Chapter 22: Survival of an Uchiha and Memories an Uzumaki
(One Month After Chapter 21)
It was currently 8:30 AM and a family of Uchihas were outside an unknown foggy forrest, training.
"Take this!" Shouted Sasuke Uchiha, the youngest in the family as he threw a right hook at his elder brother.
"Not good enough" his elder brother replied as he caught the punch and then pushed his brother back.
As those two were training, Izumi Uchiha was looking at where they were standing and didn't understand why the brothers were training on the outside of the forest rather than inside, and so she asked the elder of the two brothers the question on her mind.
"Itachi-Kun, why are we training on the outside of the forrest instead of the inside?" She asked.
"Hold on" Itachi replied to Izumi before catching Sasuke's final punch and telling him "That's enough."
So Sasuke dropped to his feet and then asked his brother the same question Izumi did.
"Seriously though, why did we train outside the forrest instead of inside the forrest?" He asked.
Itachi just chuckled a bit but then said
"Because this was just a warm up, and the next step is something that you have to do on your own."
"Wait, next step?" Izumi asked from behind Itachi.
"Yeah" Itachi began to say as he was turning around to see Izumi. "This is the next step I talked about a month ago."
Sasuke put two and two together and asked his brother
"I have to go in the forrest all alone?"
"Yep" Itachi replied.
"How is that gonna be tough?" Sasuke questioned. "I'm pretty decent at camping."
"This isn't about camping, it's about surviving" Itachi said.
"Surviving?" Both Sasuke and Izumi said in question.
"Yep, you need to survive in this forrest for a whole month, and it's more than one thousand times more dangerous than the forrest of death, because it's filled to the brim with animals that are way more powerful, dangerous, and aggressive."
Sasuke and Izumi's jaw dropped when he told them this.
"Itachi-Kun, how'd you stumble across this place?" Izumi asked
"I found it and used it for training when I was working with the Akatuski" Itachi replied.
"Why did you decide now?" Izumi asked.
Itachi just sighed and then said
"I think he's ready it's a simple as that."
"But why?" Sasuke asked
"I was shocked with how much progress you've been making and if you keep it up, you'll catch up to me in just a couple years" Itachi explained.
Izumi widened her eyes after hearing this, looked down at Sasuke, and asked Itachi
'Does Sasuke-Kun really have that much potential?'
"Sure does" Itachi replied before crouching down and asking his younger brother "Now what do you say, wanna give it a shot?"
Sasuke was determined to surpass his elder brother, especially since he heard that he could do so in a couple of years if he trained this hard, and so with a look of determination on his face, he said
"Yeah, I'm ready."
Itachi then stood back up on his feet, turned and pointed straight at the forrest, and said
"Well, go get 'em brother."
Sasuke nodded and then ran off into the forrest.
Once her little brother was out of sight, Izumi asked Itachi
"Do you think he'll do it?"
"Nope" Itachi said bluntly.
Izumi widened her eyes in both shock and worry over her little brother after hearing this and loudly asked Itachi
"Why did you send him there then!?"
Itachi just chuckled and then told Izumi
"You never get anything done on the first try, he'll have to give it more than one shot, plus, if he is in serious danger, I'll save him myself."
This calmed Izumi down as she knew that Itachi was more than capable of saving Sasuke should he need to, but she asked him
"How will you know if he needs you?"
Itachi just made a single hand sign, called
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Before summoning one single shadow clone right beside him. "Go."
The shadow clone nodded and vanished into the forrest.
Once the shadow clone was out of sight, Itachi said
"Now we wait."
(Six Hours Later, In Konoha)
In the Leaf Village, young Sakura Haruno and Hinata Hyuga were making their way to the Inuzuka Household, where two of their fellow Harem-Women resided at.
They were going there to pay a visit to the one that was pregnant as they were very worried about her and also because they wanted to ask her some questions.
Once they arrived at the door of their destination they rang the doorbell and shortly afterwards, Kiba opened the door.
"Oh, Kiba, is your mom home?" Hinata asked.
"Yeah, she's upstairs, want me to give her a message?" He asked in a very polite manner.
'That's new' both Hinata and Sakura thought in response to Kiba's words. "No, do you think we could come inside, we wanna speak with her directly?"
"Yeah, sure" Kiba replied before opening the door and letting the girls in.
Once the girls walked inside the house, they immediately made their way to Tsume's room, and as they did this, Kiba just walked up to his kitchen and thought
'Better get to work" before turning on the stove.
(One Minute Later)
Hinata and Sakura shortly arrived at Tsume's door and knocked, and once they did, they heard the older lady say
"Come in!" And so they opened the door and walked in.
