Naruto met his team by the gate. He was the first to arrive, but he didn't have to wait long. After a short greeting, they moved toward their destination. Before getting far from the village, they stopped in a clearing to discuss their course of action.
Since the mission was to test Naruto's skills, he would take the lead. The bandit camp was small and reported to have around 20 members. These kinds of missions were guaranteed success without complications.
Usually, when a bandit group was reported, the Hokage would send a spy to check the information. If they were dangerous or had rouge shinobi among them, they would be taken care of by Jonins.
Suppose they had sensitive hostage situations or complications. In that case, it might even be done by ANBU, but it rarely happened unless high-ranking rouge ninjas were involved.
However, if it was only civilian bandits, it would fall into the chunin or genin team missions category. And this one was straightforward due to the small number.
The camp was located outside a village that was 2 days away from Konoha but within the land of fire. Naruto was also aware that he had 2 ANBU watchers he was not supposed to be aware of.
Over the years, his senses have become so sensitive that nothing could escape his notice, even without the sage mode. However, this wasn't the information that even Danzo was aware of.
Danzo knew he was a fantastic sensor and often compared him to the Nidaime. Still, he believed his range was more limited, and his senses had a limit. Still, finding the ANBU wouldn't be hard for him.
These 2 ANBU belonged to the Hokage. The ROOT agent Danzo planted would join later as he could sense his Chakra already near their destination.
Naruto knew that one of the ANBU was his usual stalker. From the time he began his outings in the village, sometimes when he was training, he would feel this ANBU watching him.
His Chakra wasn't familiar, but he was never hostile, just curious and excited when watching him. Naruto knew that it was natural that he didn't recognize him since he was an Uchiha.
The only Uchihas Naruto known by Chakra were Sasuke, Itachi, Obito, and Madara. Plus, based on his Chakra, he was a teenager, around 14. His Chakra was strong and warm.
He had the signature Uchiha fire Nature but a secondary affinity towards wind which was trained and not natural. His natural secondary, which was really weak, was water.
His Chakra gave Naruto an expression of a fireplace. Strong and raging yet controlled and protective. It also seemed playful and sparkling sometimes when Naruto searched for his Chakra around the village.
Naruto brought back his attention to the current conversation. His teammates were going through the details. Naruto listened to them and decided to give his own input.
" The camp is far from the village for a fight without worrying about the civilians. My idea is that since the camp is located in the woods, we should be able to use the cover of night to get close enough."
" Based on the reports, there should be a shift change for the guards around 2am. We can use the disorientation to sneak into the camp. I can make shadow clones and send them inside the tents to take care of the ones sleeping while we take care of the guards."
" I can make around 10 effective clones. 4 of them can stay outside the camp in the trees in case some try to escape, while the other 6 go for the tents."
" Since there are only 2 entrances, I suggest we split into 2 groups to take out the guards," Naruto said thoughtfully.
After a little more discussion, his team agreed, and they continued their journey. Soon it was nighttime and time for camping for the night. Naruto took the duty of making dinner.
He had a scroll sealed with all the necessities. It was a two-layered storage scroll meaning a storage scroll intended to hold other storage scrolls. Naruto liked to keep his scrolls organized.
Inside there was a scroll with his pots and dishes. One for meat, vegetable, fruits, fresh spices, dry spices, canned food, snacks, drinks, and water each. He liked to fill them up when he was in the village on his hunts and sometimes with things from the store.
He also had scrolls for waste, leftovers, and hunts. It was a system that he was told was excessive, but one thing he learned from Kosuke was the importance of good food when possible.
Naruto sent clones to learn cooking quite often. It was a valuable and peaceful skill. He also read a lot of cookbooks. He would sometime use the base's kitchen to make food when he was dismissed for the day.
His cooking was slowly gaining attraction, and Naruto didn't know how to feel about it. The only people outside the base who knew about his cooking skills were the Rookie 9.
Naruto looked through his ingredients. He knew they all had a long day, so he didn't want to take too long to make dinner. He decided to make rice and curry along with some roasted rabbit he caught a while ago.
He cooked the rabbit with red wine and balsamic vinegar to make a sweet and sour sauce, while the curry was more creamy. He didn't expect everyone to ask for seconds so fast when he served the dishes.
He filled everyone's dishes again and told them that he also had dessert. For dessert, he had a pie with various fruits he had made a few days ago and some herbal tea to help them sleep. Naruto decided to take the first shift to clean the dishes when everyone had their shares.
He put the extra ingredients in the scrolls. He really loved his modified scrolls. They kept his ingredients fresh for at least a month. After that, it was based on the ingredient. Things that were dried could have a lot longer lives.
When they started eating dinner, Naruto's clone sneaked 2 servings for the ANBU. Naruto knew that he was being an asshole, but he couldn't help himself. He also left them a note saying to leave the dishes at the same place for him to pick them up.
Naruto collected their dishes and started cleaning everything. It didn't take him long to pack and fill himself another cup of tea for the rest of his shift.
The next day he got up before the others and made some breakfast. Some rice and omelet along with steamed vegetables. They cleaned up and started moving again.
They reached the village in the early afternoon. They took a room in an inn and rested until midnight. Turns out that all their information was accurate, and they got to the camp pretty quickly.
