Hey everyone
I guess the expectation will either be Wednesday evening, or Thursday afternoons for these postings as I can't keep it as consisted as I'm trying to.
Am pleased with the traffic I'm getting, and am happy everyone reading this is enjoying the story so far.
I won't change too much based on this part of the story of the Bikochu as it was more of my favorite episodes when it came to fillers, but I don't think it will make too much of a difference.
Again critics and feedback is helpful, I know someone pointed out in my 'Eyes of the first, and Heart of the second' that I switch too much from first to third person too often. If someone could let me know if they have noticed it in this story I'd appreciate it so I keep the stories less confusing to read.
Enjoy
Chapter 7
Team 8 was at the gates waiting for Naruto to show up. Technically he still had fifteen minutes until they needed to leave, but they wanted to fill him in on the mission before they left.
"Hey guys" a familiar voice was calling them, "Sorry, I was looking for the item with Sasuke's scent on it" the person had now made himself known.
"D-don't w-w-worry about it N-Naruto-kun, you s-still h-h-have fifteen minutes" Hinata explained.
"More importantly, were you able to locate the item with the scent?" Shino asked.
Naruto nodded, and proceed to walk out the gates.
"Wait a sec Naruto, first we need to fill you in, and Shino is in charge" Kiba explained, looking slightly annoyed.
Pausing, Naruto looked embarrassed as he scratched behind his head, "Sorry about that Shino, I guess I'm excited to start the mission."
"That's fine, now listen to what I'm going to say to you" and Shino begun to explain everything that had happed at the hokage tower for the mission. He took a photo out of his pocket to show the bug that they would be searching for: The Bikochu has a long nostril with blues eyes, it looked like a giant bug of the many kind.
Naruto had absorbed the info given to him, but the picture confused him; it looked familiar to him.
"Oi, I think I saw one of those before" he suddenly stated.
All three of team 8 looked at him shocked.
"Yeah, one time when I had left a bunch of empty ramen cups lying around at my house, a bunch of them came crawling on my table" he explained as nodding his head confirmed it all.
"Baka, that's a cockroach, they don't look anything the same" Kiba yelled out, gaining a twitch in his eye.
"Eh, really? I don't see the difference"
"Well there is" all three of them answered at the same time.
"Okay, okay I get it, can we go now then" Naruto pouted.
"Let's be on our way, we only have a few days until the Bikochu will lay her eggs" Shino said as team 8 began to follow him.
"Hey wait for me" Naruto ran after them.
"Now Sakura, were going to do a different set of training today, but first what can you tell me about the rule for a medic?" Tsunade asked.
"Rule one: never give up on medical treatment until the patients dying breath. Rule two: A medic ninja must never go to the front lines. Rule three: A medic ninja must always be the last of their platoon to die." Sakura answered.
"That is correct, however, there's a fourth rule that I have yet to teach anyone; those who master the ninja art of mitotic regeneration, the 100 healings, are allowed to break the first three rules." Tsunade told Sakura.
Surprise showed on her face as she didn't know that there was a fourth rule, and then confusion clouded her face as she had never heard of the justu before.
"The 100 healings? I have never heard of it" she said.
"Yes, so far I am the only one capable of using the technique; one requires extensive charka control to master this technique. First things are you have to slowly build a secondary chakra fountain next to your original charka base for the next three years. This will be hard to do as it needs perfect chakra control, and you might feel more chakra exhausted than usual as you're sending a slow portion of your chakra to a secondary location. Once you complete the three years collection, you can abide by the fourth rule, and also, your chakra will be at full capacity. It will look like the symbol on my forehead." Tsunade explained, pointing to the diamond shape on her forehead.
Now Sakura was both excited, and nervous; while she'd be learning a new technique, if only Tsunade was able to learn it, then it might be impossible for her to do it.
"Do you know why I'm telling you this? As a disciple of the fifth hokage, and legendary sanin, I truly believe you are the only one after me capable of learning this technique; not even Shizune was able to pick it up" Tsunade said, she was smiling at her.
Feeling a sense of flattery and confidence boost, she saluted her and decided right then that she knew she'd be able to do it if her sensei was able to believe in her.
"On another note Sakura, I also have decided to teach you how to fight with focusing your chakra into one single location. As a medical ninja, there are chances when your comrades are unable to help you out during a fight, thus being able to fight back becomes important. You need to constantly keep your eyes open and observe the battlefield so you can counterattack and survive. Are you prepared to train with me on the training field?" Tsunade said with full seriousness in her voice.
Nodding, she slowly got into her taijustu position.
Tsunade suddenly jumped and aimed to land a low kick on her.
She jumped out of the way, the ground cracked and broke from where she was standing on. She had one of eyes closed since some of the rocks were splintering towards her direction.
"Keep your eyes open, how you are supposed to counterattack if you have them closed" yelled Tsunade.
Sakura opened her eyes as she got into her position again; she felt as if this was going to be a long day.
"Here's a good place, we shall rest here for the night" Shino said suddenly stopping, taking off his backpack, and taking out the tent equipment.
"What? But it's still bright outside, we can still cover more distance" Naruto complained.
"Naruto, I am in charge, now help out with the tent" Shino ordered.
Mumbling of unfairness, he helped out with the tent, and slowly put on his sleeping gear. Once he had put his head down, he had planned on complain again until he yawned and fell asleep instantly.
"Geez, all that complaining and he's the first to fall asleep" Kiba complained.
"Let's all get ready for some sleep" Shino stated.