Once they were in the room, they saw Tsume just laying down in her bed, which had an over bed table on it, with her bottom half covered in a big blanket, reading a book.
Once she spotted the two girls enter the room though, she put the book down and said
"Oh, it's you two."
"Yeah, it's us" Sakura replied.
"I don't mean this in a bad way, but why are you here?" She asked.
"We just wanted to check up on you" Sakura responded.
"And also, we were wondering if we could ask you some questions" Hinata added.
Tsume didn't really have anything better to do, so she shrugged her shoulders and said
"Alright."
So Hinata asked her the first question.
"Is it uncomfortable?"
"Yeah" Tsume responded. "It puts a lot of pressure on your lower back and yeah, obviously that feels uncomfortable, but I've been through this twice already, so it's not as bad."
"Okay" Hinata responded.
"So you're holding up well?" Sakura asked.
"Totally" Tsume responded. "But why do you two wanna know this?"
The girls just decided to tell Tsume the truth.
"Well you see" Hinata started.
"We wanted to know so that when we eventually get pregnant with Naruto's baby" Sakura continued.
"You could prepare yourselves?" Tsume finished.
The girls just nodded their heads, but Tsume just told them
"There is no real way to prepare for it, no matter what, when you give birth, it's gonna hurt like hell."
This made the girls cover their mouths and cringe at the thought of it, but Tsume continued on.
"It'll all be worth it in the end though, cuz when you hold your baby in your hands for the very first time, and they smile at you, you'll feel so warm inside and feel the best you ever could."
This effectively made both Sakura and Hinata uncover their mouths and smile, as what Tsume said really did warm their hearts.
Tsume ended it by saying
"So it's best to just accept it and get it over with."
The girls nodded and as soon as they nodded, they heard more knocks at Tsume's door, which prompted her to say
"Come in!"
Like that, the door clicked open and revealed her son, walking into the room.
"Kaa-Chan, I have your favorite foods" Kiba said as he walked into the room with a tray of food and two glasses of water.
'Kaa-Chan?' Hinata and Sakura thought in shock.
The tray of food was connected by a tether which Kiba wrapped behind his neck and the glasses of water were in his hands.
That aside though, Tsume thanked her son and after she did, Kiba walked up to his mom and placed the food and glasses of water on her overbed table.
"Rest up" he said to her with a smile before walking out of the room.
As soon as he was outta the room, and the door shut, Hinata and Sakura looked at Tsume and said
"He has changed so much."
"I know" Tsume said with a smile.
"Does Kiba know who knocked you up?" Sakura asked.
"Yeah, I told him that just yesterday" Tsume responded. "Everything went perfectly according to plan."
"Huh?" Hinata and Sakura said in reply.
"Oh right, I never told any of you except for Hana" Tsume said.
"Told us what?" Hinata asked.
"You see, there were two reasons why I got pregnant, one of which I never told you guys about, because I was worried how you would react?" Tsume reasoned.
"Well.. tell us" Sakura responded, eager to know.
"Are you both sure you wanna know?" Tsume asked.
"Yes!" Both Sakura and Hinata replied with in unison.
Tsume just smiled at the two before explaining.
"The first reason I wanted a baby was because I wanted for us all to have a reminder of him while he's gone for the next couple of years" she started with.
The two girls nodded their heads in understanding, as it did come off as a big up side that Tsume was pregnant with Naruto's baby for the exact reason she listed.
When Tsume saw that the two girls understood, she continued on.
"However, the second reason, was because I knew that it would cause Kiba to change" she said.
This caught the two girls off-guard.
"How could you know that?" They both asked her.
"Kiba isn't a terrible guy, he's was like that because of his father, he was simply misunderstood for so long. I knew that if he just had a reason to care for me and Hana, he'd change, and it turned out I was right, because he had changed drastically ever since he found out that I was pregnant. He cleans, he cooks, he does all kinds of stuff for not just me, but for Hana too."
This warmed Hinata and Sakura's hearts to hear this, not only because of Kiba's change, but also because it showed the love and belief of a mother. Despite how feared she is in the village and how bad Kiba used to be, Tsume never lost hope in her son, and always beloved that he could and would change eventually.
As they were thinking this though, Tsume told them
"Once I'm done with my food I'm gonna go take a shower."
"Okay, Hinata and Sakura said before leaning in and gently hugging the woman.
This caught her off-guard, but she still hugged them back, and after the hug, they said
"Have a safe day" before walking out the door.
