Naruto's Advice

by atom-of-ice

Several days after becoming a team Sakura is depressed by another of Sasuke’s rejections and turns to Naruto expecting to be uplifted by his crush. What she gets instead may change her whole outlook on life and her purpose in it.

10. Chapter 9

The day after Naruto explained about the Kyuubi to Sakura it seemed that her luck had taken a turn for the worse. Nothing truly bad was happening to her but all her plans involving Naruto were being repeatedly shot down. She had made it home okay the night before and had immediately after been sat down by her mother and father and basically interrogated about her mission.

She wasn't actually surprised when she found out that her parents expected her to quit after her first serious mission. Well more correctly she would have been surprised if she hadn't already known that killing was a core principle of being a ninja. Her parents had apparently assumed that after seeing her first death close up or watching her teammates or sensei kill someone she would decide that being a kunoichi wasn't all that glamorous and she would quit.

Unfortunately for them she already knew, after many harsh lessons from Naruto, being a kunoichi wasn't glamorous or easy or flashy like the minor fire jutsu the villagers saw demonstrated during festivals like pretty fireworks. So when she informed them that she had already taken a life and she couldn't imagine going back to being a naïve villager anymore, her parents were somewhat shaken. Her tousan had always been more understanding and more willing to let his daughter make her own choices and this time was no different. After asking seriously if she were okay with her profession of choice and getting assurance that she was, he backed off and reminded her that even though he wasn't a shinobi he was her father and she could come to him with any problems she had or if she needed to talk.

Her kaasan on the other hand was nearly impossible. Although there had been talk among the Haruno clan about possibly putting some of the children into the ninja program to better their rapport with the ninja populous, the future Haruno matriarch wasn't thrilled that her daughter was the first. This difference of opinion between mother and daughter spawned an argument that turned into a screaming match her tousan had abandoned them to after an hour and continued after he left for another hour. The end result of the shouting match was that Sakura overslept and was late getting to her team's meeting place.

Once she arrived at the bridge she was surprised that nobody was there. After about five minutes of waiting she began looking around and eventually found a note from Kakashi-sensei pinned to the bottom of the bridge railing with a senbon. The note informed her that there would be no team activities or mission today due to the complexity of the report he and, by extension, they would have to write. With the reminder to write her report she needed to find someone who knew how and could teach her. Obviously Kakashi wasn't going to be any help.

Her search took up another hour and a half before she found Hinata and Haku wondering around the village apparently familiarizing Haku with her new home. Sakura stopped to ask Hinata how to write a mission report because she remembered that Team 8 had already completed a short C-rank patrol mission as training for their most probable future deployment. So she knew that Hinata would know how to write a mission report. She had been quickly roped into showing Haku around with Hinata and finally after three hours of that she was invited back to Kurenai-sensei's apartment where they would work on her mission report together with Kurenai.

This was basically how Sakura spent most of her day.

-- break --

Naruto's day was less hectic.

After Kakashi showed up only five minutes late and told them that they had the day off but they needed to write up mission reports before they got paid, Naruto made a beeline for the house of a certain former ANBU captain. If anyone knew the correct way to do it and all the little helpful shortcuts and ninja slang that would make writing go faster it would be him.

So here Naruto was on the doorstep of Iruka's apartment. Judging by the sounds coming from inside the apartment he was still making the most of the academy vacation and he seemed to using his girlfriend Anko to do so.

Naruto bet that he was one of maybe five people that knew Iruka had once been one of the most feared ANBU captains in recent times. With the much more visible and infamous Kakashi and Itachi respectively, Iruka was mostly pushed under the mat. But that suited him well. He didn't want to be known as the Mizujian that had cut his way through dozens of Kumo-nin in the conflict that preceded the botched peace agreement that now stood as a shaky no hostilities pact between the two nations. He had hung up his armor on the day that Konoha had sent the head of Hyuuga Hiashi's twin brother back to Kumo to appease the same people he had been fighting for six straight years after the Kyuubi attack. Iruka had told the Hokage as formally as possible that he wanted no part in a military that would kill their own people to fix their enemy's transgressions.

Naruto had found out when he had broken the seal that Iruka had placed on the bottom drawer of his bedside dresser and had seen the chakra sword that Iruka had wielded contained within. It was soon after this that Iruka and Naruto had become the closest of friends/brothers/father-son/whatever. It had been Naruto that helped Iruka let go of his anger at the Hokage and get him to take up his sword again if not rejoin ANBU or take the rank of jonin. Ironically it had been Iruka practicing his sword forms unmasked in an obscure training field that had gotten him Mitarashi Anko as a girlfriend so that bit of good luck could probably be accredited to Naruto as well.

Which brought Naruto back to his current conundrum. If he wanted to get paid he needed to talk to Iruka, or Anko, it didn't matter to him but he had come for Iruka. On the other hand, it was quite clear to him that they were having some fairly vigorous sex in there at the moment. Now Naruto knew that he would never want to be interrupted while having sex but at the same time the man he was thinking about interrupting was a schoolteacher and it was coming up on 10am so really any of his students could potentially be mentally scarred by this. Given: Naruto doubted that any of Iruka's current students (barring another Inuzuka) would have good enough hearing to notice but it was the principle of the situation that mattered here.

Of course there was always another option. Naruto's face morphed into something that could possibly pass for the face of a devious fox as he grinned evilly. He knew that both of the shinobi in there would detect him long before he was able to surprise them totally so the idea here was to get in there fast enough to catch them in a very compromising situation. If he timed it right his victims… err, friends… might be distracted enough by their state that they wouldn't notice him until too late.

He quickly picked the lock on the door and slipped in silently, making sure to keep his bells silent too. He eased the door closed behind him and was gratified that the noises emanating from the bedroom continued. Naruto quickly and silently moved though the house and finally stood in front of the open bedroom door. As he watched his most trusted friend screwing another of his friends, Naruto wondered at his mental state… if he could watch this calmly without freaking out or being disgusted, what did that say about him?

"Well you two look like you're having fun." Naruto deadpanned. He received three kunai in answer and even as they flew at him he wondered where Anko had pulled hers from. Iruka took the one he threw off the top of the headboard so Naruto knew where that one came from.

A week ago Naruto would have dodged and based on the placement he would have gone left and had his cheek sliced shallowly by Iruka's kunai (Anko was a bad influence on Iruka Naruto was convinced). Today after having invented a working, if not mastered, version of tetsusukin Naruto didn't even move.

The sex stopped immediately as Iruka's kunai flew past Naruto and out into the hall while the two thrown by Anko struck Naruto square in the chest and right shoulder.

The sound the two kunai made when they bounced off him and hit the floor was deafening in the newly silent room.

"When you're finished I need your help writing a mission report Iruka-sensei," chirped Naruto cheerfully as he savored the shocked looks he was receiving. He abruptly turned on his heel and marched out taking great care to make his geta and bells as loud as possible.

-- break --

Iruka and Anko were out in the kitchen and dressed in record time.

"Holy shit brat, when did you get armor you scared the life outta me!" yelled Anko.

"That wasn't armor Anko-chan. How did you do that Naruto?" asked a suddenly serious Iruka. It was always interesting to Naruto to see the personality change that Iruka went through when faced with something he would have dealt with or would be expected to deal with as an ANBU captain.

"Well that's one of my new techniques, taichou."

"I am no longer an ANBU captain so you can drop that right now."

"But you are technically a chunin. Are you telling me that chunin aren't my superiors? Wow, here I thought that genin were the lowest of the low but it turns out you really have to take that whomping big test to be a better grunt." Naruto commented, turning towards Anko.

"Yeah, yeah, you've proved you're a smartass. Now what's this new technique?" asked Iruka with surprisingly ill concealed impatience. Anko nodded in agreement eager to learn something new that she hadn't seen before.

"I'm not sure it would work for either of you but it's a type of chakra shield. I call it tetsusukin and it's basically just highly concentrated chakra just below the skin. I gather a high pressure shell under the first layer of my skin. Because it's under my skin I don't have to concentrate to keep it there, just when I'm adding to it, and when I release the technique it should theoretically return to my coils but I don't know if it actually works that way because I've just been reinforcing it since I came up with the idea. It works great! I've had a thrown kunai shatter against it and I didn't even have a scratch."

"Who the hell were you fighting that can throw a kunai hard enough to shatter it on contact? That sounds like you were baiting Tsunade." Anko commented incredulously.

"That's not far from the truth actually. I'm not sure if I should tell you who they are. It's kind of a secret, not a very good one but most people don't know about it so we'd like to keep it that way." Anko shook her head ruefully.

"Pity, I'd like to meet the person who can do that. Maybe they could teach me, Kami knows Tsunade isn't telling anyone how she does it." Anko sighed.

"I heard that she had an apprentice. Doesn't she know how Tsunade does it?" asked Naruto.

"If she knows Shizune isn't telling anyone either, but I doubt she knows because she's never been reported to use it. If I knew something like that you can bet I'd use it." Iruka commented. "Well thank you for interrupting us and scaring us out of another two or three years of life with that knife trick. You said you needed something?"

"Yeah, I need you to teach me how to write a mission report. Should I be worried that you don't sound as disappointed as I would be if someone interrupted my sex?" asked Naruto slightly nervous now.

"I'd've been more disappointed if that was the first time this morning we've done that, but you can expect payback at some point."

"I really didn't need that image Iruka-sensei."

"Well let's get started on that mission report shall we? Do you have a blank mission form and a pen? Alright, start filling in the boxes and when you get to the description of the mission just tell Anko and me about it and we'll tell you what you need to write down for the pencil ninja to look at."

Anko looked wary at hearing about a C-rank mission in excruciating detail but so far all of Naruto's stories of his adventures had been good so maybe this would be. Naruto spent about five minutes filling out the top part of the form before he set it aside and launched into an explanation of the mission.

-- break --

About two hours later Naruto's form was fully filled out and Anko and Iruka were about to go gut Kakashi. Once Naruto had gotten to the part about training his tetsusukin he'd been forced to reveal the identity of the super-strong ninja as Sakura. While this had gotten some good reactions from the two ninja listening to him he wasn't so happy that he'd revealed a secret. In the end Iruka and Anko agreed that something like that wasn't going to stay a secret long and they felt themselves sufficient enough actors to fake surprise once they found out about it. Or if that wasn't enough they could always use: "ANBU connections" which they explained was just another way of saying: "I'm not telling you how I know so drop it and be satisfied that I know".

Naruto bid them farewell, told them that he had better be the baby's honorary uncle, and raced out of the door before they found a way around not being able to peg him to the nearest solid object with kunai.

Naruto decided that he couldn't go to the Hokage without Sakura or at least a fairly detailed account of what he was allowed to reveal so he thought he might try to up his elemental affinities. He knew what worked for him and now all he had to do was find a way to keep doing it. He decided that immersion worked best. After all that's what everyone else did but they chose to do it in the form of high-level jutsu practiced again and again. The problem with Naruto's way was that it took so much chakra. For someone who got it all back so quickly this wasn't a problem at all but for people who might be able to saturate the element in question for several hours and then have to rest for several days this posed quite the stumbling block.

Naruto thought that since wind came easiest to him he would start there. He needed to make a goal for himself otherwise he could spend the rest of his life attempting to get mastery over wind or he could consider himself a master already. The question now became where to call it good enough to move on to other elements.

He wanted to eventually have enough of a mastery of the four main elements to move on to the combined elements as they would allow for much better use in more specialized applications. The idea was that since nobody expected Mokuton jutsu anymore if you could actually manipulate wood you would have an incredible advantage in the forest. On the other hand Aisu jutsu would be incredibly useful in cold climates like Snow or Kumo and because of its harder nature an ice jutsu would always trump a similar power water jutsu. Of course there would always be downsides. Ice and wood required a nearby source of water, even if it could be underground for wood jutsu, and the more the climate differed from the ideal state of the element you were using the harder the jutsu was going to be to use. For example: ice and wood jutsu would not be good to use in Suna because there was no water and it was hot.

He decided that since Haku had her bloodline to help her with her affinities he would need to do something impressive like the wind blade she had released from her naginata during their fight. He decided that if he could release decent wind blades from knife hand strikes and sweeping kicks and wind bullets from sidekicks and straight punches then he could consider himself a master and move on to water where Haku and Iruka would be able to help eventually with ice and right away with water respectively.

Naruto now had to find a different secluded training ground than his usual bamboo forest. He couldn't use the one he'd summoned Enma in though because he wanted to keep that to himself to go to when he wanted to be alone and he knew Sakura had to find him later today. He wasn't about to let loose a bunch of wind blades in his precious bamboo forest though. He needed a training area with a clearing. Well when in doubt ask someone who might know right? He decided that as a fellow wind user he should ask Asuma-sensei. Now all he had to do was find him.

-- break --

Naruto eventually found the shinobi in question training, if you could call it that, with his team on Training Field 43. He wasn't sure though if playing shogi with Shikamaru while Chouji watched and Ino read a magazine was considered training. Undeterred Naruto walked up to Asuma.

"Um, Asuma-sensei? I was told that you were a wind element shinobi and I was wondering if you knew any good places to practice that around here."

"Yes I know some good places for that." Asuma replied.

"…"

"Could you tell me?"

"Yes"

"…"

"Where are the good places to practice wind jutsu?" growled out Naruto.

"I knew we'd get there eventually. Sometimes it is best to just ask for what you need directly instead of beating around the bush." Asuma stated.

"In that case may I ask an impertinent question?" asked Naruto.

"You may. I may not choose to answer it."

"What exactly are Ino and Chouji learning sitting around here? Shikamaru I can write off as strategy exercise but I'm not really sure what Ino is learning about being a kunoichi in a civilian teen girl magazine." Naruto bit out with more than a little venom. He had nothing against Asuma personally but he hated seeing team members getting preferential treatment.

"Well, I imagine that you are looking for a specific answer to a question like that. I could tell you that Ino is learning to better blend into the civilian populous and Chouji is getting a better grasp on the stratagems that Shikamaru is apt to use in battle but something tells me that you're looking for 'nothing' on both counts." Asuma stated dryly.

"I'm sorry that came out disrespectful but I have a problem on my team with inequality in team training. Circumstances being as they are I can't really do anything about it but it makes me more frustrated in other teams when I see it or think I see it. Perhaps you have a reason for letting them sit around?" asked Naruto a little chided. Surely with someone as intelligent as Asuma running things there was a reason beyond laziness for their break. It was entirely acceptable for Asuma to say 'because I told them to' and not explain himself but Naruto always had trouble keeping his nose out of other people's business.

"The truth is that with their prominent families I am obligated to make sure that they have enough chakra at the end of the day for them to practice their clan techniques. I am probably of the same opinion as you that they should be training but the council and public approval lies with the clans. I don't think they should get too specialized in their families techniques because if they ever come across someone who has fought their fathers before they won't be able to do anything new and they will be defeated. I'm helping Shikamaru develop strategy to minimize that but there is only so much I can do. I am bound much in the same way your training is, unfortunately. I assume you came here to find a place to experiment on your own?"

"Yes, I've found I have an easier time with wind jutsu than any others I've tried and I thought I'd explore that. I've only got one workable jutsu right now but I've been able to mess with it a little to make it more effective and I thought that with a place to practice I could get better at tweaking it."

"It sounds like you have a very high wind affinity if you are able to affect changes in jutsu as a genin." By now all of Team 10 was listening unabashedly without care for even the illusion of common decency or tact.

"I've been told that. I actually discovered a different way to work on my affinity and I was hoping for an out of the way place that people couldn't steal my ideas. I don't have very many jutsu and I don't need the bastard taking what few I have." Asuma nodded at this. While the Uchiha clan was still alive and powerful they had stolen more than a few of their comrades' techniques and had not earned themselves many friends with their weak justifications for it.

"Well this training ground is good but if you're looking to stop even me from peaking I'd head over to Training Field 37." Asuma suggested after a moment's thought.

