Chapter 18:
Like usual Kakashi woke up first, he was laying on his side facing Naruto. Naruto had fallen asleep on his stomach, one hand placed under his head acting as a pillow, the other arm stretched out in front of him. The arm stretched out was his cut arm, it seemed even in sleep he was being mindful of giving the wound air to heal. Kakashi propped himself up on his elbow, taking the younger man's hand in his. He took his other hand and drew his fingers over all the scars littering the blonde's flesh. There were so many, all ranging in different sizes. There were a couple scars that were jarringly large, he assumed that these scars, in particular, were attempts at his life. His gut twisted at the thought, each of these scars represented moments of pain the young man had lived through entirely alone. Kakashi felt Naruto's arm jerk under his scrutiny, the young man had woken up and was looking up at Kakashi with a touch of fear in his eyes. "I'm sorry you went through all of this all alone…" Kakashi whispered, dropping his head down and placing a tender kiss over the scars on Naruto's arm. He let the kiss linger for a moment before bringing his head back up, "...never again." He gave the blonde's hand a quick squeeze and sat up. "Come on, we should get going before the tide starts coming in." Kakashi got up quickly and headed outside.
Naruto hadn't moved from the position he had woken up in. His head was reeling, there was a strong, unfamiliar fluttering feeling in his chest. He could hear a dark chuckle in the back of his mind. "What's so funny Kurama?" "You don't know what the feeling in your chest is, do you, Kit? I'm not going to say anything yet, I want to watch for a bit longer. We can talk later, for now you need to get up, Kakashi is waiting for you." Naruto could feel the fox pull back from him a bit but knew he was still lurking, watching through his eyes. He quickly got changed and headed out of the tent, not wanting to keep Kakashi waiting any longer. When he emerged from the tent he found that Kakashi was changing into fresh clothes as well. Kakashi had his back to him, standing entirely naked a few feet away. Naruto was frozen in place, his eyes drinking in the sight before him. Kakashi was slightly leaner than Naruto but a little taller too. There wasn't an inch of fat on him anywhere. His body was firm, angular, seeming chiseled from stone. He looked strong, powerful even. A shudder passed through Naruto's body as he remembered being pinned under that strong body, a twitch of arousal hitting him making him stifle back a moan. He could hear that damned fox chuckling in his head again. He watched as Kakashi shook out a pair of clean boxers, pulling them up over his legs and firm butt, the fabric clinging tightly to his rear as he bent over to pick up a fresh shirt. He pulled the shirt over his head and down his back but not before Naruto noticed all the scars covering his muscular back. Kakashi dropped down to one knee, securing his kunai holster to his calf. Standing back up, he started pulling on pants. Naruto finally managed to pull himself away from gawking at the older man, walking down to the river's edge to wash his face and grab a drink. "You all ready to go?" Kakashi called out, now completely dressed with a large cooking pot in his hand. "Yep, I'm coming!"
They walked down the middle of the gully along the river's edge, most of the river was fairly shallow but there were a few deeper spots that would make for a good spot to bathe in. They made it to the mouth of the gully where it opened up into the ocean and Kakashi was right. The tide was indeed low, small pools of water sprinkled along the beach around the large boulders that were usually submerged in the sea. "We will have to work kind of fast, I'm not sure when or how quickly the tide will rise and I don't want to get caught out there." They quickly set out, making their way from one little pool to the next, at first not finding much of anything. By the time they reached the fourth pool, Naruto was starting to get discouraged. They peered into the slightly larger pool and at first Naruto didn't see anything, another dud. "Do you see these small holes in the sand, Naruto?" Naruto's eyes followed Kakashi's fingers as they pointed to the sand, there were indeed small holes in the sand. He didn't know why that mattered but he nodded back at Kakashi. "Watch…" Kakashi scooped his hand under the sand and gave it a gentle shake before pulling it back up, letting the wet sand slide through his fingers. Left in his hand were a bunch of white shells. "These are clams Naruto, they bury themselves in the sand to protect themselves, and when the tide comes back in they stick little siphons out from the sand and into the water to breath and eat. Keep an eye on the sand for more holes." They continued down the beach stopping at a few more shallow pools, collecting more clams and a few crabs, filling their cooking pot relatively quickly. "Alright, that should be good for now, let's go drop these back off at camp before we go get some firewood."
Arriving back at camp, Naruto watched as Kakashi carefully balanced the cooking pot filled with their catches and some ocean water in the flowing river. "I want the metal to stay cool while we are out so when we come back I can shuck the clams while they are still fresh." Explaining his actions to Naruto. Satisfied that the pot was secure, Kakashi gave the blonde a quick nod and they headed back out.
