Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

Chapter 10

Naruto looked at the surrounding forest as he and his squad walked down the road.

Their team consisted of him, Sakura, Shikamaru, Naji and Ten Ten.

Originally it was just going to be him and Sakura and Shikamaru but Neji and Ten Ten had literally begged for a mission.

Apparently Gai had this set period of time where he would do intense training for 1 whole month only allowing for an hour of rest a day. Sadly the team of genin had been forced to go through the gruesome training having not known about it, so this year when Gai announced it to his students they didn't even hesitate to run to the Hokage tower to see if she had any missions that would take a month to complete, luckily they burst through the door right when she was giving Naruto's team their mission and she decided that they couldn't hurt the mission.

Lee was excited about the training.

So as the group of five marched on through the forest they were quiet for different reasons. Neji wasn't a talker and Ten Ten didn't really know any one well enough to start a random conversation, Shikamaru was thinking up what if situations that could arise on this mission and how to do them, Naruto was still studying one of the sealing scrolls trying to make heads or tails of it.

But Sakura was stuck with something that Jiraiya had told her.

FLASHBACK JUTSU!

As Sakura walked towards her home she found a man blocking her way, she knew this man as Jiraiya of the Sanin and she was certain that this meeting was on purpose, what he wanted with her she didn't know.

"Hey Sakura nice night for a walk, right?" he said showing her a grin

"Yes it is Master Jiraiya" she said politely back, still wondering what this was about.

Suddenly the man's face turned serious

"I think we need to talk" he motioned for her to follow him into the park. Once there they stopped on a bridge over a small stream.

"What did you need to talk about?"

"Mainly, Scars" this confused Sakura but she figured he meant Naruto's scars, the most noticeable were his burn marks, if his sleeves or pants rose enough then you could still see them and his scar from the chidori was still red after all of these months.

"If you wanted to know about Naruto's scars then you should probably talk to Lady Tsunade" she said

"Not his, yours" Jiraiya said and Sakura felt like his eyes was looking in on every dark secret and thought she had.

"I don't have any scars" she said and she didn't, she had yet to be wounded enough that she would have a scar that medical ninjutsu couldn't remove.

"Maybe not physical ones but there are scars that are invisible to the human eye" he spoke sagely

Sakura remained quiet.

"It's plain to see that you hate Sasuke, but that hatred and grudge are meaningless" the Toad Sage told the girl.

"Meaningless, he almost killed Naruto!" she almost yelled

However the older man showed no reaction to her tone and evident anger.

"Tell me Sakura" he said calmly "How is that hatred benefitting you? Is it hurting Sasuke all the way in the Sound Village? Is it giving you incredible power to defeat any opponent?" he asked her making Sakura look unsure as she didn't have an answer.

"I've hated before but hatred is a poison that only harms you, and in the ninja world it can kill you as it clouds your mind and forces you to go down a path you don't want to. Eventually if you let hatred inside you you'll become just like Sasuke" he said

Sakura couldn't help but speak "I would never become like that monster" she said though she was unsure, she couldn't see how she could be willing to let her comrades, Naruto die just for hatred.

"You really think so?" Jiraiya asked. After seeing the girl nod he continued to speak "Why did Sasuke do all of the things he did? The answer is because of hatred. He hated his brother and wanted the power to get revenge, Sasuke was not always like that but over time as the hatred within him grew he became closer to the Sasuke he is now. If you do not let go of all that hatred and learn to forgive him then you'll never be able to move on and enjoy your life even if you kill him you'll never have closure and you'll never be happy"

Sakura just stood there in silence. She could see what he was saying and could even see that he was right but the idea of forgiving Sasuke… it was probably the hardest thing she could think of.

Jiraiya placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm not saying that you can't be angry about the injustice of it, but you shouldn't let that anger consume you and turn into hatred. I know that it won't be easy, hatred is easy but forgiveness, that's a lot harder."

And with that the Sage left the girl alone to her thoughts.

END OF FLASHBACK JUTSU!

Even after three days that conversation was still in her head.

She looked over at Naruto, wondering how he could let things go so easily and forgive people. If the world was more like Naruto would it be a better place?

Her thoughts was interrupted by the voice of the other female member of their group.

"Hey Naruto what are you reading?" Ten Ten asked politely as she had finally decided to say something after seeing that her blond haired companion had what looked like a book on sealing.