"No, here's fine. Actually with Ino around I know that Sasuke won't show up. No offence to you Ino but you make a very effective deterrent." Naruto nearly split his ribs suppressing his laugh at the look on Ino's face. He nodded to Asuma, Chouji, and Shikamaru and retreated before Ino could attempt to kill him.

He wandered over to one corner of the field and began suffusing the air with chakra. He soon dropped into his meditative state and began playing around with the air around him. First he tried to get it to move around him in ways he could control. He started by swirling the air clockwise around his body followed by counterclockwise. Then to make it more difficult he tried to put a shell of counterclockwise swirling air inside a shell of clockwise swirling air. This was actually turning out to be much easier than he though it would be. He realized that everything he was doing was still impractical in a fight. The swirling air wasn't going fast enough to deflect kunai or shuriken so it couldn't be used as a defense. There were no blades in the air so it couldn't be used as an offense either.

He came out of the meditation to check the time and was surprised to find that he had wasted several hours already. Apparently getting mastery over the elements was going to take a long time. If this was how long it was taking him to get his natural affinity down he didn't even want to think about how difficult fire would be as his natural elemental weakness.

Belatedly he saw that Ino was still at the training field even though her teammates and sensei had long left. He hoped that she hadn't stayed to make her displeasure at being called a deterrent known. While she couldn't do actual damage to him, it still wasn't a good idea to court trouble. Before he could make good his escape she noticed that he was out of his meditation and she started walking towards him. Naruto knew that if he ran now it would be infinitely worse later and possible at an even more inconvenient place, such as the middle of the market for example. In lack of a better option he just sat there and waited until she was close enough to talk to comfortably.

"Is there something I can help you with Ino-chan?"

"Possibly," she answered. Well that is maddeningly enlightening.

"That's rather cryptic. Are you going to tell me about it so we can see if I can help?" asked Naruto in turn.

"Well it's about your last mission. I've heard some rumors and I wanted to see if their true. I always like to check my sources before passing them along." Ino was being much more cautious than usual. Ah, she's heard something and now she wants to use blackmail to confirm it and then get what she wants.

"Well at least you're not spreading lies. But what if someone doesn't want rumors spread?"

"Then they have to convince the person that's spreading them that it wouldn't be a good idea to do so."

Naruto dropped his speed seal and was off the ground and behind Ino faster than she could react. He held a kunai tightly to her throat and pressed himself up behind her.

"Is this convincing Ino-chan?" he purred into her ear. Ino gasped at the feelings and would have whimpered slightly in fear if she hadn't been so worried about the knife at her throat. She'd heard from Sakura that Naruto had killed before and was a much better shinobi than advertised but to be this far outclassed by someone that she used to routinely beat in the academy was humbling. She gathered her wits however and pushed on.

"You can't do what you are threatening. My team and parents know where I am and my team knows who I'm with. If something happens to me now they will know you did it. I don't know why but you aren't liked very much and nobody would have a problem believing that you'd murder me, especially after you've already killed on a mission and seem to have no problems with it." Ino smirked a little when Naruto stiffened. "All I want to keep my silence is to know a little more about what I heard."

"Ask away and we will see if it merits explanation," was Naruto's terse reply.

"I've heard that you henged into a kunai and had Sakura throw you at a missing-nin as part of a strategy but everyone knows that henge is just an illusion and wouldn't actually help in that respect. The evidence says that you have a henge that physically changes you. You might be able to explain it away as a kawarimi with a flying kunai but I doubt very much if you could pull it off on command which you will be asked to do eventually. All I'm asking is that you teach me how to use your version of the henge."

"Not going to happen Ino. What could you possibly use my henge for? Beyond the fact that it would almost surely kill you of chakra exhaustion after a few messed up practice tries, it is a very useful jutsu that only remains so if nobody knows about it. It is something I've created and intend to pass it to any family I have if I have any. You wouldn't go around handing out your clan's techniques if someone told you they knew of a way to stop them just to keep them quiet about the countermeasures. If you tell me why you want the henge I may be able to help you, but I won't be teaching you."

Ino seemed to deflate at this. Most of what she said was a bluff anyway. She knew that having a henge so advanced wouldn't be much good if everyone knew he could do it. She also knew that her duty as a kunoichi would be to bring it to the Hokage first as a potentially powerful spying technique and Sarutobi-sama would certainly order her to silence about it. In any case she was one of the few people that genuinely liked Naruto in a passive sort of way. She thought his pranks were hilarious and he was a breath of fresh air in a profession that was apparently filled with serious and melancholy people when they didn't develop some strange psychosis to deal with the stress.

On the other hand she didn't want Naruto to know about what she intended to do with the henge. She had been practicing her family jutsu much more lately in an effort to take over someone without them remembering what went on during it. Once she had heard about Naruto's henge she had been ecstatic because it meant that she didn't have to go with her old and flawed plan. Her new plan was to learn Naruto's henge and henge herself into Sakura. Then she would choose some random guy and take him over. They would go out to some secluded place where Ino, using the guy's body, would have sex with Sakura's form, being worn by her own body.

Ino had loved Sakura since they had met but knew that Sakura was firmly heterosexual and any attempts of push a relationship would ruin their friendship. That was actually where the Sasuke trouble had started; Ino had wanted to make Sakura jealous and wanted some petty revenge for not being Sakura's choice of romantic partner. With Naruto's henge however she could at least pretend that Sakura was touching her or she was touching Sakura. Eventually she broke down crying, she was despicable.

"I wanted to henge myself into Sakura and then take over someone to use to have sex with her form even if it was on me."

Naruto wasn't sure how one was supposed to react to that and he was totally sure that Ino had not meant to say that at all.

"I've loved her forever but she'll never love me like I love her. This was the next best thing. If I could change into her than I could have her sometimes, pretend that I was her and whoever I was using with Shintenshin no jutsu was me. But I know you won't do that for me. I'm a horrible person!"

"Well Ino you may have gone about it the wrong way but loving Sakura isn't wrong." Naruto had decided to see where this went. It sounded kinky and arousing to him and he was always open to that. "Let's pretend that I henged into Sakura. What would you do and what might you do for the opportunity?"

"I would do anything to be able to fuck Sakura." Wow, thought Naruto, that was very frank. Not very specific but I think I can work with that.

"Well how about a trade then? For everything you do to me while I'm in Sakura's form, I get to do the male equivalent in my original form. You kiss Sakura; I kiss you. You play with Sakura's boobs; I play with yours and so on."

"Yes! Yes! I'll do that." Ino screamed.

"Well why don't we go somewhere more appropriate."

-- break --

They arrived at Naruto's apartment about five minutes later. What Ino didn't know was that Naruto was all about stirring up people using their reactions to each other or exposing their secrets in ways that might be deemed accidental. To that effect he had sent a Kage Bunshin to Sakura to ask her to meet him at his apartment in fifteen minutes.

He knew that he had to do this delicately. Sakura had shown some obvious interest in him last night and he was certainly not going to risk that blowing up in his face because he was fooling around with her lesbian friend by stealing her form. In preparation for softening the blow he had the Kage Bunshin escort Sakura to his apartment in an attempt to steer the conversation towards Ino in the hopes that Sakura would figure out the secret before she arrived there and would only take what she saw at a confirmation of what she had just deduced that Naruto was leading her towards as opposed to her teammate and romantic interest just being horny.

--

Naruto's bunshin found Sakura at Kurenai's house with Hinata and Haku in attendance watching the pink-haired girl struggle through a mission report. It was obvious to Naruto that Sakura was struggling with what to put on the form and what should be kept secret as possible. She was having the difficulties because she wasn't sure who read these and who would later have access to them. She didn't want to outline some of Naruto's abilities only to have someone he didn't want to know about them read all they needed to know in the mission archives. She couldn't even ask Kurenai-sensei about who was allowed to read them for fear that the astute female jonin would pry into the reasons for keeping things secret.

All this combined with the strange tension that seemed to be leaking from the two younger black-haired kunoichi mixed to make her extremely grateful for the interruption Naruto provided.

"Hello all, I just came by to get Sakura-chan. We needed some time to meet after the mission and I had a couple hours free and she said she didn't have anything important going on today so I thought now might be a good time."

"Actually that sounds great Naruto," said Sakura. "Thank you Kurenai-sensei for explaining this I think I can finish at home."

Sakura jumped up and grabbed her things before dragging Naruto out the door too quickly for any of the other three females to object.

Out on the road Naruto finally managed to get himself walking at Sakura's side without her dragging him along.

"I take it you wanted an excuse to leave?"

"I didn't know what to write in the mission report and I couldn't exactly tell Kurenai or Haku now could I? Not that I'm not grateful for the interruption but why do you need me now?" she asked.

"Well your best friend has been having trouble telling you something important and I'm going to help her even in a nonconventional manner."

"In other words you found out something about Ino that you think I should know and now you're going to trick her into revealing it. Sometimes I wonder about how you keep secrets."

"She didn't even mean to tell me I don't think but that's entirely beside the point. I think it could be interesting if you knew and I thought you should be warned."

"So you've got some elaborate plan that will get her to confess something to me that she's been hiding and I probably won't like it."

"I didn't say that. Now we're here so all you have to do is wait outside my window and not resist any jutsu that you might feel."

Sakura looked up the four stories that she had to wall climb up to get to Naruto's window. She shrugged. If her mate felt like she needed to know something about her friend and it would get her into his home sooner who was she to argue. She felt the Kage Bunshin next to her disappear and she knew that it would only be a short time before all this confusion was wiped away.

--

Naruto felt his Kage Bunshin disperse and mentally gave Sakura about five minutes to get to her position. He dropped a scrap of paper on the couch in his living room in preparation for his part in this.

He turned back to Ino whom he had been working on calming down so he could begin to guide her into the emotions that he needed. It sounded so crude and unscrupulous but he was sure that this was for the best, besides it would at least be entertaining.

--

Ino was currently sipping on some tea and gathering the last shreds of her pride and control of the situation. She hadn't meant to spill her most precious secret to Naruto of all people but at the time she could only see the goal and not the devils she had to deal with to get there. It wasn't so bad she thought, Naruto was willing to help her and she would finally get what she wanted in the form of heavy petting with Sakura-chan.

--

Naruto now released a small portion of his chakra bathing the room in a nearly inconsequential aura of lust. This tiny, almost unnoticeable, change of mood in the room would go a long way to making this situation right and not a giant fuck up. He created another Kage Bunshin to go open the bedroom window for Sakura. The trick he was going to try would be difficult enough without his chakra suppression seals attempting to mess up the jutsu outside of his apartment.

Ino seemed to not notice his use of the kinjutsu distracted as she was by her fantasies. Naruto just hoped he would get to see those same fantasies acted out between the two attractive kunoichi. It seemed as though he would have to be the instigator though because Ino didn't seem to be moving at all.

Naruto stood and formed a series of handseals, he didn't need to but there was no point in letting Ino know all of his capabilities with his personal jutsu. In a poof of smoke that was perhaps a little too over-the-top Naruto decided to drop the dramatics and a quick manipulation of the breeze inside the apartment cleared away the vision hindering chakra residue to reveal a perfect copy of Sakura wearing the outfit she was in today.

--

Ino practically drooled at seeing a perfect copy of Sakura that she was allowed to play with standing in front of her. She was already wet just at the thought of finally being able to get Sakura naked and being able to oogle to her heart's content. She quickly moved forward and decided to savor the moment by starting slow.

She sashayed up to the image of Sakura and bent down slightly to capture her lips in a searing kiss. She gripped the long pink hair to get a better hold and quickly slipped her tongue into Sakura's mouth.

Then she felt a surge of chakra but she ignored it in favor of deepening the kiss. She was a little disappointed that Naruto wasn't responding like she thought he would have but she was still in a state of bliss to be kissing her love.

--

Sakura was hiding in the bedroom and trying to figure out what exactly occasioned the use of his aura projecting lust. More importantly really was how that could possibly be innocent with Ino in that room. She peeked out of the door and watched Ino stroll up to Naruto. Wait, why the hell is he in my form?

She was utterly shocked when Ino planted a scorching kiss on her image. Well I guess that's what Naruto found out about Ino and the little lecher thought it might be funny to show me. Suddenly she felt a chakra surge around her and a sudden jerking feeling later she found that she had replaced the Naruto that had been kissing Ino. She froze. Ino's tongue was in her mouth!

Actually this isn't so bad. Well certainly not as good as our mate but it is pleasant isn't it? Agreed, but we really need to tell her we aren't up for grabs. We have a mate. Perhaps our mate desires this. If this makes him horny would it not be a good chance to get him to claim us totally? Yes, and this is something he might get off on. He's here on the couch watching. Let's give him a show.

Sakura then leaned into Ino and attacked back with her tongue. This apparently took Ino past her ability to go slow and her hands immediately found Sakura's zipper. Her red dress was quickly shed and Ino's hands soon found joy in Sakura's preference against bras. When Ino's mouth descended down Sakura's neck and down across her chest Sakura directed a sultry look at Naruto who was now sitting on the couch.

Sakura sucked in a moan as Ino's mouth found her nipple but this was wrong. No matter how good her friend's touches were they weren't her mate's and that was unacceptable. Sakura pulled Ino's head up to kiss her once more lingeringly before she lightly pushed her away and went to sit in her mate's lap.

--

Naruto had been initially surprised at Ino's dominance but he resolved to do what he had planned and with only a moment's concentration he had kawarimi'ed with the real Sakura and then immediately moved into the living room to sit on the couch to watch the show.

--

Ino was shocked and very disappointed when Sakura pulled her into a kiss and then pushed her away to sit in Naruto's lap.

"Why are you sitting in your own lap Naruto?" she asked the Sakura in his lap.

"I'm not Naruto in a disguise I'm actually Sakura. Naruto kawarimi'ed with me to switch us when he wanted to show me something he'd found out about you. I didn't know you felt that way Ino. Was the sleepover before this last mission I was on just a fake to look at me naked?" Sakura replied.

Ino was confused. Naruto wouldn't have known about the sleepover and she did feel a surge of chakra indicating a jutsu. She had just revealed her most jealously guarded secret to her best friend and the object of that secret. Ino did the only thing that made sense in this situation. She fell to her knees and broke down crying.

--

Naruto was bewildered. He didn't know why Ino had just slumped to the ground crying. It actually made him feel like a complete ass because he was sure it had something to do with him. He looked to Sakura helplessly, which was a mistake in itself because she was a rather distracting vision without anything on her top.

--

As her mate quickly degenerated to staring at her breasts Sakura took action. She knew what kind of mental punishment Ino was probably putting herself through and as wonderful as her mate was he just didn't understand women. She quickly moved from Naruto's lap and scooped up Ino into her arms before she returned to the couch to sit beside Naruto and lay Ino across their laps.

As she cradled Ino's head against her bare breasts Sakura hoped that this situation would quickly become less awkward so she could get claimed by her mate sometime in the near future. She flared her chakra as high as it would go and infused it with all the lust she had for her mate and stared at him trying to tell him without words what to do.

--

Naruto looked up from Sakura's breasts as she began radiating lust. This confused him a little because there wasn't much that could quell his perverseness but a crying girl was one of those things.

Then it hit him. If he could muster up enough lust to override Ino he would be able to stop her crying and maybe even get Sakura out of the rest of her clothes. His mouth curled up into his perverted grin as he began to swamp his apartment in his chakra imbued with all the lust he was storing up from looking at Sakura's bared boobs.

He felt Ino stiffen against him and watched Sakura's eyes roll back under her eyelids as she moaned against the onslaught. Ino turned her head into Sakura's breasts and began laying kisses on them even as Sakura leaned towards Naruto to capture his mouth in a searing kiss.

Naruto smiled against the pink-haired kunoichi's lips as he allowed even more of his chakra to escape its restraints. He slowly lifted his left hand to cup behind Sakura's neck and bring her in more firmly against him. Sakura's hands in turn came up and began pulling at his clothing quickly working through the shirt but thankfully leaving his mask, and more importantly his restraint seals, bundled around his neck.

