Undone

Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

"Survive. Stay alive for an entire week."

Kakashi's words came back to him suddenly. Gritting his teeth, Naruto closed his fingers around the rabbit's neck, effectively snapping the fragile bones there and killing it.

"A source of drinkable water, food, and shelter," Sakura murmured beside him, reciting the words that their Academy instructors had said on the topic of survival.

"At least it didn't suffer," Naruto added as he gingerly flung the rabbit to the side, glancing down at his fingers.

He had met up with Sakura almost immediately after waking up in the forest. Sasuke was still nowhere to be seen, but since it was Sasuke, it was probably safe to assume that he could survive without their help.

"Wish Sasuke-kun was here. It'd be so easy to light a fire with him around," Sakura mused as Naruto set up the materials to create a fire on the dirt, grabbing the long stick that he had set off as a drill and pointing it at Sakura.

"We can do things without chakra, Sakura-chan," the blond said, giving Sakura his typical idiotic grin as he turned back to the pile of sticks.

"I just said that it would be easier and less time-consuming," Sakura added as Naruto started rubbing his hands together, twirling the stick while pushing it down at the same time.

"We're perfectly fine without him," Naruto muttered under his breath as Sakura produced a kunai from her pouch and grabbed the rabbit by its ears, beginning to skin it.

It scared Naruto to see how efficiently she pulled away at the rabbit's skin, nothing but determination on her face as she basically dissected the poor animal. To think that Sakura, the girl who had once screamed even at the sight of a cockroach, was now so calm while killing a poor, defenseless little rabbit. A cute rabbit. Weren't girls supposed to be squeamish about stuff like that?

There was now a small spark at the point where the friction was greatest. Naruto grit his teeth and rubbed his hands even harder, and the spark grew into a small flame.

"I got it!" Naruto cried out triumphantly as he tossed the stick aside, crouching down to blow at the small flame.

Sakura, who was now in the middle of cutting off the rabbit's head, turned and gave Naruto a curt nod. The blood and guts on her hands didn't seem to affect her at all. "Now get the spit ready. I'm almost done."

The blond nodded, making sure that the two saplings on either side of the fire were in position before grabbing the longer sapling that they had set aside earlier.

Together they strung the rabbit through the thin sapling before setting it on top of the other two.

"Ta-dah! It's our beautiful handiwork!" Naruto cried out happily as he stared down at the small spit.

Sakura glanced down at her hands for a brief moment before turning around. "I'm going to wash my hands." She looked at the roasting rabbit. "And I'll pick some herbs while I'm at it."

Naruto nodded, reaching out to grab the sapling from which the rabbit hung from with a smile on his face. "Just don't take too long, Sakura-chan. I might eat it before you get here."

A scowl crossed the girl's face. "Don't you even dare, you idiot."

"I was just kidding, Sakura-chan!"

Naruto had been minding his business, turning the rabbit over every minute or so when he heard a rustling of leaves behind him.

The chakra felt... familiar.

The blond quickly let go of the sapling in his hand and grabbed a kunai from his pouch before whirling around, furrowing his brows.

There was no mistaking it. The horrible haircut and the bored expression that always ticked him off. It was Sasuke.

"Hn," the Uchiha commented, looking Naruto straight in the eye, no expression showing on that perfect face that girls all loved.

Naruto frowned before jabbing his kunai at the other boy. "This," he gestured at the cooking rabbit, "is our kill. Since you didn't participate in the catching or cooking, don't even think about getting to eat it. Not even a bite."

"Do I look like I care, usuratonkachi?" Sasuke glared daggers at the blond, shoving his hands into his pockets as he turned around to see Sakura heading back in their direction.

"Sasuke-kun!" the girl cried out, the herbs gathered in her arms preventing her from waving. "Do you want some of our rabbit?"

Naruto groaned. "Why should we share with somebody who didn't even help us cook it?" he grumbled under his breath.

"Because we're teammates," Sakura smiled at Sasuke before turning around to give Naruto a look. "Be a little more friendly with him, will you? And I'm pretty sure that the old bastard is watching us."

And thus Sasuke joined them, and Team 7 completed the first part of their assignment. Survive and find their way back to each other.

Kakashi sat back in the tree, tucking in his legs and making sure that his chakra signature was still hidden.

There was definitely more room for improvement, but this was really good. It seemed that establishing a stricter training schedule and getting everything together really did help.