As Sakura and Hinata walked off, Tsume looked up at her ceiling and smiled
"Naruto-Kun, I hope you're doing fine."
(With Sasuke)
"Whoah!" Sasuke shouted as he was nearly decapitated by a large venus flytrap that was hanging upside down. "That was clooooo" he began to say before noticing that he landed on another one and jumping away from that one too.
He was in a trail of venus flytraps as no matter where he jumped he kept landing on more and more flytraps.
So he kept jumping as far and as as fast as he could, but didn't stop landing on flytraps till the fifteenth jump.
Once he landed in a safe zone, he just sat down on the ground and began breathing in and out deeply, trying his hardest to catch his breath and cool down, as what he has seen here so far, has been nothing but terrifying things that you'd only see in your worst nightmares.
'I gotta get outta here' he thought before getting up and trying to find a way out.
As he was panicking and trying to think of a way out of though, something landed right behind him, with harsh impact.
He felt the ground beneath him shake after that thing fell and when he heard it breathe, he knew exactly what it was.
So after taking a big gulp, he turned around to look the thing in the eyes.
He was staring eye to eye at a giant rat, who stood on two feet, was taller than his brother, and was hungry.
He had been running from this rat for the past four hours, as it appeared the moment after he set up camp somewhere, and ruined everything he used to set up camp.
He initially tried to fight it in a battle of Taijutsu, but the rat overwhelmed him with its physical strength, speed, and versatility, which is why he has been running for so long.
So after nearly hyperventilating for a few seconds, he looked the thing in its eyes and after praying to Kami in his mind, Sasuke ran again, this time though, the rat was following him.
Sasuke was running as fast he could and was not giving up no matter what.
'It had to be a rat, it just had to be!' He inwardly yelled as he continued running as fast as he could, only to see that he was about to run into yet another trail of flytraps.
However, deciding that he was more scared of the rat than the flytraps, he decided to maneuver around them again, so as to avoid the rat.
As he was performing acrobatics and avoiding every last bite from every last flytrap there, he turned his head around and saw the rat just bite the stem off of every flytrap it came close to, only to see the flytrap regrow back instantly, and then continue trying to bite the rat.
'Damn' Sasuke thought while continuing to maneuver around those plants.
Eventually though, Sasuke evaded every single flytrap and landed on his feet.
As soon as he landed on his feet, he turned around and saw the rat continue trying to fight off every single flytrap there with its powerful bite.
'Alright good, it's trapped' Sasuke thought before turning back around and then running as fast as possible. 'Come on, come on, I can do this.'
As he was running, he felt his stomach growl harshly, and so he held his stomach and said
"I need food" before looking around trying to find anything to eat before spotting a big source of water and thinking 'Fish!' Before running and diving into the source of water.
As soon as he dove into it, he held his breath and then began swimming deeper and deeper, trying his hardest to find fish to eat.
'Come on, come on, they've gotta be here' Sasuke thought while desperately looking around for any fish to eat.
It wasn't long before eventually, he found what he was looking for.
There was a fish, about one hundred meters away, it looked like a regular branzino fish, so he brought out one of his kunai, thought
'Firs till kill it then bring it up to the surface, where I'll cook it with my Fire Jutsu and then eat it' before swimming closer and closer to it.
After just a couple of seconds of swimming closer to it, the fish spotted him and began swimming at him too. Once he saw this he thought
'Okay, that makes this way easier' before he stopped swimming and then held his kunai by his hip, ready to kill the fish.
As he got closer, Sasuke noticed that it was actually getting bigger than he expected. He didn't think much of it, as he didn't think it'd be too big, but boy was he wrong.
It stopped swimming, literally just a couple inches away from him, and he saw that it was way bigger than it looked.
It dwarfed Sasuke in size, which terrified the living shit out of him, but what terrified him even more was when he heard it growling, and then through the opening in his mouth he made while growling, he saw his razor sharp teeth which also dwarfed him in size, and that was the last straw.
The second he saw it, he turned around and began swimming away as fast as possible.
'Shit, shit, shit, shit!' He shouted inwardly as he swam as fast he could.
The fish opened its mouth and went for a bite, just barely missing Sasuke by a centimeter, then he tried again, same result, then one more time, but again, missed by just a centimeter.
After evading that last bite, Sasuke finally reached the surface, used his chakra to stand on the water, and then ran all the way to land.
Once he reached land, he jumped as high as possible, landed on his back, and saw the fish try biting him, but of course, he was unable to as Sasuke was on land and many meters away.