Ino soon had enough of being left out of the heavy kissing and sat up on top of Naruto's lap to dive in and begin kissing both of them herself. Naruto felt her push Sakura's face out of the way and soon Ino's tongue replaced Sakura's in his mouth. He felt Sakura lean back and begin doing something to Ino but as occupied as he was he didn't realize what until he felt the blonde's bare breasts against his recently unclothed chest.

He immediately abandoned Ino and grabbed at Sakura. He absently released his partial henge as he buried his head in her cleavage. Her arms came up around him and she buried her hands in his belled hair to hold him to her tender mounds as he sucked and nipped at them.

Ino quickly doffed the rest of her clothes and wrappings while Naruto concentrated on Sakura before she dove back in to relieve Sakura of her shorts, weapons, socks, and sandals. Soon she was just wearing her typical white cotton panties but before Ino got the chance to take those off too Naruto grabbed the hem and ripped them off tearing and cutting through them with his claws. He jerked his head forward and buried his sharp incisors deep into the junction of her neck and left shoulder.

--

Sakura screamed in ecstasy as she felt the extreme pain that came from Naruto's teeth mixed with the surge of his ultra dense chakra invading directly into her chakra system and the intense orgasm brought on by her mate claiming her completely. As her fluids rushed out of her she jerked her hips forward attempting to find her mate's phallus to impale herself on.

She nearly cried in thanks to Ino as the blonde kunoichi pulled off Naruto's pants and lined up his cock for her. She screamed again as she thrust herself down on Naruto's dick straight through her hymen and down till he hilted inside her. She gasped and moaned in contentment and victory at long last having her mate inside her.

Soon enough just having him inside her wasn't enough and she began shifting against him trying to get more of that delicious friction inside of her. He quickly got the hint and he released her neck still bleeding to push her down on her back against the couch and began thrusting into her. She moaned as she was filled repeatedly and whimpered when he would pull back as if to come totally out before slamming back into her.

Her vision was suddenly filled by a soaking pussy surrounded with some light blonde fuzz before it descended to her mouth. Sakura wanted to thank Ino for her help in getting Naruto's cock inside her and she immediately began licking and sucking at the dripping slit over her mouth.

--

Ino gasped and nearly had her own orgasm when she saw Naruto enter her friend and love interest in one violent thrust. She was incredibly horny as she watched Sakura take several seconds to adjust to the new sensation of intrusion before she found herself on her back getting plunged into.

Ino was getting desperate as every moan from Sakura was turning her on more and more and when Naruto moved back enough to slide in she jumped at the chance and quickly straddled Sakura's face. She bit her lip and barely held back her scream when Sakura started licking and sucking at her dripping slit. She focused her eyes where Naruto's dick was pistoning in and out of the same girl that was giving her oral. The heat in her stomach was growing and growing and it exploded into intense pleasure when the girl beneath her found and gave a hard suck on the little pearl of her clit.

She stiffened up and kneeled there tense until the last of the feeling swept through her and then she fell forward over Sakura where she lay resting her head on Sakura's hip and watching transfixed as Naruto fucked Sakura.

--

Naruto watched as Ino leapt onto Sakura and started getting oral from her even as he screwed the pink-haired girl's brains out. He was barely holding on, Sakura's tight, hot, wet depths were threatening to wrench away all control from him but he promised himself that Sakura would go first. Ino soon fell forward along Sakura and just lay on top of her staring at him, her glazed eyes told him she'd already cum and was still recovering.

Soon he felt Sakura getting tighter and tighter before she screamed out once more and her pussy clamped around his penis like a wet velvet vice, convulsing around his length. This robbed him of all semblance of control and with a strained grunt he slammed deep and released his seed deep inside her.

He collapsed back onto the couch and leaned back breathing heavy. He was totally shocked when Sakura sat up and began licking off his dick attempting to clean it. His decreasing erection soon stopped falling under the attack of Sakura's unskilled but eager tongue. His rapidly swelling organ reached full size as he saw Ino enthusiastically sucking out the leaking mixture of fluids from Sakura's slit. In the almost suffocating lust saturating the room Naruto couldn't help himself. Gently he moved Sakura's head off his organ and moved around behind Ino.

--

Sakura saw that her mate was going to claim another as was his right as the alpha-male and she tried to set it up to make it easier for him. She rolled over so Ino could get better access to her cunt and scooted back enticing the blonde female further along the couch to create more room for her mate.

She saw him move behind her and begin stoking her ass before he thrust into her. Sakura held Ino's head still as she screamed the pain of having her virginity taken into Sakura's pussy.

--

Naruto smiled as Sakura maneuvered Ino along the couch to make it easier for him. He took a moment to admire Ino's lightly furred pussy that was absolutely drenched in her juices before he lined up his dick and took her from behind. He heard her muffled scream into Sakura and he leaned forward along her back until he was close to her head before he sank his incisors into the junction of her neck and left shoulder in an imitation of the bite he'd given Sakura.

Again he felt his chakra siphoning into Ino's chakra system as he claimed her as a mate. He released her neck and began gently licking the blood away before he rose up and stole a kiss from Sakura. He could faintly taste Ino's juices in her mouth and it aroused him even further. He slipped back and gripped Ino's hips before he thrust forward again.

--

Ino was in a daze now. She'd had her virginity taken from her and then she'd been bitten so she really didn't know why it felt so right. Now though she had a face full of Sakura and she wasn't about to waste this opportunity and she began eagerly resuming her slurping, sucking, and licking.

She began to feel extreme pleasure at the sensation of being completely filled and soon she began to rock back into Naruto as he came forward in an attempt to take him even deeper. She pulled her hand around and began fingering Sakura in time with Naruto's thrusts as she coaxed her clit out from hiding. She smiled as Sakura's moans began increasing in volume and her own arousal rose to match.

--

Naruto was again at the limit of his control buried deeply inside Ino. Finally he could take no more and he thrust deeply into her jetting out his seed deep into her womb. The sensation of the hot liquid filling her up sent Ino tumbling over the edge and the loud and deep moan that escaped her triggered Sakura's orgasm.

Naruto collapsed against the couch as the two girls climbed up against him and snuggled into his chest kissing his neck and chest before settling down to sleep right where they were.

Naruto smiled exhaustedly at the two kunoichi and wrapped his arms around them before drifting off himself into a sticky and satisfying rest.

-- break --

Naruto woke up later that night with both kunoichi still naked and still clinging to him. He looked at the clock in his kitchen before he exploded into movement waking both the blonde and pink-haired girls.

"SHIT! It's 7:45pm. You girls need to get home so nobody thinks I kidnapped you. Ino I'm going to need to put a seal on you for awhile until you can come back some time and I can do a better one. Sakura you might want to shower while I seal Ino's memories so no one can get them from her."

Sakura nodded and grabbed her clothes before she headed down the hall towards the bathroom. Ino looked curiously at Naruto who was laying out more paper in a two meter by two meter square before digging out his special ink again. She watched as he drew the same symbol on the paper as he'd drawn for Sakura, not that she knew that. The difference was that instead of ending with several unknown symbols before the kanji for 'seal' he ended with the kanji for '6', 'hour', 'lock', 'intruder', and then 'seal'. He gestured for her to enter the center of the sealing circle.

"I'm sorry but this is going to hurt Ino-chan. Do you think you can handle that for me?" asked Naruto looking directly into Ino's blue eyes. She nodded solemnly and knelt there waiting for the pain to start.

Just the same as it had been for Sakura and Hinata before her, Ino screamed horribly as the seal crawly slowly up her body twisting, spinning, and interlocking like some hellacious puzzle box attempting to contain the human body. Thankfully Naruto was getting better at using the seal and although he couldn't lessen the pain he could make the process go faster. Mercifully the process was completed with the seal fading from her forehead in less than two minutes start to finish.

Naruto jumped forward to catch her as she toppled sideways and he cradled her to him for a moment before lifting her bridal style and took her to the shower.

--

Sakura was still washing herself off when Naruto came in holding a limp Ino who was still trembling slightly from the pain. She gently helped Naruto wash her and by the time they began drying her off Ino was mostly okay though she was very subdued. Sakura understood how she felt, after her own experience with the seal all she wanted to do was lie down and be held by Naruto until she couldn't even remember the pain.

By 8:15 they were ready to go and Naruto followed them out for a ways until they turned to head towards the more affluent side of town while he continued towards the portion of Konoha that held more of the ragged shops and dive bars.

-- break --

Naruto stepped out of the tattoo shop at 11pm with a brand new seal array tattooed to his back over his left shoulder blade.

He was quite happy with the design. He had finally completed the seals he had been working on since finishing his mask. He now had a charging seal that siphoned off chakra from his body to power different seals tattooed in the center of a pentagram. His physical resistance seal was tattooed on the top spot, his chakra suppression seal was tattooed on the left spot, he had designed and tested successfully a seal that placed a permanent genjutsu over him (much like Tsunade's of the legendary Sannin youth genjutsu which would fool even the Hyuuga Byakugan and the Uchiha Sharingan) which was on the right spot, which left the two bottom spots open for when and if he ever found some more useful seals to place on himself.

Without the strain from maintaining a constant partial henge Naruto was even more bouncy than usual and was practically skipping with joy. He had already planned to meet up with Ino and Sakura tomorrow after team exercises where he would tell Ino about the Kyuubi but he didn't expect much fuss from that. He'd finally get a good spar from Sakura and with her help and his own unique brand of persuasion they should be able to convince Ino to really live up to her reputation as the highest practical scoring kunoichi academy student in recent history.

-- break --

Mornings, Sakura decided, came far too early. However today was an excellent day already because she could still feel the dull ache left over from her activities last night and she only had to concentrate on them to bring a blush and a smile to her face. Her mother was still nagging at her to quit being a kunoichi but she had no intention of stopping now. Being a ninja had brought her to Naruto and she knew that she would have to help him if he wanted to become Hokage and the best way for her to do that would be to become an incredibly powerful ninja in her own right.

She left the table as quickly as she was able to and rushed to Team 7's training ground so she could see her teammates as soon as possible. Sasuke was an ass but he did represent a means to get the necessary experience with ijutsu and by careful prodding of his pride and use of his tragic fame he could possible be turned into a veritable fount of ninja techniques and jutsu that her Naruto-kun could use.

When she got to the bridge she witnessed Sasuke already there and she swiftly slipped on the now repulsive fan-girl mentality and sided up to him before questioning him extensively on the new techniques he was learning. Several minutes before Naruto would show up she moved away from the emo prick with enough information to hopefully reconstruct three of his prized fire techniques. She already knew that she didn't have enough chakra yet to waste attempting them repeatedly until she ironed out all the details she'd inevitably missed, but with Naruto's help and his eager thirst for jutsu she didn't feel the least bit cocky when she thought that they could figure them out after whatever D-ranked mission they were handed today.

She soon caught sight of Naruto walking up to the bridge and in the guise of being irritated with him she lazily tossed a shuriken with a note attached at him. Predictably he played the fool once he noticed the note and he clumsily dodged allowing the throwing star to imbed in the wood behind him. He pulled out the blade and palmed the note as he returned it to her.

"What the hell Sakura-chan! What did I do this time?" he asked with dramatic hurt lacing his voice.

"Ungh, I don't need a reason, dobe!" Sakura hated herself for even saying that even if she didn't mean it anymore but it did serve to bring up all the times in her memory when she had said something equally unkind to him. She was only capable of continuing the deception and not leaping into his arms begging forgiveness by looking into his eyes and seeing the laughter sparkling there.

--

Naruto had gotten up early to continue his training with the four major elements, well three elements as he didn't know exactly how he was going to practice with fire. He'd thought he'd made some significant process with water and he continued to make steady improvements with wind. By the time he had decided that it was time to leave for his team meeting he had already added the occasional blade to his moderately fast spinning wind shell and the water he'd been sitting on he'd been capable of moving slowly in directions alternate to what the current dictated if not totally against it.

When he arrived at the bridge he was surprised at Sakura's mood and he nearly allowed his tetsusukin to absorb the hit before he noticed the note that was folded discretely into the hole in the center of the spinning blade. He dodged awkwardly and bent to collect the note taking a quick glance at it while his back was turned to his teammates.

"Naruto

I've managed to talk Sasuke out of enough details to recreate

the Katon: Goukakyuu, the Katon: Housenka, and maybe the

Katon: Kari Fenikkusu. I had to act like a fan-girl again but maybe after

the mission we get assigned you can help me figure them out.

Much love,

Sakura"

Naruto mastered his grin, although underneath the mask there really wasn't much to conceal. He turned to face Sakura with the laughter at the thought of Sakura spying on Sasuke still shining in his eyes. He saw her relax and he knew that it was really bothering her that she had to act very nice to someone she no longer respected.

He crumpled up the note in his hand and dropped it off the side of the bridge when he went to sit down with his back against the railing in the middle of the bridge to wait for Kakashi.

-- break --

Their return to D-ranks had left a very sour taste in Sasuke's mouth but both Sakura and Naruto were eagerly looking forward to the abundant training time provided by doing minor chores for only several hours a day. As the Uchiha scion wandered off to his clan compound to go research another trivial or esoteric piece of fire manipulation, Naruto and Sakura raced for Training Ground 43 to collect Ino and then perhaps move to Training Ground 37 to practice the stolen jutsu.

They found Ino very bored and the nearly gave Asuma a heart attack when Ino jumped up and rushed over to them yelling that she was going to be training with them for the rest of the day.

They arrived at Training Ground 37 and decided that the rocky, dusty wasteland was possibly the perfect place to practice fire jutsu except maybe on top of a lake. There was simply nothing there to burn after the chakra in the technique dissipated or was used up. Naruto and Sakura had agreed on the way over that Ino was the perfect fit for a stealth specialist ninja. Her lithe build and good chakra control would allow her to sneak nearly anywhere while suppressing her chakra signature. They had also decided that they could use Ino's training to learn to recognize chakra signatures for themselves.

"Hey Ino, Sakura and I have thought about it a little and we thought that you could make a very good stealth and assassination specialist. We were wondering if you'd thought about what you'd like to specialize in so that we could help you practice and train but if you haven't decided anything we were thinking about what you might be good at. I don't think anyone should be over-specialized but being able to do one thing really well at this level could give you a huge advantage against other genin." Naruto said.

"Well I haven't really thought about it actually. I just assumed I'd be using my family's jutsu and I didn't really think about much more than that."

"Naruto is actually really good at stealthy stuff but his chakra capacity is too big and his control is too bad for him to do that now so he could really help you with that. I know lots of little medical things that would make you more effective when you're taking someone down and we could both help each other learn genjutsu that would be helpful for both of us. That's just what we were thinking anyway," said Sakura.

"Actually that sounds great. Can you imagine all the rumors and dirty little secrets that you could hear if you could sneak around really well?" Ino asked getting quite excited about the possibility of sticking her nose in even more people's business. Naruto chuckled at her enthusiasm.

"Well before I can teach you anything useful you and Sakura are going to have to learn about how to suppress your chakra enough for even the higher level shinobi to miss it. I'm not gonna be a lot of help with that but you and Sakura should be able to sense each other's chakra with practice and you can check each other's progress so you have a little experience before you ask someone who is good at sensing chakra to check your techniques. Now Sakura, you said you got the teme to tell you enough about his techniques that we can recreate them?" asked Naruto with a manic gleam in his eyes.

"Ya, he's really arrogant about it really. He didn't think I would be able to use the techniques and he didn't give me enough credit for being smart enough to figure them out from what he did tell me. I know the basic handseals from watching him do them so many times, you should know them too by the way Naruto you've seen them enough, and today he told me how he was manipulating the chakra in them to get different results. All I had to do was ask with wide eyes how that was different from how he normally did it and suddenly I got a rant on how difficult it was and some exhaustingly complete descriptions on how it's normally done to prove that he's a genius for modifying them so much. Honestly though if I had more chakra I'm sure I could make the same changes with much less waste."

