding Sharingan genjutsu, but even good understanding of them would help them immensely. Masking chakra and your presence in the area was skill rarely taught outside of ANBU and learning it as genin would help them a lot. When you couldn't feel someone chakra it made you very nervous and uncomfortable, during fights it was crucial, many people got killed because they lost peace of mind during fight. Also moving under fire was thing that could be learned only from shinobi that took part in actual war and Team Kakashi was lucky, because their sensei fought in last war.
After few hours of training they were tired, but it wasn't as hard as usual. It mostly tired their minds, because they were forced to learn new things, a lot of them as a matter of fact in very short time frame. Usually in ANBU they were covered in parts, but Kakashi didn't have luxury of too much time, so he squeezed as much as possible in as small time frame as possible.
„Any idea with which teams we should make alliances?" asked Naruto, after they were done with training
„Team 9 and 10?" suggested Sasuke
„Yes. I like your idea. Neji-nii is one of best Juuken fighters and rest of his team is alright. About 10 they're alright team, they're not bad and have interesting abilities." Said Hinata and Naruto nodded. „What about team 8?"
„No, never. I don't trust Sakura." Said Naruto „And she is a fangirl of gigantic proportions."
„So Hinata you talk with nine and I think that Naruto will talk with ten. In meantime I will get all necessary supplies for our group. Tell them to meet us in Senju compound in hour time." Said Sasuke and Naruto and Hinata nodded.
„I like it." Said Naruto and disappeared, followed by Hinata and Sasuke
„Hey guys" Said Naruto, once he appeared on training ground used by team ten. „Are you taking part in tomorrow exercise?"
„Yes. It's troublesome, but we are doing that." Said Shikamaru and rest nodded.
„What you would say about making it less troublesome?" asked Naruto and once he had their interest he added. „I'm talking about alliance, with you and Team 9."
„I like it, but what about team 8?" asked Ino
„Never. I'm not going to trust Sakura in long time." Replied Naruto and people blinked few times. Naruto not trusting Sakura?
„What happened?" asked Shikamaru
„Her mother sent three nuke-nin after me and before that Sakura tried to murder me during training." Said Naruto and Team 10 members were surprised. They never expected her to be so bad, everybody knew she didn't like Naruto, but that was just awful.
„I see." Said Shikamaru and looked at Chouji and Ino who nodded. „We will be there."
„Good. Meet us at Senju compound in hour time." Said Naruto and disappeared
„9 is coming" Said Hinata once they were in Senju compound, where Naruto was training with Tsunade how to use Chakura no Mesu in fight, they were deadly if used properly. But they had also more mundane usage, that is during surgeries. When they were used to cut tissues around wound or place where iryonin wanted to get. However during fights they were mainly used to cut tendons and muscles to limit movements of enemy.
„10 is also coming." Said Naruto, while dodging scalpel that passed way to close to his face. „They should be any moment here."
„Than I think it's enough for today. You're good, but you need to work some more on them. You need experience in usage of them, you have control to use them, but not enough experience and any half decent medic would cut you into pieces without much troubles. But for this exercise it will be enough." Said Tsunade and Naruto nodded and walked to see if teams were coming.
Twenty minutes later teams 9 and 10 were inside and ready to talk.
„Senseis told us it's in the forested area, which for me is huge advantage." Said Naruto, while unrolling map of forests surrounding Konoha with marked training grounds.
„You don't mean Mokuton?" asked Shikamaru
„Yes, I mean that." Replied Naruto
„If you're good with it, it will be easy. We will use your abilities to build some sort of hideout and we will use it as base of operations. We have what two Hyuuga, Uchiha, two civilians, Senju, Nara, Yamanaka and Akimichi. Which is pretty decent set. Question is about Sasuke. If he unlocked his Sharingan and how good are you Naruto with your Mokuton." Said Shikamaru, while thinking deeply and analyzing map and their strategy.
„I have Sharingan and Kakashi-sensei showed me some genjutsu that can be used with it." Said Sasuke, who was polishing his sword.
„What about you Naruto?" asked Shikamaru
„Rather good. I can do almost every Mokuton jutsu, even strongest ones, but they will leave me exhausted." Said our favorite blonde „I have a way around it, but it's in emergency only." At the word emergency Hinata and Sasuke exchanged knowing look, usage of Kyubi chakra.
„Good. In terms of close range we are pretty good. Hinata, Neji, Lee and Chouji. Middle it will be Sasuke and you Naruto, while support and long range will be me, Tenten and Ino." Explained Shikamaru and mentioned people nodded. „Pack for month of combat, we don't know what to expect inside. Gates will be assigned on first to go, first to get. Which is good for us, because we will be able to hopefully get single gate."
„Okay." Murmured everybody and left to pack. Naruto decided to wear his plate armor with us many additional plates as possible, on top of that first aid kit, pouch with poisons and senbon, usual weapons and few storage scrolls with energy batons and drinks to eat if needed. Almost everybody put on themselves as much supplies as possible and practical, they also had as much weapons as possible. Chance to resupply inside would be slim, unless they manage to get lucky with supply caches.