"speak"

Thought

Kyuubi

Jutsu

Ch 7 – Survival

The race was on. Team 7 went into the area and was surprised to see rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. A little further east revealed a HUGE desert, and some ways west of the rocks was a forest the size of the Hokage Monument. Needless to say, Team 7 was surprised. Jiraiya wasn't kidding when he said the place would be big.

Right in front of the gate was a scroll, and Sasuke was at it in the blink of an eye. He was back to the team and showed them the scroll. It had a large D on the label. That would explain why it was so easy to find. Naruto realized.

The three genins quickly held a small conference (okay two. Sasuke just sort of stood there) about what to do, and eventually it was decided that Sasuke would look in the rock portion of the field, Sakura in the forest and Naruto would take the desert. Naruto objected (Why should I have to take the hot area?) but was ignored when Sakura went to see of her beloved 'Sasuke-kun.'

(A/N: I won't go into detail on their exploits, just think that their whole ordeal is something like how I describe.

)))) With Sasuke ((((

After finally shaking off the leech, Sasuke left his team to go to the forest. He ran some chakra through his legs to help speed him up, and arrived in a relatively short time. The first thing he noticed was it was hot. Apparently, sunlight (and as a side result, heat) could get through the canopy coming down, it was trapped going up. Therefore, a lot of heat was trapped just above the ground and just below the leaves, exactly where a shinobi would most travel. The second thing he noticed – quite painfully – was the bugs. The large, finger-sized mosquitoes and arm-sized spiders. Inwardly, Sasuke was freaking out. He hated bugs, spiders, anything that had more than four legs. It was just unnatural. After calming down for a second, he jumped into the trees and began his hunt for the scrolls.

After a minute or two of hopping around, Sasuke realized he would have to travel on the ground because the trees were to enclosed and hot to move effectively. He dropped to the ground, and in doing so sprung a trap. He heard a twang and saw about fifteen shuriken flying at him. Being a shuriken master, he easily dodged them, even catching a few to add to his arsenal. However, the few he let through hit another string, and that launched a volley of kunai. He dodged that volley, again grabbing a few, and once again left some through, those few triggering another trap. This time it was a large spiked log dropping down and almost impaling our favorite genin through the torso. Luckily he managed to Kawarimi with a nearby log, but that triggered the last trap in this little series: a huge pit suddenly opened around him, lined with spikes at the bottom. Sasuke had the instinct to jump when he saw the pit open, and he managed to Kawarimi again with a large rock nearby.

Watching the rock fall, Sasuke turned around, but doubled back when he realized that there was a scroll at the bottom of the pit. Grumbling about 'the stupid frog-man,' he carefully climbed down, and locked his feet on a large root hanging out of the pit wall. He grabbed the scroll, and then flipped himself up back to ground level. He looked at the label on the scroll, and was pleased to find a large C on the scroll. He decided that doing all that acrobatics had left him tired, plus he was real hot, he left to find a safe spot to take a short rest. Walking around for a few minutes revealed a large flat area that he deemed safe enough for him to rest and eat a small snack, he started off back towards the middle of the area when suddenly…

)))) With Sakura ((((

After Sasuke finally peeled her off of him, he left, and Naruto left after that, leaving her no choice but to go ahead and get to the rocky area. Upon arrival, she noticed that not only was the place covered in rocks, but there seemed to be cracked grounds everywhere. The only places she could effectively walk on were the rocks. What was worse, the rocks were spaced just far enough apart that she would have to use chakra to jump far enough to travel the rocks. This would normally not be a problem, but for someone like Sakura, who had little to no chakra reserves, it was a big problem.

She resolved to try use as little chakra as possible, but found no other way to get from rock to rock other than jumping. Sighing, she moved some chakra through her legs and leaped, moving from rock to rock, when she landed on one particularly large rock. As soon as her feet landed on the rock, she realized something.

It wasn't a rock.

To be more precise, it didn't exist. She landed on the rock, fell through the rock, and then landed in a HUGE cave. She realized then that the cave was where the actual part of the training course would take place. She got up from her rather ungraceful fall and began walking around, trying to find a clue as to where to go.

After wandering around, she found an underground river, and decided to follow it upstream, hopefully finding a way back to surface level.

Several minutes after walking, she noticed that she wasn't really getting anywhere. She pumped some chakra into her legs and began to run faster, but afterwards, when she looked around, the rock that she had fallen "through" hadn't moved more than possibly five feet. Now that she noticed it, the area looked like it had been laid over itself, like it was itself, then another layer on top of it. Unable to see through the Genjutsu, she had to make do with biting her cheek to get rid of it with the pain. Once she saw that, she saw that she had actually made it nearly 100 feet in the underground cavern, bypassing several holes in the ceiling. She backtracked some ten feet, and prepared to jump up, but saw a just scroll lying out. She decided to go after the scroll, but as soon as she got within five feet of it, a huge wall of rock appeared.