"I'm sure you could but as I'm the one who is going to be spamming Katon jutsu until we get them right I just hope that I have the control necessary."

"Oh it's not going to be that bad. Most Katon jutsu just come out lots bigger if you overpower them which is usually what you do wrong. You won't need much control until you're trying to direct them."

"Let's hope."

Sakura sat down and gestured them all to sit facing her before she dug out a blank scroll that she began filling in with all the details for the jutsu she could remember leaving space between each jutsu for additions to the technique or edits as Naruto figured out what worked. After about forty-five minutes where all three young shinobi bent over the scroll and made comments and suggestions Naruto stood and moved about twenty paces away to try the first one: Katon: Goukakyuu.

Naruto flashed through five handseals before inhaling and breathing out chakra saturated air between his curled fingers using the chakra circulating through them to change the nature of the chakra in the air and igniting it.

It promptly blew up in his face and tossed him flipping like a ragdoll three meters back.

Sakura and Ino barely held in their screams as they sprinted to the downed blonde.

"I'm okay. I think I know what went wrong. I just ignited the chakra but I didn't send it anywhere so I just had a big pocket of exploding fire that wasn't moving away and thought it had reached the target." Naruto protested to their desperate nursing and checking to see that he was okay.

The girls moved back to the scroll and Naruto resumed his place before starting the handseals again. This time he manipulated the breath more like his raw Kaze: Daitoppa without blades but just the dense surge of chakra saturated air. This time when it lit up it became the typical raging fireball it was supposed to be and it exploded against a rock fifteen meters away. Naruto nodded to himself and went back to the scroll to note the differences necessary to creating the jutsu from what they already had written.

The next two hours saw the redevelopment of the Katon: Housenka and the Katon: Kari Fenikkusu and their transcription on three identical scrolls for each of the jutsu reverse engineers to take home.

After their success with stealing the thief's jutsu they moved on with Sakura and Ino learning to suppress their chakra to levels that experienced shinobi wouldn't notice and Naruto working more on his elemental affinities. Sakura and Ino called it good about an hour later and Sakura moved on to learning the fire jutsu while Naruto began the exhausting process of teaching Ino how to remain unseen and unheard using the minimal cover provided by the training ground.

By the end of the day Ino could sneak up on Sakura flawlessly but was still stemmed by Naruto. Ino had learned the value of sounding like the environment as opposed to attempting to not make a sound at all, she had learned that shadows were not always the best places to hide, and she had learned where those better places were. Naruto declared that in a month or two she would be as skilled as he ever was and with a little endurance training she might learn to outrun those she couldn't fool. Naruto and Ino had also taken fifteen minutes to discuss the reasons that Naruto knew so much about hiding. Ino unsurprisingly didn't need more than a minute to adjust to the knowledge that Naruto contained the Kyuubi and after a deep kiss she returned to training.

Sakura had learned the two lower ranked Katon jutsu before she had run too low on chakra to continue. She had finished the several hours remaining by running laps attempting to increase her endurance to match her colossal strength. When she had regained enough chakra she began using it to get a better grip on a huge boulder that she began using like a free-weight.

Naruto hadn't made much progress as he'd been preoccupied with teaching Ino but he figured three new jutsu were nothing to sneeze at and in the long run helping Ino would help him more than just getting his elemental affinities just that much faster.

"So it's agreed that we'll meet here after missions and team meetings everyday unless we have something specific that's stopping us?" asked Sakura.

"Ya, but Asuma-sensei was right when he said that I had to conserve chakra for my clan techniques." Ino replied, nervous that saying so might preclude her training with Naruto and Sakura.

"Think about how much chakra you used today Ino." Ino stopped at Naruto's interjection and took stock of her reserves. "That's right; you haven't used any with us. As long as we keep the jutsu we learn either lower ranked, less chakra intensive, or don't practice them too many times we won't have any problems keeping your reserves full. There's really not much chakra usage to stealth. The point is to do nothing that will get you noticed after all and throwing around chakra like candy in a parade will just get you hunted down faster." Naruto shrugged at the end of this as if to underscore that Ino didn't need to worry.

"I'm actually interested in whether or not you can use minor chakra manipulations precisely enough that they wouldn't be noticed, like tree-climbing or water-walking to get into difficult to infiltrate places." Sakura said. "But that will probably be much further down the line once you've learned to be truly sneaky without the cheats and tricks that ninja use. I know that there are several chakra masking jutsu out there but I get the feeling that if you learn to do the same thing without the jutsu you'll end up a lot better off in the end." Ino nodded at this point. It would be interesting to learn stealth from a master before surpassing him. That was the part she was really looking forward to: the surpassing part.

The three young ninja shared some brief kisses before they moved away from the training ground to go home for dinner and rest.

-- break --

Two months of their extra training had seen some drastic improvements in all three ninja.

Naruto was convinced that he had an unnaturally strong affinity to wind because he had already gotten to the point that he'd chosen as 'good enough' to move on to the other affinities. He was now capable of creating blades out of wind to cover his hands and feet while he was fighting. These deadly additions could be released from his hands and feet with slashing movements to fly out along a path for a short distance doing incredible damage. In addition he was able to use small dense balls of air about the size of his doubled up fists from his fists and feet in straight punches and sidekicks. All these extras gave his kung-fu an extra dimension of range which made it even more perilous to deal with; the several centimeters that he had gained in height didn't help his opponents either.

His water and earth manipulations were coming along steadily and he was able to move water as he wished when he was using grand sweeping gestures. He wasn't quite content with his progress because the range of his manipulations only extended maybe three meters or so. His earth manipulations were just starting but he'd already gotten the hang of fracturing the rocks under his feet so that he was able to kick them up as projectiles and even direct their flight somewhat. As if to directly offset this he was utterly incapable of doing anything with fire. His elemental manipulation was limited to starting Katon jutsu which required you change the nature of your chakra to be able to burn. He wasn't even able to adjust the direction of his jutsu without cheating using the air around the jutsu to direct it which turned out to be very unwieldy and much more chakra exhaustive than it was worth to adjust the flight of a C-rank fire jutsu.

Sakura had added a ridiculous number of medic jutsu and techniques to her library and it seemed to Naruto that she only needed to touch a medical scroll to learn what it contained. She had finally approached her medic sensei about the taijutsu that medics were often seen using. He'd given her a large scroll with all the katas illustrated inside and the names of several taijutsu specialists who might be able to help her. About two weeks after that she had approached Maito Gai about some instruction in it. The theory that the three ninja had worked out together was that the attempt at self improvement could be passed off as an attempt to get closer to Sasuke when he sparred with Lee. Sakura had demonstrated that she was much stronger than the average kunoichi which had prompted Gai to begin teaching her a version of his own Goken that was modified for kunoichi specifically.

She had then decided that if she couldn't feel Ino's chakra when she was suppressing it at a range of at least nine meters she was a total failure as a medic-nin and she had instituted a brutal regime to train herself to that point. She had gotten so precise that she was beginning to feel the differences in someone's chakra when they started different jutsu. Naruto was ecstatic as this meant that she would be able to tell how chakra was being molded in jutsu that she saw which meant that she would know what was coming before it came and eventually she might be able to steal jutsu as easily as the Uchiha. She wasn't quite to that point yet but she was precise enough that she was able to find Ino even when she was sneaking and she could tell the difference between ninjutsu, genjutsu, and the chakra gathered for taijutsu techniques.

Ino had become Naruto's equal in un-augmented stealth in a month and since that time she had far surpassed him by finding ways to use minor chakra techniques while suppressing her chakra. If she didn't want them to, there wasn't a ninja mid-chunin level or lower around that could find her. She was also quickly slurping up genjutsu that would make her life easy. She had found at least a dozen minor genjutsu that would dull the senses of opponents or make her less noticeable in general. Her current favorite was Meisai Gakure no jutsu which camouflaged her form into her background and she was now capable of using it with her chakra suppressed and minimal leaks from the jutsu itself to give her away. She was beginning to look into chakra masking techniques that would make her chakra 'feel' like someone else's or at least not like her own.

She had in the course of her sneaking taken it upon herself to find out who was making Anko so happy lately. When she explained the situation to him Naruto had burst out laughing. She had followed the volatile kunoichi to her former academy sensei's home and had nearly had a stroke when she was met at the door by said academy sensei with a very steamy kiss. Her eagerness to know more than she should had gotten her into trouble and she'd been caught by Iruka when she'd tried to get closer. This led to the discovery of her training, then her dissatisfaction with her sparse jutsu library, then her affinity to water, then to her interest in swords, and finally Ino found herself with a kenjutsu teacher.

-- break --

Today all of the Rookie Nine were going to be assigned a joint mission. Their senseis had ordered them to meet in the mission assignment office at 9am which was ten minutes away. Naruto, Sakura, Ino, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Chouji, Hinata, Haku, Shino, and Kiba were all lounging around the mission hall waiting for their senseis. As the clock struck 9am both Asuma and Kurenai appeared in puffs of smoke. Sarutobi who had told the genin to wait next to his desk caught their attention and got ready to start the briefing.

"Um, Hokage-sama shouldn't we wait for Kakashi-sensei?" asked Kiba.

"Kakashi-kun will be late as always so it would be more efficient if we start now and I just give him the mission scroll for his team when he shows up." Sarutobi paused as the genin nodded to that or shot incredulous glances at the members of Team 7. "This mission is actually three missions that we are going to combine due to their interconnected nature. A merchant company has been having trouble with bandits in one of the towns that they typically stop at to re-supply, restock and rest while moving along their route. As such they've taken out three missions.

"The first will go to Team 10 which will be assigned to escort and protect the caravan that will be traveling there from here.

"The second assignment will be assigned to Team 8 with Haku as an addition. Their job will be to help restore the town while protecting as many of the residents as possible during the course of the restoration. Your mission scroll details what type of jobs you are responsible for, mostly they are similar to D-rank construction and demolition missions but have been upgraded to C-rank due to the hostile nature of the area.

"The third mission will go to Team 7 which is to hunt down and remove the threat of bandits by any means deemed necessary. This is normally a C-rank that I would give to an older team who have already been blooded so to speak but as Team 7 already has experience in cleaning up bandits it made sense to keep the rookies together to promote interaction between teams as well as allow some cross training between senseis that may be better suited to the specific training needs of an individual in another team."

This drew several reactions from all the ninja involved. Team 10 just nodded once their mission was assigned. Hinata practically glowed with pleasure at being able to indulge her kind heart in a constructive manner towards helping people rebuild. Kiba nearly exploded at being forced to do D-ranked missions somewhere else under the guise of a C-rank mission. Everyone's eyes nearly bugged out when they heard that Team 7 was already experienced with bandit eradication. The two senseis were especially shocked as the subtle undercurrents in the Hokage's tone told them that some members of Team 7 had already made their first kills.

"You're employer is the Akyuudo Corporation and the leader for the caravan whom you will be answering to is Shoujin-san. The twelve of you will travel with him until you get to Fukutoshi where he and several wagons and workers will stay to help rebuild the town. Team 10 you will stay with the wagons and workers that stay. Team 8 you will be marginally at the disposal of Shoujin-san when you begin constructing the necessary buildings and your other duties and you will follow his orders where they don't interfere with your sensei's. Team 7 you will operate from the same building that your fellow teams will secure within the town but likely you will remain mostly mobile."

All the teams and teachers nodded their understanding.

"Well then all that's left is for you to pack for at least two weeks but more likely a month and meet Shoujin-san and his caravan at the south gate." Sarutobi smiled at the genin. "I'll give Kakashi his scroll when he gets here in about fifteen minutes."

"Team 8 you have thirty minutes to pack and meet at the south gate. Dismissed," Kurenai said.

"Team 10 you have thirty minutes to pack and meet at the south gate. We will need to go over some escort procedures when we get there so it would be best if you're early." Asuma said.

"Well Team 7 why don't you meet at the south gate in thirty minutes as well and I'll just send your sensei along when he shows up." Sarutobi said before he turned back to his paperwork in a clear sign of dismissal.

The genin fled out the door trailed by their senseis until only Naruto remained behind.

"Have you gotten any response yet ojiisan?" asked Naruto.

"No, nothing yet but it's only been a month." Sarutobi responded thinking about Naruto's question and what had led to it.

-Flashback-

*one month ago*

Sarutobi sat in his office, across his desk sat Naruto and Sakura. The aging Hokage was looking forward to the coming explanation that this visit would provide. He was eager to know what changes Naruto was going through that the blonde deemed drastic enough to bring to him.

"So what kind of changes have you been going through and how is Sakura-chan involved?" asked Sarutobi. In response Naruto jolted a bolt of chakra through the part of the seal tattoo that would take down his genjutsu that hid his new bestial features. Sarutobi immediately got serious at the sight of the pointed ears, sharp claws, and slit pupils. Naruto tugged down his mask and smiled to reveal his much altered teeth as well.

"We're not really sure what happened but I was helping Sakura with an experimental ijutsu she was performing on herself to make herself a more effective kunoichi." Naruto nodded to Sakura who held up a kunai in her hands and then proceeded to bend it in half without straining or using chakra. Sarutobi's mouth nearly dropped open at the casual display of monstrous strength. "She was trying to imitate Tsunade's strength after she decided to go the path of the medic-nin with her nearly perfect chakra control. She found a way to fundamentally alter her muscle structure to make herself much stronger but she needed…

Naruto continued to explain the process and incident from his view with interjections from Sakura correcting what he had wrong or adding more detail where she thought necessary. By the end of the story Sarutobi knew that he was dealing with another pair of prodigies. To figure out a new medical procedure from scratch was unheard of, even for the female Sannin at that age.

…think that the reaction between the healing chakra and the backlash through my body was the catalyst for my physical changes." Naruto finished the story and took a drink before he went into what all the changes were.

"Well that's not how Tsunade did it to my knowledge. She did use ijutsu but only to make her existing muscle more efficient. From there she used incredibly precise chakra augmentation to increase her strength many times past simple saturation. I believe that the explosive results she achieves are related to a final burst of chakra she releases at the point of impact but she refuses to tell me that final part." Sarutobi smiled ruefully at that. It wasn't like he could steal his student's technique; he didn't have the requisite skill in ijutsu… and he wouldn't stoop that low, of course.

"Ha! And you said that it couldn't be a release of chakra at impact!" exclaimed Sakura turning on Naruto.

"I believe I said I didn't know but I didn't think it was likely because the Hyuuga don't shatter things with their strikes." Naruto responded. "Back on topic. You can see most of the changes: my pupils, my ears, my teeth. You can't see that my bones are much harder to break and there have been some minor changes in position of my limbs to give me more range of motion. My senses are much more acute and when I push chakra into my eyes I can see through all the genjutsu I've seen since being like this. It doesn't break them so much as fade them out so I can see past them. Sakura hasn't seen a way to undo the changes but I don't want to so she's not looking too hard. I tried to copy Tsunade's youth genjutsu and came up with a variation of a powerful permanent genjutsu that's powered and controlled by a seal that hides my features. I was thinking about dropping it for combat because I can use my eyes and claws to great effect and calling the change a bloodline or a jutsu like the Inuzuka's beast mimicry."

"That sounds reasonable. Thank you for telling me this and for bringing to light Sakura's incredible skill. I think we should discretely contact Tsunade to give her a chance to check you both out to make sure there were no mistakes but I'm amazed that you have come so far in skill." Sarutobi suggested.

"That would be great! If she could come back she could teach Sakura-chan!" exclaimed Naruto.

-end flashback-

Sarutobi shook his head at his nostalgia around the genin. He waved Naruto off to go pack for his mission and waited for Kakashi to show up. He wondered idly if just starting without Kakashi would encourage him to show up on time so he wouldn't miss things. The old leader chuckled to himself as he defined a new Kakashi S.O.P. (standard operating procedure)

-- break --

Naruto arrived at the south gate to see all the genin milling around off to the side of a group of twelve wagons and all their assorted animals, wares, and people. He smiled widely, happy to be off on another mission. His noisy geta and bells alerted his fellow Konoha shinobi to his approach and several of them looked up at him as he came over. He could almost read their thoughts in their eyes.

