I got reviews, and they were nice, too! Yay! Time to start driving Team 7 into the ground! Onward!
"Ow, ow! That hurts!" Naruto was on his rump, holding one very angry cat away from his face. Sakura giggled at him, and Sasuke reported in to Himaru through his earpiece.
"Target has been captured and verified, over."
"Good. Meet back at the Hokage Tower with the target, over." Sasuke turned to Naruto, who had finally ditched the cat on Sakura.
"Stupid cat," he mumbled as the cat just purred contentedly in Sakura's lap. Sasuke mentally sighed at his teammates, and then starting running towards the Hokage Tower, Naruto and Sakura close behind. The hopped across several roofs before they made it and walked through the door.
"Oh, my poor little Tiger Wiger!" The daimyo's wife swooped in like a vulture on the poor cat, scooping it up and squeezing it. Every single member of the team sweat dropped, even the recently shown up Himaru.
'No wonder it ran away,' Sakura thought. Once the important woman paid and left, Sarutobi began shuffling through some papers.
"Let's see now, for Team 7, I believe Himaru made a special request for a mission to get ride of excess trash in the Konoha Dump."
'At least it's not capturing a cat,' Naruto thought.
'I guess I can practice my fire jutsu,' Sasuke thought.
'The dump? Ewww,' Sakura cringed slightly at the thought. Himaru smiled at his team.
"Well, let's go!" His hand blurred out, and the entirety of Team 7 disappeared in a poof. They reappeared by mounds upon mounds of filth.
"Huh?" Naruto spluttered, his head swinging from side to side. Before anyone could ask, Himaru explained.
"Taijuu Shunshin no Jutsu (Mass Body Flicker Technique). It's a neat little way to travel in groups. I'll probably teach it to you guys later. But first," Himaru walked over to stand next to a mound of garbage. "I'm going to teach you this. Watch carefully." Himaru began slowly going through hand seals: dragon-rooster-ram. Himaru thrust his hands forward and a massive wall of crimson flame spread out from his palms, turning the gigantic mound to a small lump of ash.
"Whoa," Naruto breathed, and then he grinned madly. "Awesome. I wanna try!" Naruto put his hand together but Himaru stopped him, with his own hand.
"As important as enthusiasm is, wait for me to finish. "Naruto nodded and grinned sheepishly. "That was Katon: Kasai Myakuhaku no Jutsu (Flame Release: Fire Pulse Technique). Simple but effective, you summon fire chakra to your hands while you perform the seals and then release the chakra through your palms in the form of fire. Practice on the trash." Naruto looked at Himaru blankly.
"Fire chakra?" Sakura sighed.
"Was they're a single class you didn't sleep through, Naruto?" Himaru chuckled as Sakura scolded the shame-faced Naruto.
"Now, now, Sakura. I'll explain. As you know, chakra is the combined spiritual and physical energy in one's body. This energy, or chakra, is what we ninja use to perform most of our jutsus. There are several kinds of chakra, but right now I'll only talk about five: fire, water, wind, earth and lightning. Each typed has its own unique feel to it. You channel chakra through pathways in your body and manipulate it using hand seals and sheer force of will." Sakura sighed. Naruto wasn't going to-
"I got it, sensei." Sakura had to forcefully hold her jaw up. At first she thought he was lying, but he seemed so honest. In class Naruto was always such a bad liar. Naruto himself wasn't sure how he understood it, but the abyss he calls a head did. It was the same sort of thing that drew his attention to Himaru back when he first entered Naruto's classroom. Something just made it so easy to pay attention and understand him.
"Excellent. Now, why aren't you practicing?" All three genin walked to a different trash heap. As the trio shouted out the technique, Himaru could already guess what the results would be. Sakura performed a perfect if not much smaller version of the technique, not having nearly enough chakra. Sasuke performed it adequately, but Naruto was the real showstopper. Instead of a wall of fire, there was a huge explosion, scattering burning pieces of trash everywhere. As the smoke cleared, they could see Naruto, and he was completely black with soot. He coughed once, a puff of smoke coming out of his mouth, before falling on his side with a 'thud'. Himaru ran a hand across his hitai-ate and though his long bangs. He'd expected this.
