A/N This chapter was particularly hard; I didn't want to go straight to the

Land of Waves arc, but I wasn't sure what to do.

XIV: Team Building

Road to Konoha Present Day:

"That was pretty brave of them," Shizune was inspired by the loyalty they had shown each other.

"That Hinata kid sounds talented; think she has any potential as a medic?" Tsunade figured that if she was going back anyways she might as well train a medic or two.

"Yeah, but she's not the only one, there's at least one potential medic on each team, you could start a class."

"So, what happened next?"

Konoha, Twelve Months, Twelve Days ago:

They arrived at training ground seven two and a half hours after Kakashi said to arrive and they still got there before him. "So what do you think he's going to make us do?" Sasuke asked Naruto.

"If its three weeks of teamwork exercises I'm going to break my foot off in …"

"N-Naruto-kun, He's coming!" Hinata interrupted Naruto before he could really get started.

"Well Naruto, you're right. Normally I would give you three weeks of team building exercises before I even allowed you one D-rank, but after what you guys showed me yesterday I think it's safe to skip those for now. We still will go over some advanced teamwork and tactics exercises, but for now those are the side dishes." Reaching into his pocket he pulled out four slips of paper, handing one out to each of them and keeping one for himself before saying "Naruto already knows what these are, but I figured an extra demonstration wouldn't hurt; all you have to do is channel your chakra into it like this." First Kakashi's paper crumpled itself, and then it got noticeably darker, before finally it crumbled away; turning into rather soggy dust. "That reaction shows I have a natural affinity for lightning, water and earth. I am one of the rare three natural affinity ninja. Most Ninja only have one; two is less common than one but more common than three. Naruto if you please."

Naruto channeled his chakra into the paper, first it shredded itself, then as it was floating to the ground the paper darkened greatly, before crumpling itself into little paper balls. "Heh, heh, oops, mine's a little over reactive." Naruto sheepishly rubbed the back of his head.

Hinata bent down to pick up one of the little balls, "its soaking wet!"

"Naruto is another of the rare three element ninjas; his are wind, water, and lightning." Kakashi turned to Sasuke, "Your turn." Sasuke's crumpled, his reaction nowhere near as severe as Naruto's or even Kakashi's, a second later it burst into flame. "Ooh an Uchiha with a primary element other than fire! This'll be fun! If you're a good boy I might actually teach you my Chidori." Kakashi was rubbing is hands together for a probable chance to pass on his one original techniques! Maybe teaching the Uchiha would be fun after all.

Finally he gestured to Hinata, her paper darkened noticeably, almost as much as Naruto's before slowly crumbling away. "Two, two element ninja's!" Kakashi was grinning under his mask this group had to be the most talent gathered in one place since the Sannin themselves! "Yours are water and earth, although your earth chakra is very weak; we'll have to work on that…" Kakashi thought for a moment, before saying out loud, "Well I know Naruto already knows how to do this, but it's good exercise anyways. So can either of you climb trees without your hands?" seeing the confused looks on their faces Kakashi gestured to Naruto, "Another demonstration please."

Rolling his eyes at his sensei's laziness Naruto took a casual stroll up the side of the tree, then out on the underside of the branch. "There, is that good enough for you?"

Nodding his head Kakashi went on, "Once you master this, you will move on to water walking, however this is an important exercise all of you, yes you too Naruto, will practice tree climbing for an hour every morning, followed by an hour of water walking, once you master it. After you can tree climb for an hour and then water walk for another hour I will teach you each a single jutsu from your element type and you will practice that until you have it down flawlessly. Naruto I believe it's time for you to begin working on seal-less jutsu, using the ones you already know. Master those and I have permission from Jiraiya to teach you something cool. Now I have stuff to do for the next five hours, if you have any questions ask Naruto."

Kakashi turned to leave, but was stopped by Naruto, "OI! You lazy bum! You haven't told me how to do seal-less jutsu!"

"Um… oops?" Kakashi pretended to be embarrassed for a moment. "All right, just drop the first hand sign in the jutsu, practice it that way until you have it down, then drop the next. It'll never be as strong seal-less as it is with seals. But after you master it, each seal you use will make the jutsu stronger. Use all of them and it'll be almost three times as strong. Later!" Not wanting to be stopped again Kakashi shunshined away.