'How in Kami's name does he think he's going to hide with all that noise he's making?': Kiba.

'Hn': Sasuke.

'I wonder what the bells are for?': Chouji.

'What are you hiding with all these peculiarities Naruto?': Shikamaru.

He smiled even wider at the thought of stumping Shikamaru. Naruto had already known that Shikamaru was much smarter than his effort would lead you to assume. Being surprising to the genius was a manner of no small amount of pride to the bubbly blonde. He clacked and jingled his way over to where his teammates were sitting.

"So, what's the tentative plan for rooting out the bandits and convincing them they need to leave Fukutoshi alone?" asked Naruto.

"Well we won't know much until we get there but we could think of several different plans based on different assumptions." Sakura said reasonably.

"We should just kill them all." Naruto looked at Sasuke with a harsh glare.

"As you have the least number of kills to your name in present company perhaps you should defer the suggestions that involve killing people to those who have done it." Naruto bit out in a tone that was almost acidic. Kiba and Shikamaru both started at this semi-revelation that implied that both Naruto and Sakura had killed already. Naruto reminded himself to give Kiba's ears more credit in the future and never to underestimate a nosey genius.

"Logically Naruto almost all of our possible plans will involve killing some bandits regardless."

"I know that Sakura-chan, but there are ways to minimize it. I just don't like the teme's attitude that human life isn't worth much. Beyond that it wasn't a very good suggestion because there's no guarantee that the bandits wouldn't just hole up after the first several get offed and stay low until we leave. So his 'solution' doesn't even solve the problem."

"Maybe we will need to use a show of force though. Maybe if we can get a lot of them to witness something particularly gruesome they will be inclined to leave."

"I'd still like to avoid something that makes me or you look particularly demonic or bloodthirsty."

"We'll try but you have to be open to the possibility that a show of overwhelming force and brutality might be the least bloody way to resolve it." Sakura continued reasonably as if she weren't suggesting that one of them tear a man apart in a bloody way with an overpowered jutsu or some such.

The continued to discuss several options for large numbers of bandits in both small groups and large groups, small numbers of bandits working as individuals or in small groups, even briefly touching on the possibility of it being an offshoot of a different crime organization from somewhere else and whether or not they would have to travel to the original source to dismantle that too.

Eventually Kakashi showed up right at the end of the allotted thirty minutes. Apparently he had rushed to get ready for such a long mission after arriving at the Hokage's office just ten minutes ago. He immediately moved over to his team to asses their readiness and to make sure they knew the mission.

The convoy set out five minutes after Kakashi's arrival and the 'all ready' had been given.

-- break --

They had been on the trail for most of the day before the teams began to mix amongst themselves. It started with Teams 8 and 7. Because they didn't have any immediate or pressing duties that required them to be more alert or occupied than just walking they began to talk amongst themselves just to alleviate the boredom.

"So, Shino, you're full of bugs. How's that treating you?" asked Naruto with his typical lack of tact.

"They are very effective allies."

Naruto just nodded at this and let the subject go. Maybe he would have more luck suppressing his instincts to fight with Kiba than trying to get a conversation out of the bug-nin. He'd tried several times to get a conversation going and this last attempt at appealing to what might interest Shino had elicited the longest response yet and Naruto was done trying.

Sakura was chatting eagerly with both Hinata and Haku as Kurenai listened from a distance. Naruto wondered if all girls were capable of talking to each other automatically or if guys were just naturally defective conversationalists. Just look at Sasuke all he can do is grunt thought Naruto. Actually… now that was a thought. Naruto moved over to his teammate.

"Sasuke," Naruto whispered. Sasuke's head whipped around trying to tell who had said his name. Naruto grinned evilly as he formed eight quick handseals for the voice projection jutsu. He released the chakra in the technique around Sasuke and tethered the sending end to his bells. He smirked at Kurenai and Sakura who had felt the jutsu go up and were precise enough to know where it was being directed and who was doing the directing. He pointed at his head for the benefit of both ladies as he began to ring the bells in a rhythm that sounded like a cross between "Ring Around the Rosy" which he'd heard used very successfully in a horror movie and an Evanescence song. He nearly broke down laughing as Sasuke stopped dead in the trail and began frantically looking for the source of the bells.

Kurenai frowned before she made a few handseals herself so she could get the effect of the jutsu on herself. She was amazed when she immediately heard the creepy sounding bells. She canceled her jutsu and listened to Naruto, sure enough the sound normally generated by his bells had disappeared.

"Naruto you might want to modify your jutsu so that it produces a normal sounding jingling so you don't tip people off by silencing your bells totally." Kurenai smirked as Sasuke spun towards Naruto with rage clearly evident in his eyes. Naruto turned a very hurt look towards her.

"Kurenai-sensei! He wouldn't have even noticed for another thirty minutes that it was me and I would have stopped before then. You just had to ruin my entertainment didn't you? But the jutsu doesn't need to make the sound of my bells around it's supposed to be a fear device where I'm hiding and then I project the jutsu all around my target to unnerve them." To demonstrate he formed the same eight handseals and dropped the emitting part around the ninjas who were listening to the conversation. All the affected ninjas jerked when they heard the same bell song that Sasuke heard coming from all around them which except for his clacking geta would have made it impossible to locate Naruto just by sound.

"That's very good Naruto. Where did you come up with that idea?" asked Kurenai. She was shocked by exactly how effective that was at unnerving her.

"Well I got the bell idea from my favorite manga. I actually get a lot of ideas for techniques from that. I started ringing the bells as a chakra control exercise but I heard a really creepy song on a horror movie that sounded simple enough for me to play. Since it freaked me out I figured it might freak other people out. When we met Zabuza in wave he used a voice projection to be intimidating while never revealing his position and I thought that if it worked for him it might work for me too." Kurenai nodded at this logic as he canceled the technique.

"Can you show us what you meant by modifying the technique anyway, Kurenai-sensei?" asked Sakura eager for more genjutsu.

While Kurenai, Sakura, and Hinata had a discussion about aural genjutsu Haku moved to walk next to Naruto.

"I'd like to thank you for what you did." Haku said. Naruto looked at her curiously. "When you brought me back with you to Konoha and found me a good home. You risked a lot for me even though I tried to kill you. I hated you for awhile you know. I thought that if you hadn't defeated be then I might have saved Zabuza-sama, but I know now that I wouldn't have made it in time." Haku hung her head. "And when you took me back home with you, you risked a lot betting your life on the assumption that I would behave."

Naruto chuckled at that. "Oh that was never in question. Hinata-chan is far too agreeable for anyone to disobey her. She has this amazing disappointed look that she gives you when you do something wrong that somehow feels much worse than any punishment. You're right that I did risk a lot but I knew you would make an effort if the rewards were great enough and there is no greater reward for people like us than having a home that accepts us."

Haku nodded at this. People like her and Naruto who were the outcasts worked very hard for even the smallest amount of approval from those around them. "I've realized that I'm not just a tool anymore. Hinata-chan has helped me a lot and I will forever be working to pay her back for it but I feel like I need to repay you as well for making it possible."

"If you want to pay me, help Hinata become a more confident kunoichi. She's skilled in her own way but her family doesn't appreciate her type of skill. She's very much the personality of a medic-nin and her fluid grace is unsuited to the harsh precise movements of the traditional Jyuuken. Because she doesn't take to the style in the same cookie-cutter manner that all the rest of the clan does they shun her and call her weak. If you want to repay me you need to help Hinata develop her own version of her family's style and gain back the confidence that her clan has beaten from her." Naruto said to Haku in a hushed voice. Haku nodded and immediately Naruto swung back to his typical happy and bouncy self.

"So what can you tell me about ice jutsu? Do you know any more wind jutsu? I know you used one against me when we fought but I already figured that one out so now I'm looking for more!" exclaimed Naruto eagerly leaning forward as if being closer would bring the knowledge he sought faster than otherwise. Haku looked stunned at the total shift in personality. She had been under the impression from Hinata that Naruto was a brilliant shinobi and her fight with him had borne that out but the teenager beside her was the picture of the young, green, wet-behind-the-ears genin. She looked closer at him and barely caught the flash in his eyes of the same competence and ferocity that he had displayed in their fight and she understood that this was all an elaborate mask that he wore. She mentally congratulated him as an actor and bumped his reputation as a shinobi up even further in her own mind. She had thought that Hinata was kidding when she had dismissed her own skill at deception and lauded Naruto as a master but it seemed he deserved her glowing report.

"I doubt you'd be able to do ice jutsu. As far as I know it's a bloodline of my family and only we've ever been able to do it. I know a couple wind jutsu but the one you saw and totally overrode was my strongest wind attack. I've got a mid-C-rank shield, Kaze: Bousekisara, that blocks most thrown weapons and I've got a weak D-rank one that allows you to change your position midair."

"Well the shield might be nice to know but I already know how to move myself around a little in midair."

"Well, it has four handseals," she showed him which ones, "and then you must concentrate on a disk in front of you and make it spin around like a twirling plate. It spins the air around and bleeds wind from the edges so you have to supply more wind through the center which is what stops kunai from piercing through the middle. When the projectiles hit it they are flung to the edges and away so you need to make sure that none of your allies are standing on the edge of the jutsu before you use it."

Naruto nodded and formed the handseals before attempting the technique without anything being thrown at it. Predictably he overpowered it and the disk showed up almost a solid three meters in diameter and dug a thin trench deep into the road where it intercepted the ground. Haku and Naruto started coughing as the dust kicked up by the jutsu. Without thinking it through Naruto flashed through the same four handseals, called out the technique, and powered it up with much less chakra than before. The result was a much weaker shield that swept all the dust away to the outsides of the road admirably but would be useless against anything more dangerous than a civilian with a senbon.

Asuma saw the dust cloud and after telling his genin team to stick with their patrols up and down the caravan he went to check out what caused it. He arrived just in time to see Naruto finish clearing away the dust with his second jutsu.

"I can see why you would want to practice your wind affinity. You must be very strongly natured towards wind to get such huge differences in jutsu power with only minor changes. I bet you find Katon jutsus particularly unwieldy don't you?" asked Asuma.

"Well I wouldn't know about the Katon thing; I've only got the fire-starting jutsu by way of Katon jutsus." Naruto answered. Sure he was lying through his teeth having stolen Sasuke's Katon: Ryuuka a week before bringing his total of Katon jutsus up to five.

"I suppose I could part with one of my jutsu to help a fellow wind user. The trick with wind is that it's so plentiful. Wind is the war element, more so than any other element, wind jutsus kill. Even fire jutsu aren't as effective, although they are often more visible. When most people think of a wind jutsu they think of a blast of air with lots of very sharp blades but those aren't our most effective jutsu at all. Anyone can raise a barrier or dodge to avoid those. We become really deadly when our control advances to the point that we can pull the air away from our enemies rather than sending more at them. This jutsu is a low C-rank but it provides the basis towards some of the most deadly wind jutsu I know of. It's called Kaze: Kuuhaku like its name suggests it pulls all the air out of an area defined by how much chakra you use. It's a low ranked jutsu because the vacuum isn't strong enough to forcibly pull the air out of your opponent's lungs but some higher class jutsu can do that. It sets up the base for learning those harder ones though."

"Wow, that's awesome Asuma-sensei." Naruto said as he eagerly soaked in the eleven handseals needed for the technique and committed the explanation of how to mold the chakra to memory. After about ten minutes of further explanation on wind jutsu in general Asuma returned to doing random sweeps along the caravan looking for threats.

Naruto's conversation with Haku and then Asuma had sparked some interest in what type of elemental affinity all the genin had. It was revealed that Asuma was wind, Kakashi was lightning (which Naruto believed to be an old kekkei genkai that nearly an eighth of the population had that mixed the elements wind and fire), and Kurenai was fire. There was quite a bit of discussion about how an elemental affinity effected a shinobi and it was explained that for a ninjutsu specialist like Kakashi it meant that lightning jutsu would be easier to use meaning the more he knew of them the longer he could fight and the more effective he would be. Asuma had chosen, like most wind users, to allow his affinity to imbue every part of his shinobi life, from which ninjutsu he used all the way to augmenting his taijutsu. In Kurenai's case the affinity didn't mean much at all, as a genjutsu user control was prized over capacity and so she didn't have the reserves to perform the high level and truly destructive Katon ninjutsu and her affinity meant very little to her.

After hearing how one of their senseis practically lived and breathed his affinity and how important it was to another the genin were determined to know their own affinities. Even Team 10 who had caught bits and pieces of the conversation as they moved past the other ninja wanted to know where they stacked up in the elemental scheme of things. As it turned out Kakashi had been toting around chakra paper that he'd been meaning to get converted into more effective explosive tags but they were sacrificed in the name of determining the affinities of the genin.

"All you have to do is hold the paper in your hand and channel chakra through it. If it gets cut you are a wind type, if it crumples up you are a lightning type, if it gets wet you are a water type, if it turns to dust you are an earth type, and if it burns you are a fire type. I suppose if Haku were to try it hers would freeze but we don't want to waste paper on the people we already know the affinity of." Here Kurenai nodded at both Haku and Naruto.

The genin all walked in a group as they concentrated chakra into the papers. Team 8, having worked with a genjutsu mistress of no small repute and as such concentrated on chakra control, was the first to manage to saturate the papers with enough chakra. Hinata was found to be a water element, something that had been obvious to Naruto from the way that she moved through her taijutsu katas. Shino's paper crumbled to dust and he nodded with satisfaction; the members of the Aburame clan had been earth users since past the point anyone could remember. Kiba predictably pushed too much chakra into his paper and it didn't so much light on fire as explode in his face.

Team 10 was next to get their papers to react. Ino was a water nature as they had discovered earlier and her paper became damp before she decided that she had obviously channeled enough. Shikamaru rather surprisingly had his paper light on fire. Naruto had been sure that the lazy genin would have been earth or water with his general attitude towards apathy and laziness. He isn't being very lazy now with how he's trying to get rid of that paper before it burns him Naruto thought. Chouji barely waited for his paper to react at all before his hand disappeared once again into his ever-present bag of chips. The paper drifted softly down even as it turned to dust when he dropped it.

Team 7 was by-and-large a known as far as elemental affinities went. Naruto was already known to be a wind element, even if that wasn't entirely true with his personal training to get them all. Sasuke could only be fire or lightning and nobody was surprised when his paper lit on fire and he allowed it to burn away to ashes in his hand discretely protecting his palm with chakra. He is such an attention whore for being so standoffish thought Naruto once again. Sakura was really the only one nobody knew enough about to guess. Naruto was pleasantly surprised to see her sheet of paper become dust indicating an earth element. If he remembered correctly water elements typically were more common among medic-nins but Tsunade herself was an earth element.

The genin spent the rest of the day discussing what their new elements meant to them and what they might end up doing with them. It amused Naruto and Haku to see everyone quickly grouping off with those of a similar element to discuss them. The fire elements however broke off their discussion quickly once they realized that Kiba was the only one talking with Sasuke brooding and Shikamaru just muttering 'troublesome' under his breath referring to all the new things that he was going to have to do. Chouji and Sakura seemed to be having an interesting discussion on how they might incorporate their element into what they did normally. They seemed to reach the conclusion that they really couldn't do anything until they learned some jutsu but they both remembered seeing shinobi raise rock walls to guard themselves or others and Sakura shared how certain Iwa-nin had been known to toughen up their skin with earth element chakra. Ino and Hinata were both having a whispered conversation that Naruto was totally sure had nothing to do with water. With both of them knowing each other to prefer the fairer sex, having had that awkward conversation once Naruto had introduced them properly, Naruto was sure they were discussing their respective love lives and who was hot or not. Naruto and Haku having no one of the same element to talk to continued their discussion about ice techniques as they walked.

