How much stronger have they gotten?

Disclaimer: This belongs to the series, Naruto. None of these parts are mine and are only written for entertainment purposes.

Neji dodged a punch that would have severed his chakra pathways and ducked to knock the opponent over with his sweeping leg. She rolled with the force and threw a kunai at him who knocked it out of the way with his hand. She pushed off the ground and did a backhand spring three times, landing into a stance to attack him again. Using her byakugan eyes, she launched forward, punching his left leg, succeeding in severing Neji's chakra point.

"Arugh," Neji muttered. "That's enough."

"Okay, Neji-san," Hinta said, standing up.

"You're getting better, I'll have to give you that much," he said, turning around and left, but not before he heard her talking.

"Th-thank you, Neji-san," she said, flustered by his comment.

Neji closed his eyes in frustration and sighed, 'Ever since the Chuunin exams, all she wants is to spar. With me! She's not what she used to be. Damnit Naruto.'

He walked several streets away from the Hyuuga complex and found Sasuke sitting on a bench, watching the river flow by. Neji noticed that Kakashi was standing next to him, talking to him. He increased the amount of chakra to his ears to hear what they were talking about.

"After that, I'll teach you how to use electricity throughout your body so the opponents will not be able to land a punch on you, much less be near you. You are progressing extremely well since you've become an apprentice."

"Use electricity throughout my body? Is that possible?" asked Sasuke, looking up at his sensei.

"Yes it is, today is your day off as it has been a week since you've become my apprentice," Kakashi said.

Neji stopped the chakra flowing to his ears, realizing the implications of apprentice and power. He walked away, understanding that he was weaker than Sasuke. He narrowed his eyes in anger, feeling inferior to the other clan with doujutsu bloodline limit.

'I'll have to talk to Hiashi about increasing my training routine. The way it is now, I'll never be on the same level as him!'

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Lee finished doing five-hundred pushups with one arm and began running eight-hundred laps around Konoha. He stopped on his third lap when he saw Sakura carrying supplies in her arms out of a store, walking alongside Hokage-sama. He was close enough to hear the two women conversing among themselves.

"So once you master this technique, you will be able to heal the most basic wounds as well as delivering punches big enough to crush a house into smithereens."

"Really, Tsunade-sama?" asked Sakura, widening her eyes in surprise.

"Yes, I can show you right here," she said, stopping at an old stone fence and flicked it with her finger, eradicating twenty feet of stone into smithereens.

She looked at Sakura, smiling, not breaking a sweat. Lee froze in shock, watching after the two women as their voices faded. Lee stared down at the ground, frowning at his useless genjutsu and ninjutsu.

'If Sakura-chan can do that, then maybe, I should be able to do massive blows with my own power. I know I'll never be able to achieve what other ninjas can, but I will be the best taijutsu ninja there is!' Lee nodded and resumed his running exercise. 'My blows will be just as big as Hokage-sama's! I'll make sure of it.'

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She threw ten kunais and shuriken at ten different targets in different angles and marked each dead on. She called them back with her chakra strings and threw them again using different set of kunais to change their paths and hit different targets than they were originally aimed for. Smirking, she called them back again and put them away in her scrolls of weapons.

'Gah, I'm so tired. I need to get some lunch,' she thought, putting the scroll on her back in a holster. 'I guess I could use some miso soup, so Ichiraku, it is!' she thought, walking into the village.

Ten-Ten stopped when he saw a pair was eating there and smirked.

'Well, well, Naruto's here. But who's the other fellow?' she wondered, almost entering behind the curtains when she heard voices.

"Well Naruto, I talked with Kakashi and I think you might be interested to know that there's a faster way to train than what we were doing," the man said, slurping some food, ramen most likely, down.

"Faster way? How?" Naruto asked, echoing Ten-Ten's thoughts as he slurped some ramen down as well. "If there is a faster way, then why hasn't he told me about it before?"

"He didn't want to make the team unbalanced if one of you became too strong. But now's the time is better than any to get all of you three get stronger as fast as you can since if you plan on helping Sasuke with his mission."

"Oh, I get it," Naruto said. "So, you'll show me how?"

"Yeah," said the other person.