Naruto was a bit nervous. He knew that it wasn't his first kill, but he hadn't killed in his life. He also hasn't taken the life of a human in a very long time. During the war, his enemies were mainly Zetsu clones or reanimated shinobis.
He wasn't sure if he was ready, but it was his duty, and he would complete his mission. They all positioned themselves. They were supposed to signal each other with an owl whistle.
Soon it was time to begin. Naruto made the clones which quickly moved into position. They moved fast. The guards were retiring for the night, so their guard was down.
The first two didn't even see it coming as Naruto used a pair of tanto blades in their necks. Suddenly there was screaming from a tent, and there was chaos. The bandits tried to get up and arm themselves but were disoriented and pitted against shinobi.
It didn't take long to disband them all. When they were sure there was no one left, Naruto dispelled his clones, and suddenly he had the memory of killing all those bandits.
Some tried to beg or run, but there was no mercy. Naruto's head was spinning. He kept seeing the dying faces of his friends and allies and how many of them also begged for mercy.
HE WAS A MONSTER. HE WAS A MONSTER. HE WAS…."KIT, WAKE UP" Kurama shouted in his head. Naruto couldn't calm down, however. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think.
Suddenly he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders. It took all he had to prevent himself from hurting the person in front of him. It was one of the chunin. His name was Jiro.
Jiro did his best to calm Naruto down. He talked to him calmly and breathed with him. It took a few minutes, but Naruto finally calmed down.
" Thank you so much, Jiro-san. I don't know what happened to me." Naruto said, hanging his head low, trying to hide his shaking hands.
" It's ok, kid. It happened to most of us when we had our first kills too. You and Kenji should go back to the inn. We take care of things here." Jiro said.
Naruto didn't find it in himself to put up a fight. They went to the inn, and Naruto took a quick shower and went to sleep. He knew he wouldn't be able to actually rest, but he retreated to his mindscape and buried his face in Kurama's tails.
Their journey back was quiet and uneventful. Naruto knew it would be weird for him to recover so quickly, so he acted clumsy and distressed. When they got back to the village, he went to the base and gave his own report.
He had the rest of the day off after paying a quick visit to the infirmary for his regular checkup. He couldn't feel any of his agents in the base. Shin and Sai had an apartment not to arouse suspicion and only came back to the base at weekends.
Naruto decided to go around the village for a little bit. About two months ago, he got his sealing skills confirmed by the sealing division. He didn't have to do anything complicated. There was no need for him to hide his skills.
He could simply pass his skills as an Uzumaki. Yet he didn't want to overdo his skills. As a ninja, it was always better to keep secrets. While Danzo provided him with all the materials, he could find Naruto was at a level where he didn't need a teacher.
He only needed experimentation and time for research, so he was mostly left alone in his studies. The sealing division exam was a walk in the park for him. since he was a genin, they didn't trust him with high-ranking village secrets.
By passing the exam, he was only allowed to specific sections of division. While he could be asked to make specialized seals if he were to sell them, he needed confirmation from the division.
And another hobby of his was taking orders. There were many basic shinobi seals. Simple barriers, storage scrolls, offensive seals, and a few more. They were mostly available in shinobi stores.
Naruto liked to go to the division whenever he had the time and take some of these orders for the stores. He would usually throw some of his specialized seals to see if they were popular.
So far, he has managed to get himself some custom orders. He knew he had an order to take and finish by the end of the week. He also had to deliver his finished seals from last time.
It didn't take long for Naruto to finish at the sealing division. He went to a shinobi store next to pick up his order of special sealing paper for one of the orders. Naruto needed some peace and quiet, so he went to one training field to work on the seals.
He unsealed a small table and sealing materials and got to work. He worked for quite a while when he noticed someone close by. It seemed to be a shinobi in the next training ground, and he seemed familiar.
He was around 12 and strong. He had fire and secondary water nature. His chakra was calm and calculating and also fiercely protective. It felt like a phoenix. A firebird. Free and wise.
Naruto knew this chakra, but he couldn't believe it. He packed his things and went to check closely. There was a boy who seemed too deep in thought to realize he was being watched.
He had a seal in his hand, and it looked like he was contemplating activating it. Naruto was behind him on a tree branch, so he had a good view of the seal. It was a special barrier seal.
It was used mainly by ANBU when they wanted to protect their injured. The person who used the seal had to have excellent chakra control, as the seal needed a constant and steady stream of chakra.
Once activated, the seal would make a barrier with a diameter depending on the amount of chakra. It would mostly protect against ninjutsu attacks, but the person using the seal would have to burn more chakra the more it was hit.
Overall, it was primarily used when a medic on the team tried to heal the injured in the middle of the field. The seal would be used mainly by the injured person while the medic did their job.
Naruto looked closely at the seal. Something was wrong, but he couldn't put his hand on it. Just as Naruto noticed the problem and tried to prevent the guy from activating it, the man pushed chakra to activate the seal.
Naruto didn't have time to do anything else, so he deactivated his resistance, and gravity seals jump tackled the other person at full speed. He also unsealed a seal himself and pushed chakra to activate it just as they hit the ground.
They both heard the loud explosion sound, and there was dust everywhere. Once everything calmed down, and Naruto looked up from his place sprawled on top of the other, he came face to face with Itachi Uchiha.