Chapter 25

Being on probationary sucks

Team Zabuza met Mei outside the food tent the next morning.

"Had a nice sleep?" Mei asked.

"We've had worse" Naruto shrugged.

Mei walked up and leaned against him, "you know, I could help you sleep. It would be the best sleep you ever had" she whispered.

Naruto looked at her excitedly, "you got hotel beds? I've only slept in them once but it was amazing!"

Before Mei could reply, Fu jerked on Naruto's arm and pulled him away. "That's enough. Just tell us what we're doing today." She snapped.

Mei sighed and smoothed some non-existent creases in her dress "well since you are new, you're on probationary. That means that you cannot go outside the camp without being accompanied- which also means no missions and will be watched at all times. Your jobs will be to clean the weapons, dishes and help out the camp in general. The probationary period would normally be 6 months, but with us in a civil war, it has been reduced to about a month. It would have been different if Zabuza was here, all that would've been needed was probably some talks over a few drinks with the commanders and you'd have skipped the probationary all together" Mei looked at them with a hint of pity, "but what's done is done. Here is a list of what is needed around camp. You'll start after breakfast" she said, handing Haku a scroll.

Naruto and Fu peaked over his shoulder as he unraveled it. Their eyes started to widen when he continued to unravel it without any hint of reaching the end. Before long, the end of the scroll had reached the ground and started to pile up on itself.

"This is insane!" Naruto objected. "We would never get it done in a week! Never mind a day!"

Mei shrugged, "Well you've got a month, that should be enough time."

Haku looked at the number on the last one. "Number 3000: cut down 1 tree about 10 miles from camp to be used as firewood every two days." He read.

Mei nodded. "To the west of the camp, there is a patch of woods with extremely large trees. A single tree is enough to fuel the entire camp for 2 days. Don't worry about carrying though, there will be a team of about 20 to cut the tree into small pieces and store them into scrolls. To carry one of those would require strength of a large summon or that of Tsunade of the Leaf Sanin"

Naruto looked at her "3000 things. With some needed daily, every three days or weekly. That makes it roughly 100 chores a day. Who even designed this? What would you do if there wasn't people on probationary?"

"in order, the probationary system was designed by Ryuji-sama himself, and most of these chores are given to teams that rotate each day." Her eyes glinted "but once they heard of a probationary team, well, the teams were all tired from the war and needed a break. Of course, there are those who feel a bit guilty or are too restless to relax and are willing to lend a helping hand once in a while." Mei answered. "Well, you better eat fast, meal time ends in about 15 minutes. I've already had mine so I'm off to get a mission. Good luck!" she said before turning and waving.

"Well, best get eating then" Naruto said, turning around "but, umm Fu? Can I have my hand back?"

The green haired girl blushed and quickly let go of said appendage. "Yeah sure" she mumbled before quickly walking away.

Xxx

"Let's see. First on the list, feed the messenger birds." Haku read. "They have messenger birds?"

Naruto shrugged, "apparently so."

"Well it would make sense, they would probably need to keep in contact with other outposts and that." Fu pointed out.

"Yeah, makes sense, but where do they keep it?"

After some searching and pointlessly walking around, the group gave up and asked a random shinobi passing by. Lucky for them it was one heading there as well.

"you must be the new probationary. My name is Mizuki. I work there and keep track of the animals and decipher the codes and send messages," He introduced. "other than that I sometimes help out in the medical tents, but enough about me. The birds are usually fed by Satsuki but she's lazy and took the first opportunity to give the job to someone else. Guess you were just unlucky. But don't worry feeding them is easy once you get the hang of it."

Haku nodded at the information and filed it away in his head before taking a closer look at Mizuki. He was an average man in almost every aspect. Grey hair, average build, average looks, average height, normal glasses- the whole package. The only thing that would differentiate him from the average civilian would be the way he carried himself and the way Haku caught Mizuki looking at him the same judging way. The tense muscles and slight prodding in many parts of his uniform wasn't suspicious. Hidden weapons and the jumpy attitude were something anyone would adopt during times with many battles, as was the judging looks. Any smart shinobi would judge everyone he came across. Be it a enemy ninja, civilian or even a probationary ally like team Zabuza.

