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When Obito, Rin, and Yondaime arrived back to the campsite from the lake, they found a surly Kakashi sitting by the fire pit, striking matches.
"Uh-oh. Looks like we've got a pyromaniac in the making, sensei!" Obito joked.
"I'm not a pyromaniac." Kakashi grumbled.
"Ever heard of a joke, Mr. Emo?"
"I'm not an emo either, dammit."
"Nice going with making that fire, Kakashi! We need that fire to roast the hotdogs for our lunch." Yondaime grinned. "Just go easy on the matches there, okay? We don't want to run out of them after all."
"Um…yeah." Kakashi replied as he hastily shoved the match box out of view before he rose from the log and went into the tent.
"Obito, could you grab those sticks we used for the marshmallows last night?" Yondaime asked as he grabbed the hotdogs from the cooler.
"You mean we're gonna roast hotdogs like marshmallows?"
"Yes, we're going to roast them like marshmallows. Pretty cool, huh?"
"Pretty cool? It's awesome! It's meat on a stick!" Obito cried, pumping his fists into the air. "How can that not be cool?!"
Rin approached the tent and called in, "Kakashi, we're having lunch now. Aren't you going to come out?"
"I'm not hungry." came a reply.
"But you should really eat! Won't you come out?"
"No."
Before Rin could attempt to persuade the grouchy chuunin any further, Yondaime barged into the tent and grabbed Kakashi by the collar of his shirt and hauled the boy out.
"C'mon, we can't have you getting any scrawnier than you already are! If you don't eat anything, you won't last very long on the hike later on today."
"We're going on a hike?" Rin said in surprise.
"A hike? But those are boring!" Obito whined.
Yondaime turned to Obito with a glint in his eye.
"I promise you that this hike will be anything but boring. Or would you guys rather stay behind at the campsite and do 700 push ups and several laps around the lake instead?"
There was a momentary silence before Obito and Rin hastily replied, "No, that's okay!" "The hike sounds great, sensei!" "Yeah! Can't wait!"
"Good! It's settled then. We're going on a hike after lunch!" Yondaime grinned as he dropped Kakashi, who let out an "Oof!" as he hit the ground. "Kakashi, come get a hotdog to roast for your lunch. You'll need the energy to go hiking." Yondaime advised.
Kakashi inwardly growled as he rose from the ground, dusting the dirt off himself with his hands. He took a hotdog and a roasting stick and sat by the fire with Obito and Rin. The three sat in silence for a few moments as they roasted their hotdogs.
"Hey…wouldn't it be cool if you could roast everything on a stick?" Obito suddenly said out of the blue.
"No, it wouldn't." Kakashi replied.
"Like this chocolate bar!" Obito continued as he grabbed a chocolate bar off the picnic table.
"I don't know if that's a good idea." Rin told her team mate.
"Sure it is!" Obito grinned as he took his roasted hotdog off the roasting stick, put it in a bun, and poked the end of his roasting stick through the still-wrapped-up chocolate bar. Obito stuck the chocolate bar into the flames and grinned contently.
"There! Chocolate on a stick! How cool is that?"
"It won't work." Kakashi stated.
"Stop being such a pessimist!"
"But it's the truth."
"You're just jealous that I thought of chocolate on a stick before you, Kakashi!"
Kakashi sighed as he shook his head and muttered "Hopeless."
The three young shinobi sat there for a couple of moments, munching on their hotdogs as Obito happily roasted his chocolate on a stick.
"Um, Obito," Kakashi started. "The chocolate is-"
"Hush! I know what I'm doing." Obito cut in, holding his hand up towards Kakashi.
"But it's-"
"Stop trying to be in control already!"
"For goodness sake Obito, look at the chocolate!" Rin cried, pointing in the fire.
Obito looked and saw the melting chocolate oozing out of the side of the wrapper that had caught on fire.
"What the-no! Don't melt!" Obito cried as he quickly withdrew his roasting stick from the fire, blowing on the burning chocolate wrapper to extinguish the flames. "Aw man, Ii's ruined!"
"I told you it wouldn't work."
"Aw, shut up Kakashi."