-- break --

The genin arrived at Fukutoshi on the fourth day of their travels. During the intervening time Naruto had mastered his two new wind jutsu sufficiently to consider them combat worthy in their fashion. Sakura and Ino had pestered Kurenai for some new genjutsu techniques and now had three more to use. Sasuke had capitalized on the redundant knowledge of his element type to get Kakashi to hand him another fire jutsu but neither Naruto nor his girls had seen him use it or had heard what it was to copy it yet. Knowing Kakashi though Naruto would put good money on it being a B-ranked jutsu to salve the emo prick's pride at seeing 'the dobe' learn two new jutsu.

Naruto smirked a little at the remembrance of a short spar that Kakashi had conducted between teammates to judge their readiness for the bandits they were sure to encounter.

-flashback-

Kakashi had taken Team 7 off into the woods surrounding the caravan's latest resting point. Usually the caravan would stop in the towns that it passed and sell to the residents and then make camp there instead of risking the woods and ignoring the possible profit but such was the errand that the trading caravan was half composed of relief wagons headed specifically for Fukutoshi and so the normal traders had to wait until they had delivered those wagons to the town before they could begin their own trading.

Team 7 was currently moving away from the campsite to ensure they had enough room to have a three way spar between the genin. Kakashi wanted them to get used to the local terrain that they would be likely fighting in and he wanted to assure they were ready to fight bandits at all.

"Okay this is far enough. You aren't always going to be able to choose the battlefield that you are comfortable fighting in so we are going to have a spar amongst the trees. Visibility will be cut down and long-range jutsus will be nearly useless. You all are going to have to rely on close combat strategies and very sparing mid-range jutsus. It will be every person for themselves, no lethal jutsu or jutsu that could become lethal in the circumstances. For example, Sakura you cannot use your sight inhibiting jutsu on Naruto right when Sasuke throws kunai or shuriken at him even though that would be an acceptable strategy for a bandit or even low level enemy ninja." Both Naruto and Sakura nearly snorted at the notion of Sakura helping Sasuke before helping Naruto and the absolute ludicrousness of helping anyone to hurt Naruto. "Remember also that the bandits will mostly be on the ground and incapable of coming up into the trees after you. It is a smart tactic to do damage to them and then escape into the trees to come back around to do more damage from a different angle." Kakashi waited for the nods.

"Remember to look for opportunities that your teammates might inadvertently create against another teammate or themselves when they engage. Keep all the fighting below a ceiling of ten meters. Hajime!" he yelled and disappeared in a burst of speed as he jumped away.

The three genin split into the trees and Kakashi was momentarily confused that Naruto stayed on the ground until he noticed Sasuke closing in for the attack. Sasuke formed the five handseals for Katon: Goukakyuu and shot a reduced fireball on course for where Naruto would be when it hit. Naruto pulled to a stop suddenly, almost as if he'd felt the jutsu form thought Kakashi but he's nowhere near sensitive enough to feel that. Sasuke's fireball impacted a full meter in front of Naruto and the blonde immediately tracked the direction of the fireball back to his opponent before he began forming seals.

--

Sasuke cursed at the miss but began copying Naruto's seals with his Sharingan as soon as he saw Naruto making them. He was curious about why Naruto was making them slower than usual and why he closed his eyes at the last minute. He found out about the closed eyes when his hands erupted in an absolutely blinding flash of light. He cursed himself as he realized he'd been tricked into copying an emergency flash technique with his eyes open. He was blind now and didn't hear Sakura's approach until he felt a sharp burst of chakra and knew nothing more until after the end of the sparring session.

--

Naruto watched Sakura sneak up behind a blinded Sasuke and knock him out with an ijutsu she'd learned. She jumped down towards him launching kunai that glinted with wires. He knew that his 'dobe' persona would miss them and he dodged into them like he would have if he hadn't known about the wires. He was quickly tied up and in the instant that it took for him to free himself Sakura closed the distance and threw a punch. It connected directly with his head and while it wasn't even close to as powerful as she was capable of delivering it was still enough to disrupt his unenforced Kage Bunshin which puffed into smoke that momentarily blinded Sakura. Naruto grinned and appeared behind the pink-haired girl in a burst of speed to put a kunai to her throat.

He was justifiably surprised when he felt the razor edge of a wire around his throat declaring the match a tie. He was even more surprised to see that the wire was actually a single strand of her hair. Naruto grinned even wider and resolved to ask her how she did that so he could use it.

--

Kakashi was surprised at a tie between his two worst students but he decided that of course Sakura would be the one intelligent enough to get the hint about attacking one of the shinobi who was already occupied and distracted by combat. He was alternately glad though that they were only facing bandits who could be defeated easily by simple taijutsu, thrown weapons and repeated uses of the kawarimi. It was nothing short of a miracle that his soldiers had lived through their first botched C-rank mission. He knew that Naruto was decent with taijutsu and except for that trick Sasuke was good enough but for him to be beaten by a trick was unacceptable. It would seem as though Kakashi would need to go into more detail about how the Sharingan should be used and what its weaknesses were. You couldn't go around copying every jutsu you saw without knowing what it was and if it would hurt you to use it.

"Good job Team 7. Sakura, that was a nice use of Naruto's distraction to take out Sasuke. Sasuke, you can't just copy every jutsu thrown at you. You have to know at least relatively what it is going to be before you should use it. That's not going to matter very much against bandits who can't use jutsu but keep it in mind for the future. Naruto, that was a good distraction using your clone but you have to remember that just because you have a knife to someone's throat doesn't mean you've beaten them." Kakashi summarized.

"We'll be arriving tomorrow, and once we help secure a building that the portion of the caravan staying and the other Teams can use, we will be scouting the area for the bandits and trying to ascertain their numbers. Get a good night's sleep tonight; it's going to be a long day tomorrow."

-end flashback-

They moved into the town which was centered in a large clearing filled with rice paddies owned by the farmers who lived in the outskirts. It wasn't much of a town really; just three roads coming together with several shops devoted to supporting the steady stream of merchants who took this route. The damage caused by the bandits was easy to see with many of the farmers' homes burned or smashed and the streets totally deserted despite it being nearly noon.

The three shinobi teams immediately started surveying the town for a suitable building to commandeer for the duration of their stay in the town. Team 10 was looking for someplace that had enough room around it or the proper facilities to house the six wagons that would be staying with them. Team 8 was looking for a building that was large enough to hold refugees while they reconstructed the burnt out and wrecked houses on the outskirts while still being able to house the injured they were sure to have to treat. Team 7 was just looking for a place they could all sleep in without having to worry about having their throats slit in the night.

Thankfully Shoujin-san already had a building and grounds in mind when they hired the shinobi and he took them straight to it. It was formerly an inn and had a stable with a dirt courtyard in back that would house the wagons and oxen while keeping them safe from looting and vandalism. The inn itself had some twenty rooms that all contained two futons and could hold more people on the floors.

The Teams broke off and began doing the chores allotted to them dictated by their duties to the company. Team 7 split up and fanned out from the inn to search the town for bandits and threats inside the immediate area before they would work out a rotating sweep of the outskirts for the night. Team 8 searched through the inn itself for traps or other unsavory things of that nature before they began unloading the wagons devoted to medical supplies and food rations. Team 10 searched the stables before leading the caravan to unhitch and they took up watch positions around the inn focusing on the entrance. The innkeeper and his wife came out to help somewhat but they were soon rebuffed and told to wait somewhere the ninja could see them while they searched the inn. After the search was completed they were allowed back into the inn where they made dinner for the whole caravan and began resuming the typical role of innkeepers.

The first day was indeed a long one that continued well into the night before the majority of the ninja got to rest leaving just two awake at a time, one to guard the inn and one to sweep the town edges.

-- break --

The next morning Sakura, Kakashi, and Sasuke were woken by the sunrise and after eating breakfast and getting some to take to Naruto they set out to the outskirts to discuss their findings and their plan of action. They found Naruto talking with a shopkeeper who was up early.

"So you say that the bandits live in a camp up in the eastern part of the forest?" asked Naruto. He sounded exasperated as if he'd been talking to townspeople for several hours and had either been getting different answers or the same tripe that they had been fed by Inari in Wave country.

"Yes, we all know where they are because they always come and leave that way, but there's a different number every time."

"Thank you, shopkeeper-san. We'll do our best to correct the problem." Naruto slumped over to the rest of Team 7 and kept walking past them idly waving his hand for them to follow.

"Well, as far as I can tell it's like this: the bandits always come in and leave from the east and about midday we should see smoke rising from that direction about three kilometers away. Nobody seems to know how many of them there are though. I've talked to three people and that last guy was by far the most truthful, the first guy I talked to told me there were 500 of them which I seriously doubt; even given how relatively harmless bandits are to ninja an army of 500 of them would be something we'd hear about. One guy left the town and headed east at around 4am but I didn't stop him. I figured we want the bandits to know we're here since we didn't split from the caravan to go assassinate them or anything."

Kakashi was mildly shocked to hear Naruto casually mentioning use of intelligent logic. It really shouldn't have been surprising really as Naruto had demonstrated he knew how it worked just usually chose not to indulge in it. Kakashi was now going over various plans that were very tolerant of huge number disparity. Since they didn't know the enemy numbers he couldn't do anything truly specific by way of troop maneuvers and not knowing the terrain he couldn't use troop numbers to predict likely evacuation routes that they would have to seal or stand in.

"We need more information before we can do anything. We should begin heading in the same general direction as the man last night did and use the smoke we see to pinpoint the camp. We should look for total numbers and apparent skill level as well as scoping out the terrain to get a feel for how they will move in an attack. Naruto you will be on point until you lose track of where the man went then I will take over once we find the bandit camp we will split into groups of two and move around the perimeter of their camp in opposite directions meeting in the rear. Keep your radios' on but maintain silence unless it's vitally important." The genin nodded and Naruto took off along the raised hills separating the rice paddies heading in the direction of the forest.

The four ninja moved silently through the woods towards the smoke that was slowly curling up above the treetops. The camp was situated in a basin where the valley between two large hills had been somehow made wider. The bandits were just waking up and the noise the ninja could already hear seemed to indicate that the news of their arrival had not yet made the rounds of the camp. Either that or they weren't worried about having three ninja teams around but if that were the case there was probably something very important about the bandits that the ninja didn't know yet.

Team 7 came upon the bandit camp and immediately began trying to get a general head count of the bandits. As they counted they began observing what they could about them.

"Okay, we're going to split up now. I'll take Sasuke around the south side of the camp while Naruto and Sakura will circle around to the north. We will meet up at the west end of their camp. Remember to turn your radios on and try to suppress your chakra as much as possible. Some of these men look like they're Daimyo samurai deserters, which means that there are also likely to be ninja academy dropouts here who will feel excess chakra and be able to identify it, maybe even track it." Kakashi gave his orders and waited for the nods in return. Sakura and Naruto immediately took to the lower tree branches and began hopping around to the north making sure to stay well back into the tree line.

--

Naruto was in front of Sakura as they moved through the trees. When they were on the northern most side of the camp he stopped and motioned her to come close.

"How many do you see? I count about fifty, maybe fifty-five tops. Probably thirty ex-samurai and I can feel chakra use somewhere in the middle of the camp. That worries me, if I can feel it that means our mystery nin is probably chunin level." Naruto whispered.

"No, that's not right. There aren't any ninja here. Samurai who serve the Daimyo's are taught to use chakra to make themselves stronger and faster. At first it was just a technique that they stole from ninja to make them more effective but it's been in use so long that they take a totally different view of it. The samurai don't use jutsu but the really high-level ones can augment their weapons to make them stronger and sharper; when they meditate they can heal their wounds faster. They are all constantly, actively circulating chakra through their bodies to get the speed and strength benefits so their chakra signatures always feel bigger than their reserves can account for.

"I count fifty-four here and I can feel that thirty-two of them can use chakra like samurai use it. They'll be harder to kill or intimidate, they will have been trained to face ninja. The one you can feel is easily the strongest or he's projecting his chakra out to make himself feel that way to the others. My bet is on him actually being that strong. I can't imagine thirty-two samurai hanging around a weak leader if they've split off from their lord to join him." Sakura explained.

Naruto nodded and continued scanning the camp. "It doesn't make sense though. Why would they attack here? There's nothing important enough in Fukutoshi to justify the effort. If they're unsatisfied with their service it would make more sense to set themselves up as a new government in one of the buffer lands between the five major nations. There's something else here that we're not seeing. Nobody that powerful is going to be satisfied with harassing merchant caravans by repeatedly looting a town. Better to just take it over, wall it off, and start charging a toll to go through it. If they set up as a magistrate and improved on the town they would be given legitimacy by the Daimyo and they would still have their honor, or something similar. Any way you look at it we're missing something. Let's report to Kakashi. You should bring up the discrepancy; he'll take it better from you."

They were off again still on high alert. They got to the place they were supposed to meet with Kakashi and Sasuke at the end of the camp and saw them in a tree observing the bandits finishing the morning preparations. Naruto and Sakura jumped into the branches near them and waited for the chance to share what they'd learned and to hear their next orders.

"So what did you find out?" asked Kakashi without taking his eyes off the camp.

Sakura decided to start and just summarize what Naruto and she had determined. "Naruto and I counted fifty-four and fifty-five bandits total and we noticed thirty or thirty-two likely trained as samurai for a Daimyo. There was one in the center we believe to be the leader samurai who seems to be putting out a chunin level chakra signature. I don't think that this is right though, sensei. It doesn't make sense. They aren't accomplishing anything that warrants this many men in one place. There must be another agenda here. Over half their force has been well trained and might even be prepared to face the number of ninja we brought, not the jonin of course, but even if Konoha sent two chunin squads they have the numbers to fend them off down there."

"I agree, Sasuke and I counted fifty-four in camp and we must assume that the force numbers sixty in total with five or six that we haven't seen yet who are in the town or wandering the woods hunting or guarding. The samurai in the center of camp is of a high enough level to have been a captain and I would bet most of the samurai down there are from his former command. We will eventually need to know what they are doing here besides looting the town to keep themselves fed. For the moment we will continue guarding the town and taking out the non-samurai when we can. Leave the better trained for last, we will need to capture them to get information and we don't need to worry about twenty extra thugs being sent to interrupt us.

"We will circle back around their camp to place ourselves between them and the town. If they send a raiding party we will deal with them but mostly I just want to observe what they do during the day. The town would no longer exist if all these samurai had attacked seriously at once so they must be doing something that takes up the attention of the majority of their forces." The genin nodded and moved out once again to track around the edges of camp to get back to the mouth of the valley that rested between the samurai and Fukutoshi.

-- break --

It was midmorning before any real action was seen. A samurai who was getting on towards the end of his usefulness as a warrior, around 50 years old was Naruto's guess, emerged from one of the largest tents on the field bellowing orders. Men who had previously been caring for their armor, swords, weapons, making food, and other make-work leapt to their feet and began rushing around. The head samurai, who Naruto dubbed Sotaichou, walked through the camp towards the ninja and the town behind them pointing at people seemingly at random. Everyone he pointed at disappeared into a nearby tent and emerged donning armor and weapons and began moving towards the entrance to the valley. With a strike force of ten gathered at the head of the valley and mounting horses he began leading the other men back towards a very steep section of the hill to the south and revealed a rockslide to be a mine by rolling aside a boulder to show a tunnel leading into the hill.

Kakashi turned to the genin to give them their orders. "The strike force is all bandits. The leader might have some samurai training it wouldn't be a far possibility for Sotaichou to be training his strike leaders a little to get better results. If you can try to take the leader alive, he might know something, but the rest are just grunts that in this for their own gain. I'm going to be learning what I can about what's down that tunnel. When you finish with the bandits return to the town and report to Asuma about what you've seen and where I've gone. If I don't return by tonight he'll give you your orders. Understood?" asked Kakashi.