Naruto still hadn't quite got the hang of Rasengan just yet, and Kakashi had a nagging feeling at the back of his mind that it might help if he did a little more basics with the blond. He did have a metric ton of uncontrollable and wild chakra, after all. Maybe he could force Asuma to teach him a little Futon techniques before he got any further.

Sakura's development was quite surprising. It was amazing seeing how a strong role model can change young girls so much. Then again, Kurenai never had a chance with teaching Hinata. It wasn't like the Hyūga Elders would ever let her. Teaching a Hyūga Clan member genjutsu, even a member who was deemed a failure, would be staining the family name. Genjutsu simply didn't sit well with a family of strong taijutsu fighters. And of course, the worthless thing they called pride got in the way too.

Sasuke was hard to satisfy. It bugged Kakashi to see a boy with so much potential he couldn't fully develop. Give him too much power and it got to his head, causing his feud with Naruto only to grow more and more. Give him too little power and he'd snap, going off to some random stranger he didn't know to get stronger.

Maybe he should teach Sasuke Chidori once Naruto got hold of Rasengan. That way they would balance each other out more.

Sighing inwardly, Kakashi glanced down at his students again, stretching out his arms while being careful to not make much noise.

It seemed that they were almost done with their meal.

"It's not even one day yet," Naruto muttered, putting his hands behind his head as he stared up at the sky, unaware of Kakashi hiding in a tree behind him. "Do we just survive like this? It feels more like camping."

Sakura sent a look in the blond's direction. "I wouldn't let my guard down if I were you. Who knows what Kakashi-sensei has up his sleeve?"

Sasuke gave a quick nod after hearing this, watching the fire die down with a rather emotionless expression. "Stay on your toes, usuratonkachi."

Kakashi sat back, smiling, as the three of them stood up and got ready to head to the small stream further in the woods.

Of course it wouldn't be this easy.

Camp was simple.

It was obvious that they didn't have any tents, sleeping bags, or anything of the sort. So they decided to rough it.

"It's not like it ever rains in Fire Country," Naruto commented as he shaded the sun from his eyes with his hand. "We're not in Water."

Sasuke was pretty much fine with it too. "It doesn't bother me at all," he grumbled as he set his sheathed sword on the ground.

Sakura was, surprisingly, perfectly fine with Naruto's suggestion. "I've been camping before."

Naruto turned around, blinking at the girl with a rather surprised expression.

First she skinned and gutted a rabbit without blinking. Then she stopped swooning over Sasuke every time she saw him. Now she's completely fine with sleeping in the wild?

"There's really no point in complaining," Sakura shrugged, as if the solution was obvious. "I just wish you and Sasuke-kun got along a little more. The whole point of this exercise is to strength our bonds and test our teamwork."

Somewhere in the forest Kakashi smiled.

It took them quite a long time to realize that the bushes surrounding their small camp were burning.

"Wake up!" Sakura cried out, reaching out to grab her blond teammate by the collar before shaking him violently. "It's a fire!"

Naruto cracked open one eye, turning around and glancing at the trees surrounding them. True enough, there were flames licking away at the short grass surrounding them.

"The fuck?" he cried out, sitting up suddenly and almost knocking Sasuke down. "Why is there a fire all of a sudden?"

"I'll bet all of my allowance that this is the old bastard's doing," Sakura muttered as Naruto stood up, dusting off his clothes.

"You have an allowance?" He couldn't help but ask the question. Since he didn't have parents, he never had the luxury of receiving extra money that he could use on whatever he wanted. He barely had enough money to buy new clothes the way it was now.

"Of course I do," Sakura replied grumpily, turning to look at the flames. "Every-"

She stopped abruptly, suddenly realizing that not "everybody" received an allowance. It seemed that only civilian children received that special treatment from their parents. Naruto and Sasuke didn't even have parents.

"Listening to you two discuss money is nice and all, but shouldn't we be running?" Sasuke asked evenly, pointing at the fire that was slowly heading in their direction.

Sakura and Naruto both nodded before taking off.

Just as suddenly as it had begun, the fire died down around dawn.

That made it obvious to all three of the genin that Kakashi had caused the inferno that had raged through the forest. Not surprising at all.

"Great. Now we have no place to sleep," Naruto grumbled as he splashed water from the small stream into his face, washing away the soot and ash from the fire.

"We can still sleep on the ground. Clothes don't really matter now," Sasuke suggested evenly, bringing a handful of water to his lips.

"I'm pissed that he did this to us on the first day," Sakura muttered, staring at the sun peeking out the horizon with a scowl on her face. "I just want to pummel him after we're done with this."