So after the fish angrily swam back down to the source of water, Sasuke let out a deep breath of relief, sat down on the dirt, and said
"Thank Kami" before hearing his stomach rumble again. "I'm still hungry though." 'Is there anything small in this place?!'
As soon as he thought this though, he felt something itchy touching the back of his hands, so he turns his head to look and saw a cockroach, a little bit bigger than the average one, resting on top of his hand.
As soon as he saw it, he saw more and more cockroaches begin to rest on top of the back of both his hands, and so he thought
'Well, it's better than nothing' before squashing them all with his free-hand.
After squashing them all he made the hand signs, called out
"Goukakyuu no Jutsu" in a very small voice, so as to make it as weak as possible, and also to not alert nearby animals.
Once the cockroaches were all cooked, Sasuke began eating each and every one of them till absolutely none of them remained.
The second the final cockroach was gone, Sasuke took deep breaths in order to compose himself, that was until he heard multiple footsteps approaching him, and turned his head to see the source of the sound.
'What is-?' Sasuke began to think before what was making the sounds made itself visible.
It was a cockroach who like the rat, stood on two feet, but was even taller than the rat. It was 8'8 and very fat due to it being a cockroach.
Sasuke took a big gulp, realized that he still had the antenna of one of the cockroaches he ate at hand, heard the cockroach hiss, and turned around to start running again.
'It's the mom, it's the mom, it's mom!' Sasuke repeated to himself while continuing to run as fast as he possibly could to get away from that thing.
Little did Sasuke know, a shadow clone of his elder brother was watching him as he was running away from the cockroach.
'Although it may not look it, he's actually doing an amazing job' the shadow clone thought before con thing to follow Sasuke.
(With Hinata and Sakura)
"Really?" Hinata asked Sakura.
"Yeah, it shocked me too" Sakura replied.
The two close friends were currently in the park of Konoha, just swinging around on some swing sets, and were just talking about the many memories they made with Naruto in that park, as that was where they always went when they were younger.
Sakura specifically, was telling Hinata about the time that her and Naruto got into a two on two fight between a girl and boy in that park.
"Wait, so how did it start again?" Hinata asked.
"Okay, so me and Naruto were six years old and were just throwing water balloons at each other, and one of the balloons I threw accidentally hit a girl with brown hair. I apologized as soon as it happened of course, but the girl and her elder brother, who was thirteen or fourteen, didn't care and started getting really close to me, called me lots of names, but the second they opened their mouths to say something bad about me though, Naruto came out and told them both to leave me alone. The girl's older brother told him to mind his own business but you know Naruto, anything that has to deal with a friend of his is his buisness, and that's exactly what he told the boy. The boy and his sister weren't having it though and both started pulling my hair, as soon as they did though, Naruto pulled them both off of me, asked me if I was okay, and then we got in a two on two fight between them. Naruto knocked the elder brother out with one punch, and me and the girl got into a really heated fight, but eventually, I knocked her out with a knee to the face."
"Wow" Hinata said in reply. "That reminds me of this one time Naruto and I were riding bikes in this park when outta nowhere, these boys started laughing at him for riding bikes with a girl."
"Ooh, tell me" Sakura said with curiosity.
"Okay, so pretty much, me and Naruto were six and the day before the incident, he was teaching me how to ride a bike. I failed many times, but he caught me every single time I did, making sure I never hurt myself. Eventually though, I figured it out and so he just kept guiding me on what to do, so I tried over and over again till finally, I was riding a bike all on my own. The day afterwards though, we were riding our bikes when a group of six boys who were all six or seven years old went up to us in their bikes. As soon as they did though they started laughing and pointing at me and Naruto, mainly Naruto though, and were laughing at the fact that he was riding bikes with a girl, especially one so ugly like me. This pissed Naruto off big time and he told them all to apologize to me, they didn't and then asked him what he was gonna do about it, and the second they did, well... you know what happens when you mess with someone Naruto loves" Sakura nodded at this. "Naruto beat the six of them up badly, not only that, but he also broke their bikes too, just to punish them more."
"Wow" Sakura said.
"I know" Hinata said before cupping both sides of her own face with both her hands and smiling. "Isn't he the best!?"
"Dattebayo" Sakura responded, impersonating the boy she loves so much.
Hinata giggled at this and then admitted something to Sakura.
"Honestly, it warmed my heart every time he would catch me before I fell, so much so that some times I failed on purpose, just so he could catch me again" Hinata admitted.
"Yeah I hear ya, I've done lots of things just to get his attention too" Sakura replied.
"Like what?" Hinata asked.
"One time I styled my hair into spikes, to match Naruto's, I looked silly but Naruto smiled at me and called me cute anyways" she admitted.