'What? Does this mean that Naruto will get even stronger? No way!' Ten-Ten thought.

Curiosity became strong enough to see who this mysterious man was, who seemed to know Kakashi and Naruto and others. Moving the curtain out of the way as she entered and Ten-Ten sat down next to him, waving to Naruto and the other guy.

"Hello!" Ten-Ten greeted.

"Oh hey, Ten-Ten!" Naruto said, waving.

"Hello there," said the other man.

"What's your name?" asked Ten-Ten.

"Jiraiya," he replied.

"You're one of the sannin!" asked Ten-Ten, raising both eyebrows.

"That's right," he replied, finishing his bowl of ramen.

Ten-Ten ordered two bowl of miso ramen and began conversing with Naruto and Jiraiya. Ten-Ten learned that the pair was leaving tomorrow for two weeks to train. Upon asking why, she also realized that Jiraiya took Naruto in as an apprentice as his teammates needed to get strong and fast in order to complete the upcoming mission.

"What mission?" asked Ten-Ten, eating her ramen as Naruto ate his forth bowl.

"That's classified," Naruto replied, swallowing the liquids in the bowl.

"Oh, okay," she said, finishing eating her first bowl.

The three continued eating in silence and after they were finished, Jiraiya and Naruto stood up, Ten-Ten followed. Then the three paid for their meals and left, she followed Naruto, wanting to know more about the pair.

"Can I come along with you for a bit?" asked Ten-Ten.

"Sure!" Naruto replied.

"Well, I need to be off to do some more research," Jiraiya said.

"Alright, Pervert Hermit," Naruto said, rolling his eyes.

"Will you stop calling me that!" yelled Jiraiya, punching Naruto in the arm and walked several meters away to flirt with some of the women.

Ten-Ten shook he head and looked at Naruto.

"Why is he a pervert?" asked Ten-Ten.

"You know the books Kakashi reads?" asked Naruto.

"Yeah?"

"Jiraiya's that author. He … watches women in hot spring," he explained, sighing as he scratched his head.

"W-what!" Ten-Ten blushed and looked at Jiraiya's form in the distance.

'I'm never going to a hot spring again!' she thought, her face still completely red.

Ten-Ten saw Sakura and Tsunade walking towards them and greeted them with a wave. From the other direction came Sasuke and Kakashi.

"Well, here are my teammates!" said Naruto, laughing. "Oi, Sakura-chan, Sasuke!"

"Hey there, Naruto, Ten-Ten!" said Sakura, walking to a stop.

Sasuke nodded in greeting Naruto and Ten-Ten. She saw Neji walking towards the group and stopped as well as Lee running to a walk when he saw the group of people. The group stared at each other in uncomfortable silence.

"Uh… hi everyone?" asked Naruto, a sweat running down the side of his face as he grinned. "Well, just let you know, Sakura-chan and Sasuke. I'll be gone for two weeks with Jira—er, Pervert Hermit."

Tsunade sighed, "Why don't you use his name, Naruto?"

"Because he is a pervert, granny!"

'Uh-oh, Naruto…' Lee thought, flinching as Tsunade glared at him.

Looking at other people, she sighed and kept walking, followed by Sakura. A breath that everyone didn't know they were holding, exhaled in relief.

"Naruto, you need to stop trying to piss Tsunade-chan off!" Jirayai said, his body completely relaxed after a moment of tension. "Well then, I suppose we'll carry on."

"Bye Ten-Ten!" Naruto said, waving.

"Bye Naruto," she replied, waving back.

Neji, Ten-Ten and Lee stared at each other and shrugged as Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi left.

"Well, they are getting stronger…" said Ten-Ten.

"Yeah, it makes me want to train even harder than ever," said Neji, nodding.

"Naruto's going to be gone for two weeks?" asked Lee.

"Yeah, something about a faster method of training," Ten-Ten replied.

"What technique?" asked Lee, perking up at the question.

"I don't know, I overheard their conversation…" she replied.

"Still, damn, a faster method?" asked Neji.

The three teammates of Gai's stood there, thinking about the Team seven and their progress.

"We have to get stronger to keep up with them," said Neji.

"Agreed!" said Lee and Ten-Ten.