Both gave a slight nod of their heads. A sign of respect in recognizing the strength of the other and acknowledging they had been caught.

"We're here. The birds are the tent to the left back. The food should be on the top left shelf. Divide one bag as equally as you can. These birds might get jealous if they feel the others are getting more than they do." Mizuki advised. "I'll be in the middle tent if you need me"

Thanking him, the teens headed over to the directed tent. "That was a lucky break, Mizuki didn't seem like a bad guy" Naruto commented as they walked into the tent.

Instantly the whole group felt themselves being watched. Dozens or beady eyes turned and watched them walk in. A few birds stopped their grooming to size up the new arrivals.

"amusingly these birds give off more killing intent than some of the bandits we faced." Fu mused "now where were those bird food?"

"They're in the…" Haku started

"Found them" Fu announced, pulling a large bag off the shelf. "Now, how do we split this?"

Xxxxxx

-many mistakes and a large mess cleaned up later-

"That took way too long" Naruto huffed "We'll never make 100 at this rate"

"Yeah, the three off us aren't near enough to do everything" Fu agreed.

Naruto smacked his head against the wall "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid" he muttered. "why didn't we think of this before?"

"Of what Naruto?" Haku asked, "and stop hitting your head. You don't have the brain cells to lose"

The blond stopped and rubbed his head "That's mean Haku. As I was saying, why did we have to waste a bunch of time on doing this ourselves? If the first task is going to take this long, we'd be lucky to get through 10 in a day, never mind 100. So why not use clones? We could all make a bunch, this way we can stick to our plan with only a few we need to do more than once."

Fu smacked her head "of course! Naruto and I could make 200 clones no problem and Haku could still manage 50 without dropping! If each task would take about this long, we could keep to the amount planned! This way we could not only train our chakra reserves, but we could also have time to train in the training fields too!

Naruto and Fu looked to each other and started chatting excitedly while Haku just looked ahead, depressed. "Still manage 50 without dropping they said" he muttered, "way to feel a guy feel needed."

After another minute of them talking about something or another (somehow ice cream in the Land of Fire got involved), Haku decided to cut in. "Enough. If you two won't stop talking, we won't even get started, never mind finished. Let's head over to the nearest training field. I'm sure the camp wouldn't appreciate us making a ton of clones in the middle of camp and we might be mistaken as enemies due to the large amount of chakra we would use."

Xxxx

"Alright. So because we never thought about this, we'll have to make do with this single scroll. We'll make the clones and divide them into groups. Each group will take one or two tasks while we stay here and split the list into daily, weekly once off or anything in between. After that we'll either join them or train ourselves. Any objections?" Haku asked.

Both Jinchuriki shook their heads. Haku was usually their planner and they seldom had better ideas than him.

"Ice style: ice clone jutsu"

"Shadow clone jutsu"

The training field was filled with a large cloud of smoke. When it cleared, it was revealed to be filled with hundreds of clones. "Alright, divide yourselves into roughly 100 teams" Haku commanded.

There was a large scramble where many clones almost dispelled. A minute later, almost every clone was in a group. The only clone left was one of Naruto's who was simply looking around.

Naruto walked up to his clone and placed a hand on its shoulder. "I'm disappointed in you" he told him solemnly.

"Shut up. I'm you" the clone shot back and reared its hand back for a punch. Before it could do anything, it had a senbon in its head thanks to Haku. "Wow Naruto, even your clone hates you" Fu said and causing the entire clearing to be filled with laughter.

Naruto shot a dirty look at his clones "traitors" he muttered under his breath.

Haku sighed. Only Naruto could make clones that insult him and laugh at him. "let's just get this over with"

Unlike earlier on, the clones formed a relatively straight line in their groups to receive their assignments. Each assignment was met with either a happy look of joy at an easy task, followed by a look of disappointment at getting another, or a look of pure dismay at their luck.

"Toilet duty, check. Washing dishes, check. Cleaning weapons, check…" so on an so forth. It took an entire hour to get the jobs assigned to the clones. By that time, it was close to midday and the originals were already tired.