"Obito,what the hell did you do to that chocolate bar?" Yondaime cried as he saw the burnt up chocolate fall off the stick and hit the ground. "That was for the hike!"
"Umm…oops?" Obito grinned sheepishly.
"Alright, you guys get your day packs and fill up your water bottles." Yondaime said as he handed out a chocolate bar each to Rin and Kakashi. "No chocolate for you." Yondaime frowned at Obito as the boy held out his hand for some. Obito's face fell and he sulked off. They all packed their bags with a water bottle, chocolate bars, and a first aid kit.
"Alright, is everyone ready to go?"
"Yes, sensei." All thee students replied.
"Excellent!" the blonde-haired man grinned. "This is C-rank hike team and I expect everyone to do their best!" He shot his fist into the air and cried, "Alright team, move out!"
Team Yondaime marched out of the campsite, down the lane, and down a trail to their left.
"It's like he still thinks we're in Konoha and about to go on a mission." Obito whispered to Rin. "What the heck's up with that?"
"If we act like this hike is a mission, you'll do a better job on it." Yondaime replied, hearing what Obito had whispered to his team mate.
"What's so scary and tough about all this? It's just a dumb old hike!" Obito snorted.
Yondaime swivelled around with an evil gleam in his eye and a malicious grin plastered on his face.
"Just a 'dumb old hike' you said?"
"Obito!" Rin cried as she clasped her hands over his mouth. "Don't try to make the situation worse than it already is!"
"'Make the situation worse' you said?" Yondaime said with both the evil gleam in his eye and the malicious grin still plastered on his face.
"Don't you two know when to just be quiet?" Kakashi sighed as he walked past them.
Obito mouthed some naughty words at Kakashi while Rin stopped him once again.
"Don't push it anymore Obito. Kakashi knows best."
The trail began to slope up through the thick of the forest. After half an hour of climbing up the steep trail, Obito was almost crawling to keep up.
"So, are you finding this hike boring, Obito?" Yondaime grinned.
"This…is…torture!" the young Uchiha panted, covered in sweat.
"This trail is so steep!" Rin gasped. "It's like we're climbing a mountain!"
"Rin, we are climbing a mountain." Yondaime informed the girl, chuckling.
"What?" Obito cried. "You never told us we'd be hiking up something this hard!"
"It's not that hard." Kakashi scoffed. "This is easy."
"Of course!" Obito spat. "Everything is just so easy for you!"
Kakashi shook his head, "No, not everything."
"Oh really? Then what isn't easy for you?"
"Writing in a diary like we did last night. That sure wasn't easy."
"Ha! That was such an easy assignment for me," Obito laughed triumphantly. "And you do call it a diary! Ha!"
"Hey Obito, no stopping allowed! Pick up your feet and catch up!" Yondaime called down to see that the boy had stopped and was practically talking to thin air.
Obito yelped as he saw how farther up the trail rest of his team was. He quickly ran up, but ran out of breath before he caught up.
"I tell him I'm bad at one thing and he gloats on how good he is at it." Kakashi sighed to himself as he glanced back at his team mate trudging up the trail.
"How much farther sensei? I don't think I can go on much longer." Rin panted.
"Just another 15 minutes." Yondaime replied.
"Excellent!" Obito and Rin gapsed, cearly relieved.
However, two painful hours later, they were still hiking through the trees up hill. Rin was panting, slowly plodding her way up the trail while Obito, at that point, was actually crawling.
"Sensei…" Kakashi began, looking quite worn out and panting. "You said…two hours ago…we were…only 15…minutes…away…from…" but Kakashi didn't finish as he wheezed and collapsed face first into the dirt.
"Kakashi! Are you okay?" Yondaime cried. "Here, I'll get you some of your water." He quickly removed Kakashi's water bottle from his backpack. Yondaime looked at the almost full water bottle.
"Kakashi, have you drunk any water on this hike at all?"
"About one quarter or a bit less." Kakashi replied, sitting back up, looking a little dizzy.
"You need to drink more than that. No wonder you collapsed!"
"I was rationing it. Ninja always must ration their supplies on missions in case of emergencies, right?"
"Yes, rationing is very good Kakashi, but you're rationing too much water to the point where you're getting dehydrated. I'm surprised you were able to keep up with me for this long with the small amount of water you've drunk today."