"I can't believe he just… well actually considering I've known him for four years I can believe he just did that, but still!" Naruto was fuming at being left to teach Hinata and Sasuke by himself. Sighing to himself he walked up to a tree, "Okay Jiraiya and Kakashi recommend running up the tree to get started and figuring out how much chakra to use by falling on your ass repeatedly. If you do that you'll be at it for hours just trying to figure out how much chakra to use. So if you want my advice focus chakra onto your palms, it's a lot easier to control that way, once you figure out the optimal amount of chakra, the try to recreate that with your feet."

Half an hour later, Hinata was the first to get it right and managed to climb to the top, Sasuke on the other hand seemed to be getting nowhere, "Damn it! What am I doing wrong?" After a spectacularly failed attempt at getting his palm to stick to the tree (he had channeled so much chakra into his palm he had actually knocked it over.) Sasuke felt like giving up.

"Sasuke," Naruto was currently walking up and down the tree with a variety of odd objects stuck to him, "I told you you're using too much chakra." Seeing the gloomy expression on his rivals face Naruto decided to cheer him up a bit, "Hey Duck-butt! You're still learning faster than I did; it took me three weeks to get as far as Hinata, and for the first two I was making a worse mess than you are. In fact I know exactly what your problem is."

Sasuke looked up hopefully, "Please tell me."

"You're too strong; you have a lot of chakra like me, well nowhere near as much chakra as I do. I have almost five times what ero-sensei has, but still you have a ton. You realize that no-one our age should be able to use the 'Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu' right? I can't tell you how much chakra to use, because it's different for each person, but keep at it." Naruto went back to walking up and down the tree.

A few minutes later Hinata, whose tree was on Naruto's other side asked, "U-Um, N-Naruto-kun, w-why do you have things stuck to yourself?"

"I'm technically doing a more advanced exercise. With my ludicrous amount of chakra I have to work a lot harder just to maintain what I have. The objects are all different sizes shape and weight, so each needs a different amount of chakra to stick. It's almost as hard as making a Rasengan."

Sasuke who had begun trying to climb his tree interrupted, "A what?"

"Oh… uh… oops?" Naruto looked guilty, "Pretend I didn't say anything? Please? I'm not really supposed to tell anyone about it."

"Fishcake, TELL US!"

"Y-Yes, Please t-tell us Naruto-kun."

"Promise you won't tell anyone else?" Seeing his teammate's nod, Naruto relented, "The Rasengan was the Yondaime Hokage's signature attack. It's the epitome of shape transformation, and so damn hard that it takes two of me to do it right now. My chakra control still isn't good enough to do it one handed…" seeing how his hour of tree walking was up Naruto jumped of the tree and walked towards the stream that divided Training Ground Seven from his personal training ground. "I'll show it to you later, I have more exercises to do before I move on to jutsu practice!"

Sasuke finally managed to get the tree walking exercise down after four hours of struggling. He still wasn't perfect but he could go for about ten minutes before he would slip or launch himself off of the tree. Hinata could tree walk for about 20 minutes but afterwards she would need half an hour of rest. Naruto however, still hadn't managed to form a single 'Fuuton: Daitoppa' without the first hand-seal. "This is so hard!" he grumbled, "I should really have my clones do this for me…"

Sasuke blinked, he'd seen Naruto struggling for the better part of two hours with a jutsu he had practiced daily for four years and was honestly confused why he hadn't already used his clones. "Um Naruto, is there a reason you haven't used your clones yet?"

Naruto looked a bit sheepish, "Well, it's not fair to you two if I use my Kage Bunshin."

Sighing at Naruto's idiocy, Sasuke jumped off his tree. Skipping the first hand-seal he began making the hand seal for his fireball: "Kato: Gokakyu no Jutsu!" He blew an admittedly small fireball out at the target that Naruto had been using. "Fishcake, you need all the help you can get." Laughing inside at Naruto's dumbstruck face, Sasuke went back to practice.

When Kakashi finally came back he saw four hundred Naruto's all practicing the 'Fuuton: Daitoppa' with the real Naruto acting as traffic controller dispelling and reforming the clones in groups of five every ten seconds. "How's it going guys?" he said while ducking a hall of kunai thrown at him by his students. "Made any progress on the tree walking?"

"No thanks to you Kakashi" Sasuke grumbled.