"… and finally, you as the last group have the privilege of keeping watch as I sleep- ow! Alright I get it! sheesh Haku, take a joke would you?" Naruto muttered, rubbing his head. "as I was saying, you have the privilege of washing the clothes" Naruto announced as he ticked it off the list before walking over to the shade and sliding down the tree. "phew. Now that that's done. All that's left is to divide the remaining tasks and we'll call it a day" he yawned "right after a nap."

Haku was about to object when he heard snoring. Turning around, he saw that Naruto had already fallen asleep with Fu leaning on him. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to rest a bit" he muttered before making an ice clone to keep watch and falling asleep himself.

Xxx

AN: a few hours later than the normal Sunday updates ^.^ll. Writers block is a pain. To tell you the truth, I only really planned up to the death of Zabuza and them going to the rebel camp. After that, it was a whole blank space for fillers before… yeah I'm just gonna stop myself there. Gotta keep you readers guessing after all ;).

Now as I said, we are now in the fillers arc. The current fillers planned are the Shion arc and the Isaribi arc (which is a 50/50). I need more arcs! If you have any you would like me to try fit in (or any you made up) just drop a PM or review and I'll see what I can do.

Oh yeah, I think I asked this once before but then forgot to add in the next chapters: what summons do you think Naruto should get (besides foxes, dragons and the three from the sannin)

Also, the competition for chapter and story names is still up.

Reviews:

Noahendless: really? I didn't know about that. From my interpretation it was everyone had a different set of Mangekyo jutsu in their eyes but the only common one would be Susano'o when both were combined. Because look at Obito and Shisui, neither of them were shown to be able to use Amaterasu (of course Shisui died early on without showing much so we won't discount the possibility of that). I believe that Obito had a Kamui on himself in his right eye and a Kamui on someone else in his left with the Susano'o being the one created when both were combined. I reasoned that both Itachi and Sasuke could use Amaterasu was because they were siblings but hey, I could be wrong.

I'm not completely against canon Mangekyo jutsu (Susano'o is a definite one that will show up) but I would rather explore some different ones first.

As for the Uzumaki Chains, if what I've read (and reasoned) was right, then they were only given to those with special chakra. The reason why it's not used for projectiles would probably be because it would be hard to control them once it leaves the chakra network. But yeah, good idea for it. I'll see how (and if) I can incorporate it into the story.

AndiDuel: yeah, I thought it would be best to have her younger (didn't want her to seem like a pedophile lol). I do plan to have her break down some time in the future with Naruto there. And thanks for understanding.

BlackDragonShinigami: thanks, updating, later

Thor94: thanks, yes they joined, didn't want Mei to look like a pedophile, thanks, the catfight was amusing to write too.

salasdaniel74 : I don't believe I used those words… but if I did, no not like those two, not everyone has that kind of sealing knowledge after all, more like in life where people are like "they're not truly dead, they live on through us" and all that. Also, I like that name. The chapter has been changed accordingly ;).

Devanta1: in order: unfortunately Naruto will not be using a bow and arrow (though him using chakra bows would be cool). Yes he will get summons. I will take your suggestions into consideration. Susano'o will stay Susano'o cause I need him in a future plot. The power of destruction seems like a good idea, I would need to go and watch highschool dxd first though :P.

Jacklvmage12: well if I didn't have the fillers, you would be missing out on a couple explanations (which has some plot relevance later on) and a 4 year timeskip where Naruto suddenly grows powerful enough solo Yagura.

I planned to have Mei introduced a bit later but then I though "eh why not now" and boom there she was xD.

Yeah, OP Naruto is a fun read (cause it usually comes hand in hand with humor), but gets a little old after a while, that's why I'm only going to give him Mangekyo much later on. I'm only asking for better jutsu because as you said, the normal ones are a little bland.

Antex- The Legendary Zoroark: well as you have probably seen by now, he already has his sharingan. Thanks for the compliment, here is the next chapter.

Talonsen: those are all good ideas (pretty OP ideas but still good) but there's one slight problem… I haven't watched DB Super, Bleach or Getbackers so I haven't much idea how it's used ^.^ll. I do think they are great ideas though, and I have forwarded them to ZV to see what he thinks.