"Senseeeiiii! I need more water!" Obito shouted up from further down the trail.
"Don't tell me you drank it all!" Yondaime shouted back down.
"Yeah, I did actually."
"How are you doing, Rin?" Yondaime called down to the girl.
Rin took out her almost empty water bottle and smiled sheepishly.
"Alright, the both of you come up here to get some more water. You two will need to learn how to ration." Yondaime called down. He then turned to Kakashi, "And you will need to learn how not ration so much. Make sure you drink a lot now since you won't need to consume as much water on the way back down."
Kakashi turned around and quickly took a large swig of water and then faced his sensei.
"You mean we're almost at the top?"
"Yes, and this time I'm not lying." Yondaime winked. "Don't worry. The view will be worth it."
"Are we almost at the top, sensei?" Rin panted as she reached Yondaime and Kakashi.
"Yeah, we are. Where's Obito?"
"He's further back." Rin replied, pointing down the trail.
"Hurry up, Obito! We're almost there!" Yondaime shouted down to Obito who was lying on his belly, panting.
Obito picked himself up off the ground, trudged up the hill and caught up to the others waiting for him.
"You lied! This so-called "C-rank hike" is worse than any C-rank mission I've ever been on!" Obito complained.
"You're right," Yondaime smiled, "This is at least a B-rank hike. Maybe even almost an A-rank hike."
"WHAT?!" Obito screamed. "You really did lie to us!"
"Relax, relax! I know I tricked you guys and I'm sorry, but I had to motivate you somehow otherwise you wouldn't have bothered hiking the mountain knowing it was this challenging, right?" Yondaime cut in, patting Obito on the back. "I promise you we're really almost there. You've done a great job so far, so just hike up this last stretch, okay?"
Obito grumbled, "Fine." and continued hiking up. Team Yondaime hiked slowly up the last stretch where they rose out of the gradually thinning trees into the sunlight. The trees seemed to stop all together and before them lay a large alpine meadow.
"Look at all the colourful flowers here!" Rin breathed.
"Finally!" Obito cried as he fell face first into the assorted alpine flowers.
"This here is an alpine meadow." Yondaime explained to his students. "Because we're at a high altitude, only shrubs and flowers can grow. Notice how the trees got shorter and lessened as we went up?"
"That's nice." Obito absently sighed as he lay in the flowers.
"Look at those purple flowers over there!" Rin exclaimed as she made her way from the group of small yellow flowers she was looking at earlier.
"And nobody's listening to my offerings of knowledge." Yondaime sighed disappointedly.
"I was listening." Kakashi stated, still standing beside his sensei.
"Ah, it's nice to know at least somebody here cares." Yondaime smiled.
"I said I was listening. I never said that I actually cared." Kakashi said before he walked off.
Yondaime said nothing for a moment before he sighed and shook his head, "Oh well. I suppose I can't force kids to be interested about the surrounding environment."
So the shinobi spent their time in the meadows for a while until Yondaime called his students back to him to make an announcement.
"It's time to carry on up to the top now guys!"
"To the top?" Rin cried. "But I thought we were already at the top!"
"No way! We still haven't reached the peak yet!" Yondaime smiled as he pointed at the tall snowy top of the mountain that stood a little further down the meadows.
All three of Yondaime's students shouted "NO!" very loudly and clearly to their sensei.
"But we haven't seen the actual view yet! It's real spectacular once you get to the top, so it's worth the extra push!" Yondaime pressed on.
"Sensei, we're dead tired!" Obito whined.
"And it's so much further to the top!" Rin added.
"And we're almost out of water." Kakashi said sternly. "You know it's not safe for us to climb a steep mountain when we're so low on water. One of us might collapse again. We still have to climb down the mountain too and the sun will be setting in a couple of hours."
Yondaime sighed in defeat, knowing his students brought up some good points.
"I suppose you're right. I shouldn't be pushing you guys past your limit. Not too sure what I was thinking." Yondaime chuckled sheepishly. "We'll head down now before it gets dark."
And with that said, Team Yondaime headed into the trees again, leaving the flowery meadows behind.
To be continued…
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