"Well, that was definitely powerful, Naruto. Not exactly the technique we were looking for, but powerful nonetheless." Sakura looked worriedly at Naruto as he scrambled back onto his feet. He may be an idiot, but he still needed medical attention.
"Um, Himaru-sensei? I think we should take Naruto to the hospital." Himaru smirked at Sakura before walking closer to Naruto. He inhaled deeply and exhaled with a little chakra added, blowing nearly all the soot off of Naruto. There wasn't a burn or scratch on him, even where his jumpsuit was damaged. Both Sakura and Sasuke looked taken a back, and then blinked a couple times.
"He's fine," Himaru said. "Now we need to talk about special training. I figure we've gotten rid of enough trash for the mission." Himaru once again performed his Taijuu Shunshin no Jutsu. This time, they reappeared in a forest.
"Sensei, shouldn't we report the mission to the Hokage?" Sakura asked, almost pleading. She needed to rest for a bit after that jutsu. Himaru reached into one of the many pockets in his pants, and without a word popped a pill down Sakura's mouth with a flick of his fingers.
"Swallow that, and the longer the Hokage thinks we're busy, the more time we'll have for more important things." Everyone sweat dropped. Naruto was the first to regain speaking ability.
"So what's this 'special training', huh Sensei?" Himaru smiled, his eyes closing and curving into rainbows.
"We'll climb trees!" Everyone sweat dropped again.
"What?" Naruto asked, his face scrunched into a look of confusion.
"You're all going to climb the tree using only you're feet. Watch." Himaru calmly and slowly walked straight up one of the trees before bouncing off. "All you do is channel chakra to your feet, the hardest place, and use it to stick to the tree. This will improve your chakra control greatly. You might want to start off running. Oh, and mark how high you can get with a kunai." All three genin nodded and charged individual trees. Sasuke made it up a bout five feet before he dented the tree and was forced to go back down. Naruto fell almost immediately, leaving a hole in the tree. Sakura, on the other hand, managed to make it to one of the higher branches.
"Hey, this is easy!" Himaru clapped and Naruto cheered.
"Goo job, Sakura-chan!" Completely ignoring Naruto, Sakura watched Sasuke, who only appeared annoyed. Himaru coughed to grab their attention.
"I didn't say you could stop." Sasuke and Naruto immediately started trying again, but Sakura appeared confused.
"But Sensei, I've already mastered this."
"So? You're chakra control is indeed excellent for a genin, but you have very little chakra. Training will increase your reserves. Now go!" Sakura nodded slowly and began going farther up the tree, right to the top, and then heading back down. Himaru smirked as he watched his students run up, or try to at least, the trees.
'I think I'll leave them alone.' None of them noticed their sensei's departure, they were to intent on training. Each time Sasuke tried, he got up about a foot farther, until his her reached around fifteen feet. He couldn't seem to pass that mark. Sasuke gave his best avenger-glare to the tree as the fell once again. Naruto, on the other hand, managed only about five feet, tops. Naruto was kicking the tree in frustration when he once again noticed how Sakura just kept going up and down the tree, almost never losing her grip. Making sure Sasuke wasn't looking at him, Naruto walked very quietly towards Sakura, who had just stopped to take a break.
"Hey, Sakura-chan?" Sakura sighed as Naruto approached her.
"What do you want, Naruto?" Naruto ignored her annoyed tone completely.
"You're really good at this, do you think you could help me?" Sakura blinked her emerald eyes once, and then stared at Naruto for a moment in surprise.
"Uh, okay. It's simple, really. Just concentrate on the climbing the tree and nothing else, don't let yourself get frustrated." Naruto seemed to mull her advice over before giving her one of his infamous foxy grins.
"Thanks, Sakura-chan." Naruto quickly strode back to his tree, and took a deep breath. He dashed up the bark and made it nearly fifteen feet before he fell back down. Sasuke, who had just happened to turn his head at that exact moment, saw that.