"Hai, sensei" the genin chorused.

--

The genin fell back to a position that had seen obvious frequent usage and waited for the bandits to show up. Naruto immediately faded into the shadows like he were merging with them silencing even his bells as he went to set traps. Sakura moved to a tree branch that stood about chest height to an adult riding a horse and began digging out kunai in preparation to throw. She turned to Sasuke to give him some last minute advice.

"Try not to kill the horses if you can, they should be useful to the town if we can get them back. Make sure you kill your first one from a distance so if you freeze up you won't be in danger."

"Hn, like I would freeze up. Mind your own business Sakura." Sakura turned away from him before he could see the sneer on her face at his ego.

"She's just trying to help, teme." Naruto commented, emerging from the leaves above them. He turned to Sakura. "Do you want me on the other side of the trail to give some crossfire or would you be worried about hitting me?" he asked.

"No, stay on this side. We should fight as a group when we can to watch each other's backs. Naruto, you should take down the leader, those wire tricks you've been learning should help you do it without killing him."

"I'll need to be above him for those to work. I'll head back here once I've got him." Naruto was off into the shadows of the leaves again. Sasuke grumbled to himself about how the dobe was going to be doing the most important part. He would have to show these two idiots how superior he was to them by taking out more of the bandits.

Team 7 didn't have to wait long for the bandits to come thundering along the path towards the town. It was to the bandits' credit that they didn't yell or make any unnecessary noise, unfortunately that just made the screams seem that much louder in comparison.

The leader was riding at the head and suddenly he was jerked into the trees above him letting out a shrill scream before it abruptly cut off. The bandits riding behind them were stunned for a second and the first two blundered into the first trap without even noticing it, not that they could have anyway. The third bandit had just moments to look stunned before the, now bloodied, wire stretched across the trail sliced cleanly through his neck as well.

The bandits panicked. Without their leader to urge them on and with three of their number decapitated before they could stop the rest of the bandits turned their mounts to retreat where they met flying kunai from Sakura thrown with enough force to pierce through their armor and throw them from their horses.

--

Sasuke and, to an extent, Sakura watched in captivated horror as the first three bandits' heads went tumbling through the air accompanied by the pulsing squirt of blood from the portion of their necks that was still attached to the bodies that were still mounted on their horses. Sasuke turned and wretched as he had flashbacks to the Uchiha massacre, he turned back just in time to see Sakura throw three kunai which managed to unseat the bandits they killed. He managed to pull himself together enough to hurl a single shuriken into the throat of a retreating bandit.

It was just like throwing at a wooden target back in the Uchiha personal training grounds, he checked for wind, he adjusted for movement of the target, he visualized where he wanted the projectile to go, and he snapped his wrist out towards it. The spinning star left his hand in a blur and unerringly found its home in the neck of the bandit. Sasuke watched the light leave the eyes of the bandit as waves of red blood pulsed out of his neck. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. The bandit slumped backwards and after several steps from the horse was bounced off the back of the animal. The horse seemed almost confused like it didn't understand why its rider would just leave it like that, so it stopped and turned back for the man nudging the dead body with its nose.

--

Sakura and Naruto stopped collecting their weapons and looked with concern at Sasuke, sure he was a jerk but his first kill seemed to have been a big shock to him. After Sasuke had thrown his shuriken Naruto had taken out the other fleeing bandits with the wires he kept wrapped around his forearms, using them like nooses wrapping them around their necks and letting them cut their own heads off as they ran away. Sasuke however had stayed staring at the man he had killed for probably ten minutes now and there was only so much make-work that Sakura and he could come up with to do to give their teammate time to deal with the emotional backlash of his first kill.

The had already retrieved their weapons and when Sasuke still looked to be shocked they had rounded up all the horses and tethered them to a tree. When Sasuke still looked shocked, he had suggested that they strip the bandits of their armor and weapons along with anything else of value they could find. They were getting close to finishing that up now and Sasuke still looked dead to the world around him. There was nothing else for it. Naruto sighed, he was the poster child for mental fuck up there was no way he could possibly be qualified to give psychological advice to his teammate. In lieu of a better person he stepped up anyway.

"Hey, Sasuke? Hey. Hey, Sasuke… Hey, teme!" yelled Naruto. That got his attention. Sasuke jerked his gaze to Naruto and the blonde saw the pain and anguish hidden behind the arrogant ebony eyes. Well fuck, now what am I going to do? I can't just leave him out to hang. I can't count the number of times I've wanted someone to be there for me, I'd be a real bastard if I ignored other's pain. "Sasuke, you want to talk about it?" asked Naruto. Sasuke looked like he wanted to shake his head no but that little voice inside everyone that they ignore until they're totally broken chose this time to assert itself inside the tormented youth and forced a subdued "Yes" out of the dark-haired Uchiha.

--

Sakura was shocked beyond belief that Naruto was talking to Sasuke about his first kill. Even more so that he was talking with compassion like he had talked with her. But even more than that, he was listening as Sasuke was verbally vomiting all his life's problems at the blonde. She could hear them talking about the Uchiha massacre and even life before that with Itachi getting all their father's approval and even what it was like with the pressures of being a kid in a noble clan. Eventually Sakura just stopped what she was going and sat down next to Naruto as Sasuke rambled on and on.

Eventually Sasuke trailed off and sat drooped almost as if he had no more strength left. From a medic's point of view he might not with all the adrenalin released both in the fight and by telling Naruto all his secrets and then the come down off of that high must be exhausting. But even as Sasuke fainted right there he seemed to be lighter than he'd ever been. It wasn't something that you could easily pick up and the pink-haired kunoichi doubted that much would change between the three of them but she would bet that Sasuke would make at least a token gesture to be nicer to them than he ever was to anyone else.

Now that she thought about it, Naruto might have been waiting for this or something like it to break Sasuke down so he could rebuild the Uchiha into a functioning shinobi. She had noticed that Naruto tended to break people before forging their broken pieces back together even better than they were before. He had waited until her spirit had broken at not being able to entice Sasuke like he could in his female form and then with her emotional trouble after breaking that bandit's neck in Wave. Now she was proud of herself and even more so of whom she was becoming. He did so with Ino when he broke her using Ino's love for her and the blonde kunoichi's self-hate over an imagined taboo. Sakura couldn't wait to see what Naruto might be able to make with the admittedly better quality base material the Uchiha represented. The pieces are much smaller now though so the forging process will be much longer this time she thought.

--

Naruto hefted Sasuke's unconscious form over the horse the bandit he had killed had formerly owned. He sighed again, possibly his tenth in the last minute. Sasuke was fucked up. Of that there was no doubt. The only question that remained was whether or not to tell anyone about it and get him taken off duty to be psychiatrically evaluated before treatment or possibly even forced retirement or to try to rebuild the Uchiha himself. He had no doubt that he couldn't just tell the doctors at the hospital that his teammate was in desperate need of psychiatric help, they would tell him to stop lying and kick him out the door. The only way to foist this problem off on someone qualified to handle it would be to go to the Hokage or somehow set it up so that an unbiased instructor saw the problem.

The first option, though certain, would not do to use too often. If he kept going to the Hokage with problems he would become dependent on the old man. The second option was too unreliable. Everyone in Konoha saw the Uchiha survivor through rose tinted glasses and setting up a complex scenario in front of someone skilled in seeing through deception was just asking for trouble. His only option really was to try to fix his teammate himself. Well, Team 7 will, without a doubt, be the most fucked up Team ever seen in Konoha when we're done but I'll be damned if we aren't effective. Ha, ha, we'll probably end up like the Sannin but with deeper psychological scarring Naruto chuckled to himself.

-- break --

The other Teams stared in slight shock seeing Team 7 coming into the town and then the courtyard of the inn with ten horses, two of them carrying bundled armor, one of them carrying bundles of weaponry and valuables, and one of them carrying a bound man sitting backwards on it.

Naruto was walking behind the horses driving them towards the inn as they sought to keep away from him. He had found that he smelled too much like a predator to get one of the beasts to let him ride it. Sakura and Sasuke were riding two horses, Sasuke having woken up halfway back to town; he had not said a word since waking up except for a quiet "thank you" which had startled the other two members with its sincerity so much that they had remained quiet on the way back afraid they would break the mood.

The rode into the stable and some of the members of the caravan moved quickly to unload the bundles, leaving the prisoner for the shinobi, and taking the saddles off the horses. Team 10 was chided back into their guard positions on top of the low wall surrounding the inn. Team 8 seemed stunned for a little while before Kurenai and Haku took over.

"Where is Kakashi?" asked Kurenai.

"He's checking out something at the camp. We need to report to Asuma eventually. What should we do with our prisoner? Kakashi-sensei told us to take him alive so we could get information but none of us are trained to do that." Naruto responded. He had walked in the gate and remained out of the stable so he wouldn't spook the horses. Haku looked at the still unconscious bandit for a moment before she pulled out two senbon and sent them flying into two pressure points on his neck.

"He will remain unconscious until someone removes those senbon. We can just put him in a room and lock it for now. When Kakashi-san gets back he can do with him as he will." Haku said. Kurenai nodded but frowned slightly.

"Haku-chan, you should wait for orders when the situation may be thought over and your commanding officer is present." Kurenai admonished gently. "That's not to say I don't value your initiative but perhaps next time just suggest such a course of action instead of going ahead with it."

"Gomen, I'll do that next time, Kurenai-san." Haku said with her head bowed.

Kurenai turned to Team 7 once more. "Are any of you injured?" The genin shook their heads. "Then come inside and get lunch from Hinata. I will relieve Asuma for a moment so that you may brief him on the situation with Kakashi." She walked off towards the smoking jonin after seeing the genin head inside.

-- break --

Team 7 was already eating like starving wolves when Asuma came in. The jonin-sensei of Team 10 gestured for Kiba, Shino, Haku, and Hinata to leave so that the briefing could start. Naruto was nearly finished so he decided that he would be the one to explain everything. After two last bites of rice Naruto set down his bowl and looked up at Asuma.

"So, what do you need to know?" he asked.

"Let's start with where Kakashi is and a brief summary of what you've all been doing today." Asuma said after some thought.

Naruto began describing what they had done that day and how Kakashi had decided to see what was in the mine. Asuma listened carefully throughout the entire narrative never stopping Naruto until he began describing the walk back to the town. The jonin settled back to think about the new developments. He would need to think about the importance of the mine later. Hopefully Kakashi would return with more information. In the meantime however he needed to deal with Team 7.

"Well it sounds like you did a good job. Do you two have anything to add?" he waited until they shook their heads no. "Well rest up I'm sure that when Kakashi gets back he'll have you back to work in no time. For the meantime I think that one of you should accompany Team 8 around the village as a guard of sorts and I'll rotate the other two into the watch over the merchants and workers in the caravan."

"I'll go help out Team 8." Naruto's and Sakura's jaws just about hit the table beneath them when they heard Sasuke volunteer. Asuma nodded in the affirmative and gave him directions to where Team 8 said they expected to be when they left after getting lunch for Team 7. The shell-shocked genin just sat there for a moment before Asuma reminded them that they had guarding to do after they had cleaned themselves off and tended to their weapons.

-- break --

Naruto was again forcibly reminded why he hated guarding anything. He'd only done it on the mission to Wave but he'd decided then that it was the devil's work. Guarding basically meant sitting still and paying attention to nothing while you worked yourself up into a near breakdown at the stress of waiting for something bad to happen that you knew would but probably would not for a long time. And so five genin stood around the inn watching for bandits that Naruto was sure weren't going to come before they moved to different locations throughout the center of town.

They looked for bandits while at the blacksmith's shop straining their ears to hear the sound of horses carrying raiders over the constant clanking and dinging of hammers as the two blacksmiths that the caravan had brought helped the local blacksmith begin forging all the little parts that they needed to restore the town. Then they looked for bandits at the carpenter's shop as they tried to ignore the steady rasp of saws and planers as the five carpenters the caravan brought began working with the local carpenter and his apprentice to begin preparing boards with which to fix the broken houses. Finally when they thought them might be done they went back to the inn and looked for bandits as they ignored the murmuring of the town's elders as they discussed what should be fixed first and when that would be done and endless discussion about how much the company would fix or wouldn't fix.

Naruto nearly shouted for joy when he saw Kakashi come back, although he managed to restrain that emotion, it wouldn't do for his bastard of a sensei to get the impression that he was liked after all. Naruto eagerly awaited the call that would come that meant he was done guarding. Unfortunately Kakashi's arrival signaled something totally different. The silver-haired jonin ordered all of the genin and Haku on watch and took the jonin into the cellar of the inn to discuss what he'd found.

Apparently whatever he'd found was very important indeed judging by the somber expressions on the jonin when they emerged. Team 7 frowned in thought. They had seen such expression on their sensei's face before, right after the demon brothers had shown up and complicated a simple C-rank mission. Already Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto knew that the mission had just become FUBAR.

The jonin immediately called their troops to meet with them. Team 7 followed Kakashi over to a dark corner of the courtyard and seated themselves around him.

"It's all gone wrong again hasn't it?" asked Sakura.

"That's a fairly accurate description even if it lacks detail. The mine is not a mine, it's a prison. In that prison are slaves and captured shinobi. From what I saw they are mostly civilian slaves but there is a fair distribution of ninja who escaped the bloodline purges in Kiri. Sotaichou is a former Kumo samurai who has been collecting slaves and prisoners with bloodlines in order to sell them to the shinobi countries. He's been here for years but judging from what I saw the rice crop failed last year forcing them to eat even the seed. Now they need to steal from the town to keep themselves from starving. He tried to make it look like a minor bandit problem but the only town within striking distance is a town important enough to hire ninja. Including the guards of the prison there are 100 samurai and an additional fifty-six bandits who are mostly untrained." Kakashi rattled out dispassionately.

"I don't understand, he can't sell ninja with questionable loyalties to other countries." Naruto pointed out.

"He isn't. He's allowing his highest ranking and strongest samurai to rape the women in order to get them pregnant. I don't know what he's doing with the men but I assume it's of similar purpose to produce bloodline carrying offspring. Most of the civilian slaves are very young, probably the results of past rapes. He'll sell the children who have no loyalty to any village and let the buyers train them as ninja themselves."

Naruto and Sakura frowned deeply at this. "So when are we going in?" asked Naruto.

"Tomorrow." The genin were shocked they had expected to have to convince their sensei. "Tomorrow night we will be infiltrating the prison with Team 8 and Haku leaving Team 10 to guard the town. We know that Sotaichou only sends mostly untrained bandits into the town so the three of them should be able to handle it. Asuma is here if it gets tough. We will be moving in to provide the former ninja with food and medical care as much as we can so they can assist in the fight. Once we have freed them it is only a matter of fighting our way out. The new objective here is to secure that prison."

"Obviously you hope that they will join Konoha, if not to continue as a ninja at least to lend their strength through their bloodline." Sasuke snorted.

"I'll not deny that that is a very appealing possibility, but, even at worst, our success will deny other countries and advantage that they might have gained through this operation."

"Why here though?" asked Naruto. "Of all the places they could have hidden themselves why here?"

"I would guess it's our hands off approach to governing that made this location so appealing. More so than any other ninja country we allow our civilians freedom to do as they wish. If you couple that with the land's plentiful resources and the country's reputation that would by itself deny the possibility of a slavery ring and you have the makings of a very effective cover. Our reputation for strength would also discourage unsatisfied buyers from mobilizing in force to express their displeasure. Because of our stand on slavery Konoha would never be a customer so any force that mobilized would be mistakenly viewed as an aggressive attack on our soil and possibly incite another war." Kakashi explained. Naruto nodded as this made sense. In the end however this just meant that not only were these men doing something evil but they were using Konoha as their pawn and that was unforgivable as well.