"Hinata-chan got it done in half an hour; she doesn't have the reserves to keep walking for more than twenty minutes though." Naruto chimed in, his praise making Hinata blush crimson.

"Next we'll do some Taijutsu exercises, so I can see what you need to work on. I have a good idea of what Hinata needs from yesterday's fight, but you two," he said pointing to Sasuke and Naruto, "didn't use much Taijutsu so I need more data to find were you need more work. After that we'll do some Genjutsu training, and Naruto, I know you're terrible at Genjutsu. Tomorrow we'll start by doing two hours of chakra control exercises, which by the way Hinata will help enlarge your chakra reserves. Then it's two hours of physical training, three hours of Taijutsu practice, the last hour will cycle each day will be something different. Once you master tree walking and water walking and have sufficient chakra to do both for two hours. The training time will increase by two hours, For Ninjutsu practice. I expect all of you too keep up with your personal training programs; I can't teach you everything. Dismissed!" Not risking them delaying him this time Kakashi shunshined away.

"I don't know about you two but I'm starving! Who wants to grab a bite to eat with me? I know the best place for ramen in the whole town!"

"Sure, why not Fishcake."

"I-I'd l-love too Naruto-kun"

Naruto took them to his little piece of heaven, Ramen Ichiraku. "Hey Old Man! I finally became a ninja!" Naruto shouted as he entered the ramen stand. Teuchi was tending the stove, while Ayame, his daughter, cleaned the bar.

"Oh, and are these two your team mates?"

"This is Hinata-chan, and the guy who looks like a duck landed on his head is Sasuke. I'll have the usual, what do you two want?"

"I don't know Fishcake; I'll have what you're having I guess." As soon as he finished his sentence both the old man and his daughter burst out laughing.

"Only an Akimichi can keep up with him when it comes to ramen; how about a nice bowl of shrimp ramen?"

Sasuke shrugged, "fine I guess."

"I'll h-have a p-pork ramen."

Before they were half way done with their first bowl, Naruto was on his fifth. Stopping to breathe Naruto said, "You did good today Hinata-chan; at this rate you'll be the best kunoichi in our village by the end of the year!" Naruto paused momentarily to destroy another three bowls of ramen, "And Sasuke you learned how to tree walk a lot faster than I did; I'm so jealous!"

"T-T-Thank you Naruto-kun!" The praise almost made her fall out of her chair, "Y-You're really strong Naruto."

"So Naruto, you going to show us that jutsu like you promised?" Sasuke asked while watching Naruto polish off his fifteenth bowl of ramen.

"Come with me." Naruto led them to Training Ground Zero, which was still covered with Naruto-clones. "You guys need to wait until I'm done dispelling these guys okay?" Naruto sat down in a meditative pose and began dispelling his clones in groups of twenty. Half an hour later he dispelled the last clone. Standing up and stretching he summoned a single clone, placing his palm face up he began to form the Rasengan; the clone quickly placed his hands over it and finished the transformation.

"It's so pretty…" Hinata was entranced by the grapefruit sized ball of swirling blue chakra.

"You did that with no seals?"

"No, it's pure chakra manipulation. Once I actually master it I'll be able to form it one-handed."

And so it went, for a month and a half they did nothing but training. By the end of the month Naruto could do his 'Fuuton: Daitoppa' with just the last hand seal. Sasuke learned the Raiton: Seidenki Shōgeki, as well as learned how to do his fireball jutsu with just two seals. Hinata made the most progress. During her spare time, apparently she worked hard at the chakra control exercises. Quickly increasing her reserves, and once Kakashi taught her Suiton: Suiben, she took to it like a duck to water. The control she had over her water jutsu, she had learned some on her own even, was such that Kakashi raved to his fellow Jonin that he was training a second Nidaime Hokage.

The next two months were spent doing D-ranked missions and working on advanced tactics and teamwork and trust building exercises. Naruto however had enough of the boring D-ranks and the next time he saw the Hokage, he was going to give him a piece of his mind!

Konoha, Nine Months, Twenty-Five Days ago:

"I'VE HAD ENOUGH!" Naruto shouted at the Hokage, D-Ranks are boring and pointless! Give us a real mission!"

A/N Next up is the Wave Arc! How will Zabuza's earlier meeting with Naruto change the future? Find out next time!