"Oh, it's just something I have to finish before we get back to the village but these seals are hard to do" he said giving the book the evil eye.

"I actually know a good bit about seals myself I use storage seals and explosive tags so I've had to get pretty good at it" Ten Ten said

Naruto's eyes actually lit up a bit "Really, what kind do you use?"

And thus they began talking about seals and the other members of the group would admit that they understood barely any of what the two said.

Shikamaru had muttered "troublesome" at the racket going on behind him.

Sakura's eyes just went back and force between the two trying to pay attention to what was being said.

Neji just looked like Neji.

Finally after several hours of traveling through the forest they had made it near the border of the Land of Fire when Shikamaru decided to call it quits.

"C'mon Shikamaru we can keep going" Naruto said

Shikamaru just flashed Naruto an annoyed look "We're stopping because A) it's almost sunset and I do not want to be setting camp up in the dark and B) your breathing like a Dragon" and sure enough Naruto wasn't breathing as well as he should be.

After that they began to set up camp for the night while Sakura had Naruto remove his shirt so that she could use her Medical Ninjutsu to examine his lung and make sure everything was okay.

Naruto didn't like people looking at his injuries, why Sakura wasn't sure, so it was probably a good thing that everyone was behind them so Naruto didn't have to see them looking. Aside from her none of the other ninja their age had seen his scars, neither the chidori or the burn marks from the fire jutsu.

Shikamaru clenched his fists as he felt the guilt for Naruto's injuries make themselves apparent once more befor turning away and baniching the guilt, Naruto didn't blame him so why should he? Next time he would do better.

Ten Ten felt nauseous looking at the scarred up skin, the very idea of someone doing that to their teammate was something she couldn't begin to comprehend.

Neji wanted to show Sasuke just how effective and painful the Gentle Fist could be.

As they finished their dinner, a meal of scrambled eggs as that was something simple to fix, they suddenly all felt on edge. They weren't alone. Looking at each other Shikamaru nodded to Neji who activated his Byakugan.

"IT'S AN AMBUSH!" he yelled just as a group of around 25-30 men jumped out from the trees with kunai and swords.

"Alright everyone you know what to do!" Shikamaru said as they had discussed this very problem with rumors of a band of bandits running along the border between Fire and River.

Everyone began acting together with Shikamaru trapping people in his Shadow jutsu while Neji and Ten Ten dealt with those who avoided it while Naruto and Sakura held back in case someone became injured. It was an impressive plan, sadly there was more than what was originally thought.

About 15 more men came out of the forest near Naruto and Sakura and with the other members of their team preoccupied they were on their own.

It was then that Naruto thought back to what Gai and Kakashi had taught him.

FLASHBACK JUTSU!

Naruto stood facing the two older jounin.

"Naruto, what we are about to teach you to do is impossibly dangerous" Kakashi said "But if it succeeds then it will be something useful for when your back is against the wall"

Kakashi let his words sink into Naruto. After seeing that the boy was paying attention he continued

"What I and Gai are going to teach you is simple but not easy. When you understand chakra you understand that chakra can be split into two distinct kinds. First there is the 'Light' chakra which is usually used more in Taijutsu, while 'Dark' chakra is more mental and is mostly associated with Genjutsu. When you combine these two in equal amounts you can use Ninjutsu. What we intend to do is transform your mental chakra into physical chakra, thus enabling you to temporarily fight with incredible physical power temporarily without risking your health. However this boost will only last 3-5 minutes afterwards you'll need to stop and rest."

Naruto nodded his head slowly as he took in what his sensei had said.

END OF FLASHBACK

Naruto looked at the incoming attackers and remembered how Gai had told him to access the extra power he needed, as he reached down he felt the power surging through him and he felt strong like he use to before his attack.

To the oncoming bandits the blonde haired boy seemed to have a blue mist around him.

'Have to beat them in 3 minutes' he thought to himself, he didn't want to push it and try 5.

He took a single step and then he went flying forward in a blur of motion. Five of the bandits went down within mere moments. Naruto was enjoying this, he felt stronger, faster and more agile. He slammed his kick into the face of yet another threat as he looked around at his friends fighting them off. Most of them were fine but there were some at the edge of the clearing that could overwhelm them. Quickly Naruto moved towards them taking out who he could. At this point it had almost been 2 minutes.