She began to back away, and when she was about seven feet away, the wall receded. She walked forwards and backwards a few times, and managed to find out nothing except when she got too close, the wall appeared, and when she got far enough away, it shrank back down. She wondered how far it went, so she jumped up and forward, thinking she had jumped high enough to avoid it, and smacked right into it. After sliding down, she realized it was a Doton Ninjutsu, but had never seen it, so had no idea how to counter it. The only Suiton she knew was a plant watering one she learned in Kunoichi Class, but decided against trying it, knowing it would only waste chakra. She got close enough to it to make it appear, and walked around it, and it followed her, not allowing her to pass. She suddenly had an idea, and threw a little rock around it, and the wall followed it. She realized it was a Ninjutsu that relied on its "sight" to work, so she made about 5 Bunshins, and made 3 run around one way and had two follow her. They formed a hexagonal shape around it, and then dashed forward to grab the scroll.

Confused by this sudden rush of six people, the wall tried to intercept the nearest one, successfully blocking it…

Only to have it vanish, with the scroll it was guarding along with it. It had blocked a Bunshin, and Sakura had grabbed the scroll. Since it had been defeated, the hidden trap under the scroll was activated, and dozens of explosive tags fell from the ceiling, exploding at different rates, and Sakura realized that to get back up to the hole, she'd have to go through them. Pushing chakra under her, she launched herself up and a tag snuck its way onto her and exploded, leaving singed skin behind. Wincing, she landed on top of a solid rock and sat down to rest awhile. She decided to check her scroll, and was just giddy to see it had a large, bold B on it. She decided she needed to rest a bit to recover from that draining experience and drank some energy formula she always had on her to compensate for her poor stamina, then began to walk again towards where she though the center was, but then…

)))) With Naruto ((((

After watching Sakura-chan see of her 'Sasuke-kun,' and watch him pry her off of him, Naruto decided to skip the goodbye and just left, heading for the desert. When he got about fifteen feet in, his first thought was Dang, it's hot in here. Slowly he came to the conclusion that he'd have to lose his beloved jacket in order to not overheat himself, and thusly he shed his jacket after removing all his valuables: his spare kunai, the scroll with the Kuchiyose technique he had yet to perfect, the ramen – wait, he could Kuchiyose!

After realizing his utter stupidity and thanking his dad for getting the contract, he bit his thumb, smeared the blood over his hand, then ran through the seals and slammed his hand down. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" A large puff of smoke materialized, and within it, a medium-sized fox, slightly smaller than Hayai appeared, and asked "What do you need?"

Naruto was surprised he managed to get a big enough fox, but felt a little woozy from it, so he just said "Gimme a lift, if you can, and keep an eye out for any scrolls" before he collapsed onto the foxes back. He just needed a quick nap then his chakra would recharge and he'd be fit as a fiddle.

He awoke about an hour later to find himself at an oasis with the fox – now known as Ryoukou – who had managed to three scrolls, two Ds, but the summon (dangerously low on energy at this point) actually managed a C. Naruto felt that the summon had overworked himself, and let him know ("I said keep an eye out, not hunt them down!") and dispelled him. Feeling refreshed and ready to go, he made his way to the supposed center of the area, where the large scroll would most likely be.

Walking for that distance however, made Naruto realize exactly how large the desert was. More than once he wished he learned a Doton jutsu just so he could travel under the sand.

After walking around for about a half hour and only finding a D rank jutsu, he decided that he'd had enough and started running chakra through his legs to his feet, where he immediately began running as fast as he could. On the way to the center, however, he found something very interesting…

)))) All 3 ((((

They had all found an inscribed seal that had the kanji for the word "Move" in it. Wondering what it was, they touched it and pumped some chakra into it, then found themselves full and refreshed. Thinking it was something to help the students on the way, they began running again, but found that they were running at speeds EASILY in excess of 250 kph, finding themselves already at the center gate area. Seeing each other all there, they walked over – thankfully, the seal seemed to have worn off, as they moved relatively slow – and all asked the same question – how'd you get here so fast?

Once they all told of their exploits (Naruto feeling sad because even Sakura had scored a B-rank jutsu) they found that the gate was divided into three sections, with a small hole in each wall holding a scroll with a large A on it, one yellow, one blue, and one red. Each remembering what Jiraiya had said, and each favoring a certain Jutsu-type, they each stood at their pre-determined scroll (Naruto at Red, Sakura at Blue, and Sasuke at Yellow) and lifted the scroll up.

Immediately, the walls disappeared, and in the middle of the circle, on a large ornate pedestal, stood the large scroll, easily identifiable with its large bold SS on it. An SS on a scroll meant one of two things – two S-rank jutsus, or one scroll with information on a Kinjutsu. However, it was only in sight for so long, when suddenly a large tongue came down and swallowed the scroll whole, revealing a large frog with Jiraiya standing on top of it.

"What, did you think I'd make this easy?"

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Sorry for the unupdates lately, it kinda slipped my mind, and I kinda had an anti-anime vibe running through me through the whole last part of school. However, hopefully now I can update once or twice a week. Just to make up for it, an update Thursday and Saturday to say sorry.

Well? Questions? Comments? Cheese?

Word Count: 2173