'The dobe's catching up to me?' he thought, and then gritted his teeth. 'No.' With a small growl Sasuke charged back up the tree, and only made it about five feet that time. Sasuke clenched his hand into a fist, nearly drawing blood. He needed help. 'Sakura?' Sasuke felt himself involuntarily shiver. 'No. Naruto then. Damn.' Sasuke sighed and slowly, almost painfully walked to Naruto.
"Hey, Naruto. Naruto stopped in mid-run towards the hated plant."
"Eh, what do you want, Sasuke?" Sasuke swallowed.
"What did Sakura tell you?" At first, Naruto felt embarrassed the teme had caught him, but then he realized with the Uchiha was asking. Naruto grinned mischievously at him.
"I'm not telling." Sasuke's eye twitched.
"What?" he accidentally shouted. Almost instantly, Sakura was there, fuming over Naruto.
"Na-ru-to," Naruto gulped, "what did you do to Sasuke-kun?"
"He, er, wanted to know what the advice you gave me was!" At first Sakura was going to hit Naruto and call him a liar, but then she saw the slightest of blushes on Sasuke's cheeks. Suddenly, Sakura felt like she was floating. Sasuke needed her. Sakura pushed Naruto out of the way and immediately got even closer to Sasuke, who had to resist backing up.
"Really, Sasuke-kun? Do you really need my help? I mean, you're the greatest and all, but…" As Sakura went on for another couple minutes, Naruto went to a different tree. He had a scowl on his face. How come the Sasuke had her affections? He was such a glacier! Naruto tried running up the new tree, but fell almost immediately. He took a deep breath, counted to ten, and tried to shake off his resentment before trying again. Still only fifteen feet.
"Alright, team, time to head home!" Himaru reappeared with a shout a couple hours later.
"I'm staying," Sasuke said simply.
"Me too," Naruto said. Sakura really wanted to stay with Sasuke, and her face showed it, but her parents would kill her if she missed dinner, and she really wanted to take a shower and a nap.
"I've got to go," she finally said, a little resigned.
"I'll walk you home, Sakura," Himaru suggested. Sakura thanked him before heading off, with him close behind. Naruto moved back to his original tree and started up again, the same time as Sasuke. Naruto finally made it to a branch a little more than twenty feet off the ground, and Sasuke managed to climb to a slightly higher branch.
"Why are you still here? Won't your parents get worried?" Naruto asked him. Sasuke clenched his fists together.
"You don't know anything, do you, dobe?"
"What'd you call me, Sasuke-teme?"
"They're all dead." Another insult died in Naruto's mouth. "As much as I hate to admit, we're similar, you and I."
"That's the guy you want to kill? The man who slaughtered your family?" Naruto asked carefully, his arms now limp at his sides, and his face turned away from Sasuke.
"My own brother. I swore I'd do whatever it takes to attain the power to kill him." To Sasuke's surprise and utter rage, Naruto started chuckling, but Sasuke's words died in his mouth when Naruto started laughing. It wasn't his usual hee-haw laugh from when he pulled pranks, this was darker, and somehow truer sounding. Naruto's vaguely insane laughter permeated the entire forest, scaring small animals.
"No, Sasuke, we're not that similar. You waste your life and throw away all the happiness you could have just to fulfill some useless act. My life was stolen from me the day I was born, but I ignore that, I fight to take my life back, and one day, it'll be mine again." Naruto looked at Sasuke than. Really looked at him. And his usually bright blue eyes were dark and piercing, his grin was replaced with a sad smile. "Not similar at all."
I know Naruto seemed really OOC there, but hear me out. Naruto does manage to occasionally say something wise in the manga, and I think he definitely does wear a mask, though not to the same extent as some think he does. Anyway, please read and review, flamers will be flamed (literally) and eaten. Constructive criticism is welcome. Oh, and if anyone has a guide as to what the hand seals actually individually do, could you please send it to me? Bye!