Most of the bandits had been taken down by the team of young ninja and it appeared that the fight wouldn't last much longer.

Suddenly a CRASH! Filled the clearing and there stood a long haired man who was clearly a ninja by the weapons and equipment he was carrying.

He looked at the scene before him "I was wondering what took my men so long it appears that they chose some ninja brats to rob" he said shaking his head.

"You're the leader of these bandits?" Neji asked the man

"Sure am, but I'm afraid that I can't let you take them to the police so I'll just have to kill you" the man said plainly, almost like he was complaining about the weather

Suddenly Naruto ran towards the man and sent a punch into his chest, only to pull back in pain as it felt like his punch had been sent straight back up his arm and into his chest, causing him massive pain.

Naruto chastised himself, he still wasn't used to using his feet in a fight and would still have a punch slip through, and before now it was never a big deal.

The man looked at Naruto as his hands clutched over the right side of his chest.

"Odd, I wear a breastplate under my shirt to help protect against Taijutsu based attack, the way it works is that it takes the chakra from the attack and then sends it right back and the person who landed the hit. Usually it just stuns them or makes them sore but it seems like it hurt you more I wonder…" he looked at the boy clutching his chest before smiling sadistically "I see you have a chest injury that explains it, Pity though because now you'll be easier to kill" the man said pulling a Tanto from his belt

"NARUTO!" Sakura screamed looking on in fear, they were all too far away to get to him in time and Shikamaru was too low on chakra to send his shadow over that distance, still she began to run towards him with a kunai in her hand.

Naruto looked at the man with defiant eyes as he brought the blade towards him.

However, before it could land a blast of wind sent the man flying away from Naruto. Everyone just stood there in shock.

"Anyone who would get pleasure from killing children is automatically an enemy of mine" a voice said. Everyone looked to see someone new approaching them, he had on arm and leg guards and a piece of armor on his right shoulder. He had black hair and blue eyes and appeared to be in his early twenties. He carried a white staff with the words 'Justice' and 'Freedom' written on it and the Kanji for 'Iron' on his Shoulder piece. He carried a brown pouch on the back of his belt. The rest of his clothing was a blue shirt and black pants, unlike other ninja though he didn't have the traditional sandals that they wore but had on a pair of boots instead.

The long haired Ninja stood back up flashing the newcomer an evil glare.

"Your not a Leaf Ninja, what village are you from?" he asked, he may have been angry but he wasn't stupid enough to charge in blindly without any knowledge of this new enemy.

Sakura ran up to Naruto and cast the newcomer a cautionary glance. But he just smiled at her "Take care of your friend" he told her before taking a few steps towards the bandit leader, cocking his head as if confused by the question.

"Village? Oh I see the confusion" the man said sticking his staff out in front of him. "I'm not from a ninja village, actually I'm a Samurai from the Land Of Iron"

Done!

The Samurai is an OC just to let you know, and I'm going to explore a bit more with the Samurai with him as we saw that some Samurai like Mifune were powerful like Kage level. I'm a bit iffy on the fight scene in this chapter and I hope it's okay.

Thanks to The Merchant Of Blue Death for Beta Reading this.

King of Konoha: I'm gonna have the Akatsuki be more like and organized crime group in the Elemental nations who are actually behind most of the criminal things in that world. I actually think that Sasori was weaker when he fought Sakura and Chiyo, sure he became stronger in some aspects when he became a puppet but often time in order to gain power you have to give up some as well.

Thedarkpokemaster: Glad you liked the story! Sasuke is Showing more of his evil nature, and I actually like Sasuke's character, but I like him as a Villain to Naruto's Hero. A big part of this story is actually a moral argument between characters. From Sasuke 'Whatever benefits me is good' to Naruto 'All Killing is wrong' Sakura 'Killing Sasuke to prevent him from killing in the future is necessary' and as you saw in this chapter Jiraiya 'Hatred is evil and therefore must be abandoned'. Hinata has compressed her negative motions for so long that now she's unable to handle them well.

Sakura Rules: While I'm not really bashing her I feel like we didn't see enough of her emotions like anger, jealousy and greed so I want to make her less perfect. So in this story she has tried to be perfect for so long and lock away her darker thoughts and feelings that now that she has let them out they're going wild. I plan on some interaction between Naruto, Sakura and Hinata after this part of the story so that'll be interesting to write.

Thanks for Reading, Please Review and have a Nice Day!