They climbed over the lowest point of the gully wall and headed back north up the beach, cutting east inland after a short distance. As Kakashi had mentioned the night before, there was a decently large forest a few hundred feet back from the shortline. They were at the forest's edge a short while later. "How well do you know your trees, Naruto?" Kakashi was surveying the area around them, taking in the different species of trees available. "Well, I think I know them pretty well. I had a lot of free time on my hands growing up so I read a ton. I wanted to learn as much as possible so if I ever made it out of the village I would hopefully be able to take care of myself and live off the land." Kakashi gave him a pained look, the young man really never had the opportunity to have any kind of childhood. He was forced to grow up too quickly. Trying to push his guilt back down, he pointed towards the big tree standing directly in front of them. "Alright, what is this tree?" "That's a white pine tree, a lot of this forest seems to be pine." "Good, and how about that one tucked back there?" "Umm, I think that's an elm tree." "You're correct, it is an elm. Let me show you something." Naruto followed Kakashi to the elm that was nestled amongst all the other trees. The tree felt slightly out of place here, aside from the pine trees there were a couple fir trees dotted about but this was the only elm Naruto could see in the area. Naruto watched as Kakashi made a few hand signs and disappeared before his eyes. "Up here…" Naruto looked up to where the voice was coming from, Kakashi was standing on a thick tree limb up high in the elm tree. "How did you…? Be careful!" Naruto called up as he watched Kakashi walk out along the large limb. Kakashi retrieved the kunai strapped to his calf and cut free a bunch of smaller limbs from the elm, dropping them to the forest floor below. Deeming he had collected enough, Kakashi made his way back to the center of the elm climbing down its trunk rather than using the teleportation jutsu again. Naruto kept a close eye on Kakashi while he was up in the tree, heart in his throat with worry. He watched as Kakashi started climbing his way down the trunk of the tree, his strong arms and legs flexing and moving deftly. "How did you get up there? I feel like I blinked and you disappeared." Naruto asked Kakashi when he was back safely on the ground. "It's called the Body Flicker technique, it's a pretty useful jutsu that lets you move a short distance away at an almost untraceable speed." Naruto regarded Kakashi inquisitively, so Kakashi continued. "With this eye.." he brought his hand up to point at his covered Sharingan, "... I have learned over a thousand jutsus. It has garnered me the nickname The Copy ninja, since I am able to watch almost any jutsu once and mimic it. Anyways, enough about all that. Let me show you something." Kakashi picked up one of the smaller limbs he had cut free from the elm. He took his kunai and sliced just below the bark of the limb, leaving a small flap for him to pinch onto. "The bark of an elm tree is soft and the newer limbs' bark is fairly flexible…" Kakashi pinched his fingers around the small flap and pulled down, the bark peeling back in a long strip. "... the bark is stringy and flexible but also very strong. It makes for really good cordage, good for lashing together things. We can take this back to camp and build a drying rack for our clothes, we could make an A-frame for over the fire to hold up our cooking pot, all sorts of things." Naruto picked up one of the branches and started peeling long strips of bark off of it. "Wow, that's really cool. How do you know all this stuff?" "I learned a lot of it during ANBU survival training. We can spend years in foreign territory with nothing but the clothing on our backs, living entirely off the land…" Narutos watched as Kakashi's eye took on a far away look, a hint of worry crossing his features. Kakashi shook his head slightly and it was gone in an instant. "Alright Naruto, how about you collect some tinder and I'll forage for some edibles." Naruto gave him a bright smile and wandered off bending down and collecting sticks as he went. Kakashi didn't have to go far before he found a decent patch of mushrooms, chanterelles and morels mostly. He pulled off his shirt, deciding to use it as a sack to carry his bounty in. He took the bark lashing he had and tied it around the neck hole to close it. He tied loose knots in the sleeves to close them up too. It was crude but it would work for now. He picked a bunch of the mushrooms, stuffing them in his shirt sack. He wandered a little further into the forest coming across a plethora of edibles; wild asparagus, leeks, fiddleheads, he even came across a small patch of blueberries. He collected a bit of everything, adding it to his shirt sack. He came across a large patch of dandelions and decided to gather some leaves to make a salad with and dug up a bit of the roots for tea. Happy with his harvest he made his way back in the direction he had left Naruto.
Naruto had managed to find quite a large supply of tinder, stacking it neatly near the base of the elm tree. He was peeling more lashing material from the elm branches and using it to bundle up the tinder to make it easier to carry back. He heard the approach of footsteps and looked up. Kakashi was making his way toward him, his shirt was off. Naruto swallowed sharply and watched as the older man's stomach muscles danced with every step he took. Naruto could feel his cheeks start to heat, so he quickly dropped his face back to his hands, resuming the work of bundling the tinder. Kakashi caught the blonde's gaze and smirked to himself. "Alright, I managed to find quite a bit of stuff, should keep us well fed for a couple days and it looks like you found plenty of tinder for the next few days as well. Let's head back." Kakashi picked up the now bound together elm branches and a bundle of tinder with his free hand, Naruto collecting the remainder of the tinder. They made it back to camp a short time later, depositing all their newly garnered items near their tent.