"Hai, Hai" Kiba agreed.
In the middle of the night, Hinata slowly rose, and looked at Naruto at the end of the tent. She couldn't help but smile seeing that relaxed frame of his before heading out of the tent.
Once she was close to the lake, she started to strip off her clothe in order to avoid getting them wet for the training she was planning on doing.
'I need to completely control my chakra if I have any chance on executing my clans techniques' she thought as she approached the middle of the water and got into position.
'Longer, wider, more flexible, faster, more controlled, focus' she kept humming to herself as she began to move with fluidity and grace.
Someone else in the middle of the night had woken up. Still looking half asleep, he groggily rubbed his eyes.
"Gotta go" Naruto mumbled as he slowly got up and left a tent.
He found a bush slightly far from the tent and started to relive himself. As he began to head back, he suddenly heard splashing. Curious, he made his way towards where he could hear the waterfall.
What he saw took his breath; a waterfall with a rainbow in the background, and on top of that was the most beautiful women he had ever seen. He couldn't see her face due to it being dark, but the way she moved, lifted her arms, the way the water moved around her, he couldn't take his eyes away from it.
He had decided that he wanted to meet the lovely maiden instead of watching the beautiful show in front of him, "hello the-ahhh"the sentence got cut off as his foot slipped on the rock, and he fell into the water.
"Of all the….Sorry, I didn't scare you did I, huh?" Naruto lifted his head up to see that the lovely maiden had suddenly disappeared, and all that was left was a rainbow.
"That's weird, where did she go?" he couldn't help feel down, not realizing the clothing near the rocks across from him.
"Achoo" Naruto sneezed, also yawing in the process.
"All that sleep and your still tired?" Shino asked.
"Well the truth is I woke up in the middle of the night because I had to go, and I saw something amazing" Naruto explained.
"Achoo" Hinata suddenly sneezed.
"Are you catching a cold too Hinata?" Naruto asked looking concerned.
"Oh no, I'm alright" Hinata said; she had stayed training in the nude, even after Naruto left last night, thus she was shivering by the time she felt satisfied.
Kiba suddenly wrapped an arm around Naruto with his head on his shoulder, "so, what was the amazing thing you saw last night?" Kiba asked.
"A waterfall, with a beautiful lady in it" Naruto exclaimed.
"No way"
"Yeah, and whenever she moved her hands, the water moved with it, I'm telling you it was awesome" Naruto began to move his hands as he explained the scenario.
"So, what happened?" Kiba asked again.
"Well, I went to talk to her, but suddenly she was gone"
"What? Are you sure you didn't just dream this up?" Kiba asked doubtful.
"Hmmm, I'm not so sure anymore" Naruto now looked confused as he thought it over.
What neither of the two was noticing as they talked about the incident from last night was a certain white eyed teammate had opened her eyes in shock from the words of 'beautiful', and as the rest of the story followed, her face turned from blushes, to steaming red, as if smoke looked like it might steam out of her ears.
"Are you sure you're okay Hinata? Your face is looking a little red" Naruto asked, looking concerned again.
"I-I-I'm f-fine" Hinata stuttered. She couldn't believe that the person who saw her was none other than Naruto, and what was most embarrassing was that he hadn't even realized that it was her in the lake.
"We still have time before the Bikochu begins laying her eggs; we will walk to conserve our strength when we begin our search" Shino stated.
"Ahhh, this is so boring, on my day off and Kaa-san needs me to look after the flower shop" Ino complained. She had been hoping to find Sakura and hang out; it has been almost a month and a half since the retrieval for Sasuke had failed. She hadn't seen Sakura since and wanted to see how she was holding up.
A ringing was heard indicating that she had a customer, and looking up she saw the person she was thinking of. Sakura looked like she had run through a marathon though from how dirty and ragged her clothing looked.
"Well, look at you forehead, it looks like you went through a training camp" Ino joked.
"Heh, it feels like I did too, I didn't think the physical training would be so strenuous, how the hell Naruto and Sasuke-kun were able to do it is amazing" Sakura grumbled; it looked like she was barely able to move without breathing heavily.
"Hey, everything okay?" Ino asked, all humor now gone from her voice.
"Just really tired, it's the first day so I expect it will take time until my stamina begins to build up. I was thinking of asking Lee for that, but it seems he's not taking the rehab seriously, causing it to take longer."
"Hmmmm, well it might be a little manipulative, but since he has a crush on you, why not be the one to help him in his rehab so he finishes quickly, and then he'll be more enthused to train with you" Ino said, offering some advice.
"That could work actually; I came here to get him the flower of friendship anyway before visiting him. I'll ask the nurse if I could take over, they might be relived from all the commotion I hear he's been causing" Sakura agreed as she found the flower she was looking for, paid for it, and started to leave.
"Hey, once I'm done work for today, let's meet up and talk; it's been awhile" Ino suddenly blurted out.
Sakura looked startled, then a genuine smile displayed on her face, "I'd like that, later Ino-pig" and she headed out the door.
Ino for her part couldn't help but be surprised at seeing Sakura; she had expected the tearing or depressed look on her face, pushing people away, not the tired but determined look, still willing to talk to everyone around her, or her motivation to get better.
'I guess I was worried for nothing' Ino thought, looking relieved that she was wrong.
Well that's that, and Man I had to read this three times til I was satisfied.
I've seemed to reach over 2000 in terms of traffic, very happy with that, hope to get more follows and reviews in the future
Cheers