"I second that," Naruto said loudly, now in the middle of washing his hands in the clear water.

Sasuke only hned, though it was pretty obvious that he was just as angry as the other two.

Kakashi was going to suffer after all this was over.

The next day was rather uneventful compared to the first day. No major fires occurred in the area. Prey was a little harder to find, but Sasuke managed to set a trap near the stream and caught a rabbit. It was a little smaller than the one from the earlier day, but it had to do.

"What's he going to do next, send a bear after us?" Naruto muttered as he set the pile of sticks onto the ground with a huff.

"That's better than a fire," Sasuke muttered as he crouched down to the sticks, blowing chakra and forming a fire within seconds. "We can just grab some kunai and stab it to death. Or I can take my sword and chop it to pieces."

Naruto shuddered as he heard this, instead deciding to help skin the rabbit while Sakura went and picked dandelions. She had said something about them being even more nutritious than spinach.

He had tugged off all the rabbit's skin and been in the middle of chopping off its head with Sasuke's sword when Sakura came back, holding a bunch of dandelions in her hand.

"These," she said triumphantly as she set them down next to the fire, "are entirely edible. They have more iron than spinach."

Naruto sighed as he cut off the rabbit's head, burying it under the dirt on the ground before handing the rest of the animal's body to Sasuke.

The Uchiha took it with a hn before stabbing a long sapling through the rabbit's body. Same process as yesterday. Roast the rabbit over an open fire and wait for a long while. Since they couldn't boil it, they had to roast it thoroughly before they actually ate it.

"Don't some shinobi carry pots and pans with them when they have long missions?" Naruto asked through a mouthful of rabbit meat after it finally finished cooking.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Sakura gritted her teeth after hearing Naruto's question.

Naruto swallowed before giving Sakura a grin. "Sorry, Sakura-chan."

Sakura handed some dandelion leaves to her blond teammate. "Here," she said quietly as she offered him the small green leaves.

Naruto didn't seem to question Sakura's judgment. He reached out and snatched the leaves before shoving one into his mouth. He promptly spit it out, causing Sasuke to shift slightly to the right.

"What was that?" Naruto almost yelled, staring at the rest of the leaves sitting in his palm.

"Eat them," Sakura said with a commanding voice, leaning over to grab Naruto by the hand before shoving the leaves into his mouth.

Naruto frowned, his brows furrowing, as he chewed.

Sasuke watched with a small smirk on his face.

"You too," Sakura said quietly, handing the Uchiha a small handful of the leaves.

Sasuke frowned, sending a glance in Naruto's direction. The blond quickly swallowed his food and gave Sasuke a thumbs-up and a forced smile, daring the other boy to eat them.

Sasuke hned before accepting the leaves from Sakura and shoving them all into his mouth at once. There was a slight furrow of his brows as he ate, but he quickly covered it up with his regular expression.

Sakura sat back onto the ground, a satisfied expression on her face as she stared up at the darkening sky. "I think this is fun."

Naruto took another bite of his rabbit leg before giving Sakura a smile. "It's really nice spending time with people I actually like," he said, turning to glance in Sasuke's direction.

The Uchiha simply hned before looking down at the burning fire, the red flames reflecting in his dark eyes.

The other two had learned over the past two days that silence, in most cases, indicated that Sasuke meant 'yes'. He would normally voice his opinions if he didn't agree. There were two types of silence for Sasuke. One was the I-agree-but-I-can't-let-you-know-I-do silence. The other was words-cannot-describe-how-angry-I-am silence that he often reserved for Kakashi.

His hns, on the other hand, were a little harder to differentiate from each other.

Sakura smiled, lying down at the ground with her hands behind her hand as she stared up at the pink and blue sky. "That's almost two days. We only have five days to go. Boy, do I want to have a nice long shower right now."

Naruto blinked. "A shower?"

"Or a bath," Sakura replied quickly, looking away. "I just want to wash away all the dirt and grime."

"There's a stream further down," Naruto suggested just as quickly, pointing in the general direction of their source of water.

Sakura turned to give him a skeptical look. "And?"

"And we won't look, right, Sasuke?" the blond answered immediately, turning to look at the dark-haired Uchiha.

Sasuke gave a slight hn that translated as "I don't really care".

Sakura sat up, clapping her hands. "So I finally get to wash tomorrow!"

Author's Notes

I don't know. I think the character development might have been a little too sudden.

Constructive criticism is appreciated.