The boys were back after an hour or so. I had known that they wouldn't be gone long. "Hey, guys." I greeted them, opening the door before they even had a chance to knock. They took it in stride, simply walking in to start relaxing. "So," I interrupted. "Either of you know how to cook?"

It wasn't very surprising Naruto-nii had no real idea how to cook anything other than ramen. I was initially surprised by Sasuke-nii's culinary knowledge, but it made sense. He was living alone, after all, and he knows that he couldn't survive just eating the same thing over and over. He cooked, after Naruto-nii and I went out to go and get some supplies, the food in the house understandably only being enough for one person. I glared at more than a few that glared at us. It seemed that… they hadn't been the only ones that had something against Naruto-nii. I still had to ask him what that was all about, too.

Speaking of, we also had to find out what the deal was about his woeful taijutsu. Iruka-sensei would never have done something like teach him the wrong moves, would he? Naruto-nii certainly didn't think so, and I didn't either. Sasuke-nii… I couldn't read what was in his eyes. We discussed this a bit, and we all decided we'd talk to Iruka-sensei tomorrow. Naruto-nii was subdued for the rest of the night.

I had assumed we all thought that we would talk to Iruka-sensei in the morning, since we thought that Kakashi-sensei would be late. When we woke up, in a clearing outside the village, surrounded by seven snarling dogs… Well, that probably wouldn't be happening. "I'm glad you finally decided to wake up. We'll have to work on your awareness. I would never have thought that I would manage to get all three of you here without at least one of you noticing something. Although, I suppose the genjutsu I used may have had something to do with it. Not only that, but those locks on the windows were pitifully easy to break, and you didn't even have any security seals or anything of the like set up. We'll have to work on that, too." I looked up, seeing Kakashi-sensei staring down at us.

"Objective is to get back inside the village. You have five minutes before I send my ninken after you. Be careful. They bite." Naruto-nii looked around blearily, while Sasuke-nii just glared at him. "What are you staring at? You only have four minutes and thirty-eight seconds left." I bolted, the boys right behind me.

How far did he take us out? I was running full-tilt, buffs and everything active, and I still couldn't tell if we had made it any closer. The ninken had been let out a while ago. Sasuke-nii was still faster than me, and Naruto-nii was managing to keep up after he got bitten a few times. The ninken were right on our tails, constantly yapping and barking. If they had been regular dogs, I wouldn't have been nervous, but these were ninken. Kakashi-sensei's ninken. The fact that there were seven of them didn't really help much. I had no idea if they would actually try and kill us if we stopped, but I wasn't really willing to stop and check.

I was starting to pant in tiredness, as was Sasuke-nii. I quickly checked out my stats, but… My MP was only going down at the regular rate with my buffs. Yet, I was incredibly tired. Was not everything about me defined by my powers? That must've been the case. Naruto-nii was still going strong, though. His stamina was pretty unbelievable, running at a full sprint for… how long had it been? Thirty, forty minutes? I wondered just how he could keep going, and almost paid for it, as I barely noticed the kunai that had been flung at me from the trees. I dodged it, throwing myself to the side, losing all my speed as I crashed into a tree. The ninken rushed out to bite at me, but Naruto-nii grabbed my hand, pulling me forward back into a sprint, and we kept going, now wary for kunai.

We ran through the gates, Sasuke-nii and I covered in sweat and panting, Naruto-nii only barely looking winded. The gate guards took one look at us and chuckled, while Kakashi-sensei strolled out from behind the gates, casually reading his book.

Like he hadn't been chasing us the entire way with his kunai.

"An hour. Your time is… passable. Your speed is good when rested, but apart from Naruto, your stamina needs work. But acceptable, for now. Sakura, your dodging becomes sloppy when you're tired. Naruto, same to you, except your dodging is sloppy all the time. Both of you are simply wasting more energy and making yourself more tired. For Naruto, that hardly matters, but you, Sakura, need to make the most of the energy you have. Now that we're finished with the warm up, let's go and actually start training for the day, shall we?" Kakashi-sensei walked off, clearly expecting us to follow him, and having no way to argue, we trudged along behind him.

We did the same type of strength training that I had done in Wave when I had asked. It was still just as tiring, although it didn't seem just as effective. After that, Kakashi-sensei had Naruto-nii show him how much better his taijutsu had gotten. It was completely different from the unrefined brawling that he had been using beforehand, but it still needed a lot of work, and Kakashi-sensei said as much. Naruto still didn't have the muscle memory for the style, and when frustrated, he started getting sloppier and sloppier, eventually just going back into the brawling style he had used to use. Still, considering how long it had been since Sasuke-nii had started helping him with it, it was an amazing amount of progress, but as Kakashi-sensei said, enemies don't care about how much better you've gotten, only how good you are.

We continued doing things like that, Kakashi-sensei testing and pushing us to see where our limits were and where we had to improve. It was by far the most intense and long training session we had ever had with him. At the end of it, he handed us each a scroll. "I want each of you to learn what's in each of your scrolls by this time next week. I don't require mastery, or even battle readiness. Just enough to show you are at least capable of at least using the technique." We all nodded, and we were dismissed. We hadn't even taken a mission.

You have obtained the skill book 'Demonic Illusion: False Surroundings Technique'.

We went over to the Academy to see Iruka-sensei straight afterwards. We told him about what had happened with Naruto's taijutsu. Iruka-sensei looked devastated. He checked back through the records, looking at who had taken the taijutsu evaluations and training for our class, I assumed. "The only person who took the taijutsu classes and who had done the evaluations was… Mizuki." Both his and Naruto-nii's faces darkened at that. "Well, Mizuki is already imprisoned for another… incident, so no actions can be undertaken against him at this time. If he ever is let out, though, you can sue for attempted sabotage of your ninja career, Naruto-kun."

Naruto-nii just nodded, but… he didn't say a word. Iruka-sensei's eyes softened a bit. "What do you say we go out to get some ramen, huh?" Naruto's eyes lit up just a bit, and he smiled, before he looked at us.

"I'll pass," I said, smiling at him. "I can't pack that stuff away like you do. Plus, it's so unhealthy!" Just because I wasn't dieting didn't mean that I had stopped caring about my figure. Sasuke-nii grunted in seeming agreement, and we left the two of them to enjoy themselves.

Sasuke-nii went out to train some more, leaving me alone in the house again. I knew that I really should go out to join him, but I just didn't feel like it. I did learn the genjutsu, though.

Demonic Illusion: False Surroundings Technique (Active) LV1 EXP: 0.00%
One of the most basic genjutsu that shinobi have developed; cast over a large area of effect, this jutsu ensnares all inside it's area, making them believe their surroundings are different from what they are.
Casts an illusion over a predetermined area of effect, changing its appearance.

Pretty simple, but it was my first genjutsu, no matter how illusionary in nature two of the Academy jutsu were. Actually, thinking about that, I really needed to level up Substitution. I hadn't had to use it in a fight yet, but I was certain that eventually, it would be the factor that saved my life. There was a reason it was the one jutsu that not only did every ninja know, it was also the one that all of them used.

I stared at the bed. I had gotten back into the habit of sleeping recently, and I needed to stop, no matter how much I wanted to. I didn't need it, and the extra hours gave me so much extra training time it was unreal. But it was so inviting…

Fine. Once more.