"Get a good night's rest and see to your weapons. Sasuke, have you dealt with your first kill?" asked Kakashi. Sasuke nodded. "Good, we will be terminating with extreme prejudice tomorrow so it's good to know you won't freeze. When you can, look out for Team 8 in case they get into trouble. As little experience as you have you are still the veterans here and it is up to the experienced to make sure the inexperienced live long enough to become experienced. Dismissed."

-- break --

Team 7 was awake before dawn and seeing to their weapons at the breakfast table. It underscored the seriousness of the mission to a slightly sleepy and bewildered Team 8. There was something very sobering about watching their comrades sharpening and polishing kunai with blank faces or checking ninja wire for damage that might cause it to break or seeing them run through different handseals in combinations as fast as they could while mumbling technique names under their breath.

Team 8 noticed a strange tension at the table. They didn't know what it was yet but they knew it had to do with the emptiness in Team 7's eyes. They didn't talk about it but if one were to describe it they might say that it was like looking at a dead person's eyes. There was nothing there. No emotion, no spark, no ideas, no thoughts, there was nothing there to mark them as alive besides the steady and slow breathing.

Sakura put away her kunai into her thigh pouches and smiled brightly at the genin across the table from her. Naruto reached the end of the wire he was checking and rewound it around his left forearm before he dove into his, till now, untouched breakfast with gusto. Sasuke finished the combination he was on before he acknowledged the other ninja with a grunt.

Haku smiled softly back at Sakura but she was the only one to respond beyond the genin mechanically eating the breakfast in front of them. Kurenai came into the room and sat at the side of the table with Team 7 and looked over her genin. It was true that their stated mission of reconstruction was more closely related to what they were about to do than Team 10's mission of guarding but that didn't make her feel any better about sending her genin in to possible kill or be killed. Kakashi walked into the room and sat at the head of the table before inquiring if his Team was ready.

"We will be moving out after you all finish. We will move up the valley to the bandit camp and then enter the tunnel to the prison behind the group of samurai who usually makes camp outside. We will have cooked rice balls and water canteens sealed in scrolls to give to the ninja we see. Kurenai and I have soldier pills to give to those who are in the worst shape. Remember to wear your hitai-ite in clear view when you show yourselves to the former ninja, you will need to see their reaction to your loyalties. If they react aggressively to you because you're from Konoha we will have to leave them locked up until we have control of the prison and we figure out why they reacted the way they did. Remember also to clearly state you are helping them escape but that they must help fight the guards. We cannot expect to win against 100 samurai by ourselves; if we can't convince enough ninja we must abort this time and try again with a different plan." Kakashi said by way of a briefing. "The prison is a very large cavern with barred cells all along the outside with the guards' living facilities in a building built into the center of the cave. There are five floors of cells. We will be circling around making sure to look into all the cells without getting spotted by a guard. Team 7 will start from the top down; Team 8 will begin from the bottom. When we meet we will begin the assault."

The genin nodded at the plan. The members of Team 7 were eagerly thinking bloodthirsty thoughts of justice brought down on the heads of the guards with kunai and jutsu. The members of Team 8 were just hoping that they might come out of this alive; really, nine people against 100 were insane odds.

-- break --

The journey to the bandit camp was mostly uneventful except for a short skirmish between Team 7 and two bandits sent to find out what had happened to the squad of ten sent the day before. Team 8 looked decidedly pale after seeing Naruto rush forward in a blur of speed and calmly slit their throats allowing them to drop to the ground gurgling like marionettes with their strings cut. Naruto frowned deeply and his eyes betrayed some inner turmoil before he shook his head returning them to their former expressionless icy blue.

"It never gets any easier does it?" asked Naruto.

"Nope, you know you've been doing it too long and it's time to quit if it ever stops bothering you." Kakashi added.

The journey didn't take but a minute after their short interruption. As a result, Team 8 was still slightly off-kilter at the apparent ease that Naruto had displayed in killing someone. Hinata was the first to recover assuring herself that if Kurenai and Kakashi had both killed in service to the village and she felt safe around them why should she not feel safe around someone she trusted infinitely more and for much longer? She reasoned that if she couldn't trust Naruto after seeing him kill she couldn't trust anyone who had killed; because she still trusted Kurenai in her fashion she could therefore trust Naruto to not kill them all. She chose to conveniently ignore the huge logical fallacy in her argument. Shino looked at it from a far less emotional standpoint. Since Naruto had killed before and he had been cleared afterwards to continue as a shinobi then there was no evidence to support him attacking his allies and the possibility that the psychological department that dealt with shinobi had made a mistake was too small to worry seriously about. He needed all his concentration to get through the mission; he could spare none for worrying. Kiba allowed his emotions to calm him. If Hinata and Shino were still calm and willing to work with the fox boy there was no reason for him to worry. He trusted that his teammates would know of a betrayal long before he would and they would inform him of it before it happened.

The camp was already moving back into the entrance of the prison when the two shinobi teams arrived so there was no time to worry or fret about the coming infiltration. They followed swiftly through the entrance mentally clutching their chakra as close to themselves as possible in an effort to fool any unseen security seals or traps. Kakashi led the team while Kurenai took up the rear of their formation. Team 7 split in half with Sasuke sticking close to Kakashi while Naruto and Sakura let themselves fall back among Team 8 to reassure them and be ready to protect them if their entrance went south and they had to come in fighting.

The ninja entered the main room before they were ready for it and the sudden end to the tunnel took them by surprise. The Teams split up and each took one side of the tunnel. Kakashi made some quick hand signs to Kurenai who seemed to understand them when she nodded and took her team off to the left heading away from the metal stairs that Team 7 had crouched under.

--

Naruto wondered at the design of this prison. Wouldn't the samurai have been better off constructing the stairs in the middle of the levels to force any escapees to traverse the entire length of the cavern before gaining freedom? It would be helpful to them certainly but now that they were in hostile territory he was looking deeply into everything that could represent a trap. Even with samurai's reputation for being very straightforward it was paramount that he look to his own safety first and then to look to Sakura's safety. Kakashi could take care of himself and as callous as it was Naruto still wasn't convinced that Sasuke was worth the effort, both to save him in the immediate and to fix him for the future.

The crept quietly up the steps checking for creaks, squeaks, clanks, rattling or any other noises that might give them or Team 8 away when moving along them. Soon they reached the fifth and final floor and only then did Naruto allow himself to see the inmates. They were a pitiful bunch, obvious signs of starvation nearly screamed at him. These prisoners on this level were the former shinobi. Several of them stood to fight as soon as they saw the new arrivals but most remained in a meditative position in what Naruto assumed would be an attempt to gather enough chakra for a jutsu. Kakashi did several hand signs that the genin recognized as "split up, work separately" and they pulled sealing scrolls out of their equipment pouches and moved silently over to a cell each.

Naruto chose the cell of a huge man who he gathered had a bloodline if his blue skin was an indication. Naruto motioned him to come closer to the bars. The man calmly moved forward but tensed upon seeing Naruto's Konoha hitai-ite.

"Calm down big man. We're here to get you out and if you try to hurt me we're not gonna let you fight. I've got food and water here but the deal is that you have to work for them. I need a very strong promise from you that you're not going to do anything stupid when I let you out. Some examples being: going after the guards before we say so, attacking me, making noise, etc. you know the drill I'm sure. If you're a ninjutsu specialist my sensei has some soldier pills but we'd like to save those for the ninja who can't be expected to fight well without chakra to burn. You look like a nice type of guy to me but I'll slit your throat if you do anything stupid."

"If you can get me outta here and give me the chance to kill some of these guards, you have my loyalty. My name is Hoshigaki Sakana. What's yours?" he asked. Naruto arched an eyebrow at the introduction. He took in the blue skin, shark-like teeth, and the three slash marks running vertically on his cheeks; then he nodded. If the guy was named 'fish' who was he to argue? He looked like one.

"Name's Naruto." Naruto picked the lock on the cell and wiped the hinges with a greasy rag to silence them before he pulled open the cell door. Sakana stepped out and Naruto looked up… and up… and up at him. He guessed that the blue-skinned man was topping 240 centimeters; he had to stoop to stand on the walkway so he wouldn't bang his head. If the rest of the ninja were anything like this there was no reason to keep the stairs at the back of the cavern, there was simply no way you could miss seeing something that big walk out. "You prefer kunai or fists? You look like you usually use something significantly bigger but that's what I've got to offer." Naruto said as he unsealed four rice balls and a canteen of water. He looked up to see Sakana shake his head at the offer of two kunai. "Remember to eat and drink slowly or you're gonna get sick and useless." With that parting advice Naruto moved off to the next unattended cell. He nearly chuckled to himself at how Sasuke's usual social skills were setting him back while Sakura's old habits of being a gossip who needed to talk quickly were allowing her to move at a much greater pace.

--

Kurenai, Haku and Team 8 were slightly unsure of what to do. The entire lower level was made up of children who were barely old enough to take care of themselves and thus liabilities in combat. It was obvious that most of them possessed active bloodlines but had absolutely no training in how to use them. As such the random chakra surges that untrained emotional outbursts produced had drastically changed some of them. There were at least two Kaguya children whose unrestrained chakra pulses had caused bones to grow but hadn't reverted back. The dilemma arose from the possibility that the guards would take the children hostage in an attempt to get the ninja to hesitate. While it was assumed that these were all rape children, they remained possibly useful to Konoha and there might be those among the ninja who would indeed hesitate. So the question became: whether or not to release them and if they did what to do with them.

Kurenai eventually decided that the best option would be to take them out of the battle and deny them to the guards as well. That meant blocking the cells with something that would prevent the guards opening them. She motioned Haku and her team over to demonstrate what she wanted done.

"Can you freeze the inside of the lock solid so that they can't open the cells even if they want to?" she asked Haku in a whisper. It was a credit to Haku that she had already thought of the possibility of the children used as hostages by the guards and she smiled inwardly at the competence of her erstwhile jonin-sensei. She nodded to answer the question. "How long will it hold? Will it decrease your effectiveness significantly?"

"No and no. It will be of negligible chakra drain to do it and the ice should last several hours in this temperature without melting enough to free the mechanism."

"Then freeze all the locks closed as we pass them. I'll let you know when we need to start letting them out." Kurenai motioned Hinata over. "I need you to keep a lookout for guards as we move along. Alert Shino if you see one and have him take them out quietly." Hinata nodded and Shino started releasing his kikai bugs. Haku placed her hand against the lock and moments later removed it to display the keyhole filled with ice and the metal surrounding it lightly covered in frost. Kurenai motioned for them to continue.

-- break --

Kakashi and Team 7 had cleared the upper level and were now trailing thirty-one emaciated, revenge-driven shinobi. Kakashi wasn't thrilled with the idea that the ninja were following them but he hadn't been able to come up with a good reason to leave them on the top level and then call for them. Indeed with the recent revisions to the plan that had become necessary after some better intelligence about the facility the ninja following them were right where they were supposed to be, or at least heading there.

They had discovered that not all the cells in the prison were filled, not even close actually. The floors were rated by threat level. This meant that all the shinobi were kept on the top level and the less dangerous prisoners were kept below them in order of decreasing menace to the guards. This made recruiting very easy but it also made their whole exit strategy trash. Now the plan was to attack straight into the guards' facilities with the ninja they had collected and either kill them all, subdue them all, or get them to run away so the shinobi would have control of the prison. Now they were sneaking down the levels looking for any likely support that wouldn't likely get themselves killed while they rendezvoused with Kurenai, Haku, and Team 8. They spotted them halfway through the second level and Naruto sprinted silently over to them to inform them of the plan change.

Kakashi had been duly impressed with the stealth that Naruto was capable of using. Even with his hair festooned in bells and metal plated wooden geta on his feet he was still capable of sprinting totally silently. Actually if he had cared to take a poll among the ninja at his back he would have discovered that only three ninja would have guessed him capable of that feat and two of them were his students who had already witnessed something similar to it (the other had simply decided to return the courtesy of not being shocked by his unorthodox appearance and deliberately decided to not be shocked by the belled shinobi, after all anyone who didn't make the obvious comment or appear to be startled by meeting a giant blue man with sharp teeth and gills had to be something of an oddity himself).

Naruto soon returned at a more sedate pace with Team 8, Kurenai, and Haku in tow. Kurenai looked at the ninja following Kakashi cursorily to judge their readiness before turning to the other Konoha jonin and asking about the plan using the sign language taught to ANBU. Haku starred in shock at one woman in the middle of the group. Naruto intercepted her before she could move closer to the kunoichi she obviously knew and checked her with a terse "Later, Haku-chan" to keep her head in the present. She shook her head in response and went to move closer but Naruto grabbed her by the chin and forced her to look at Hinata.

"You are here because Hinata is here and if you let her die because you can't keep your mind on the job I swear to Kami that I'll finish the job I started in Wave. You may ask Hinata after this is done if you may talk to whoever you recognize but now is not the time or place." Naruto hissed into her ear viciously. He waited until Haku attempted to nod before he released her chin and stepped back to his Team. Hinata had noticed the byplay and looked to Haku until she shook her head as if to say "later".

--

Sakura had also noticed the short interaction but she knew that Naruto would tell her later if it was important.

Sakura resumed looking amongst the liberated ninja to find any obvious injury that she could treat or anything that she may do something to allow the ninja to function better and improve the odds. Most of the ninja were chunin but she was sure that five or ten of them had been jonin, she only worried that being so long out of practice and so weak from the constant borderline starvation and the repeated pregnancies for the women would take their tolls on the ninjas' skills. She returned her focus to Kakashi when he started to lay out a plan for the invasion.

-- break --

Naruto waited with the five ninja assigned to him out on the left flank of Kakashi's hastily constructed formation.

The plan was something Naruto thought was worthy of him. Basically it consisted of: charge up the middle of the cavern making lots of noise and slinging around big jutsu in an effort to bring out all the samurai to fight. While that was happening Sakura, Haku, Hinata, Shino and Kurenai along with ten shinobi would sneak into the prison barracks through the back and begin silently going through incapacitating or killing the samurai from behind. Any idiot would see through it but the idea was to surprise the guards with a worst-case scenario and remove most of their fighting capabilities from them in a quick swoop so they could separate and isolate the remaining resistance to more safely engage them.

Of the thirty-one ninjas, ten still possessed the stealth skills required for the assassination portion of the assault. The other twenty-one had been divided by combat readiness and former rank into three groups of five and one group of six. Kakashi was leading the group of six at the vanguard of a basic diamond formation the five next best were led by Sasuke on the right side, the five next best were led by Naruto on the left, and the five determined to be least ready by virtue of skill or chakra levels were being led by Kiba in the rear.

Kiba was not happy about this arrangement but Kakashi had explained that as Naruto was a chakra tank with nearly 100 kills he could easily lead the left flank despite its overall chakra shortage and heavy emphasis on ninjutsu users. Sasuke had less kills (one made yesterday) but that would be offset by his complement of generally more skilled ninja who were predominately taijutsu users and could fight longer and on more even footing with the samurai than the other ninja. Thus, that logically left the least experienced genin leading the weakest squad of ninja in the position of the formation best suited to support with the least risk of direct fighting.

While he was waiting Naruto examined the building in front of them. The entire cavern that they were in was roughly circular about 200 meters across. The barracks was situated in the center of the cavern. It looked like it had been a cluster of stalagmites to begin with and the original builders had laid rock walls linking the larger standing pillars. It was set up like a hexagon with a rectangle building inside it. There was only one door in the low wall and it was large enough to fit five horses side by side through it without the riders' knees touching. Just inside the walls was a courtyard that wrapped around the square building inside in a 'U' shape. After crossing the fifty meter yard they would run into the guard building. The building butted up against the back wall of the hexagon and had three doors but no windows by virtue of there being no sky. Naruto smiled slightly at that. If there were no windows there would be no need to worry about arrows. The samurai would need to come out of one of three choke points to attack the ninjas. He was beginning to get the feeling that they might survive this.

Now all that remained was to wait for the signal from Kurenai that the assassins were in position.

The light flashed long, short, long, short, long. It was time.