"One time I asked Naruto if he could help me braid my hair, he didn't know how to, and so the entire time I just spent looking into his eyes and whisker marks, admiring his appearance as he focused so hard on trying to braid my hair, and honestly, the braiding he did wasn't even that bad" Hinata pointed out.
Sakura smiled at Hinata.
"Remember the times we would play house?" Hinata asked.
"Oh yeah" Sakura responded. "We would always fight over who got to play the wife or girlfriend of Naruto."
"Funny, cuz now we both are" Hinata pointed out before both shared giggles with each other.
Once the giggles died down, Sakura asked Hinata
"Okay, how about we talk about our absolute favorite memory of Naruto that we had in this park?"
"Sure" Hinata replied.
Like that, the two began thinking but it didn't take them long to remember their most treasured memory they made in the park with the boy. So at the same time they said
"Got it" and then played Rock Paper Scissors to see who would tell their story first.
Hinata won, and so she spoke first.
"My favorite story is definitely this one" she began to explain.
(Flashback, Five Years Ago)
Naruto and Hinata were both seven years old and were at the park, just playing around.
Naruto specifically, was pushing Hinata on her swing set.
"Come on, hold on, tight" he said the last part a little loud before pushing Hinata fairly hard, lifting her and her swing a bit high above the ground.
"Whoah" she said in reply to the push. "Higher!"
Naruto of course, accepted her request and pushed her harder, sending her higher than last time.
This continued on for quite some time before eventually, Naruto stopped and held on to Hinata's shoulders, keeping her from moving.
Once she stopped moving he got in front of her, which caused her to ask him
"Why'd you stop?"
Naruto just smirked, said
"For this" and then started tickling her sides.
"Ahh, ah, ahhh!" She laughed out in repsonse to the tickles.
"Having fun?" Naruto asked.
"Y-ye-yeah, but st-st-stop Naruto-Kun!" Hinata giggled out as her face began turning red from the constant tickling.
"Absolutely not" Naruto responded. "It's impossible for me to not wanna tickle such a cute girl."
"C-c-cute?" Hinata asked in a silly stammer.
"Of course" Naruto replied before continuing to tickle the girl more and more.
Hinata was holding onto the chains of the swing for dear life, because she knew that if she let go, she would fall, forward or back, didn't matter, either way, it was going to hurt.
Eventually though, the tickles became too much and she was forced to let go, as soon as she did though, Naruto noticed this, stopped tickling her, used his left hand to grab the back of her head, and pulled her closer to him, keeping her from falling.
However, he pulled a little too hard, as her right cheek ended up crashing into his lips, and the second he noticed that, so did she.
When she noticed that, she stopped laughing, but her blush grew even worse, so much so... she fainted.
Thankfully though, since Naruto was still up, she didn't fall and Naruto carried her all the way back to her compound.
(Present)
"Wow" Sakura responded.
"I know" Hinata replied. "Pretty cool huh?"
"Yeah, but not as cool as mine" Sakura replied.
"Oh yeah?" Hinata queired.
"Yeah."
"Then tell me."
Once Hinata told her this, Sakura cleared her throat and then told her story.
(Flashback, Five Years Ago)
Sakura and Naruto were both in the park and were playing tag.
"Tag, you're it Sakura-Chan!" Naruto said before running away.
"I'm gonna get you Naruto-Kun!" Sakura shouted with a smile on her face as she ran to catch the boy.
The boy was slowing down obviously. He didn't wanna make it impossible for Sakura so he was slowing down just the right amount to where it was tough, but not impossible for the girl to catch him.
Speaking of which, the girl was still chasing the boy and was getting closer and closer, till eventually, she didn't see it, but a big rock was in their path, Naruto avoided it, but she didn't, and tripped as a result.
"Oww!" She cried out as she fell forward and scraped her left knee. "Ow, ow, owww!"
"Sakura-Chan!" Naruto shouted in worry after seeing and hearing this before leaning down and tending to the fallen girl.
"Naruto-Kun, my knee!" Sakura cried out with tears welling in her eyes.
"It's okay, Sakura-Chan, it's okay" he said before picking her up, bridal style, spotting a nearby bench, and then walking over to it.
Once he was close enough to it, he put her down on it and then brought out a small bag of cotton balls and a small bottle of alcohol from his pockets, which he brought with him just in case this happened to either of them when playing tag.
No further words said, he slowly applied the alcohol into the scraped knee, which burned a bit, but Naruto simply told Sakura
"Stay with me" and so she did, and so he continued on.
After just a few more light squeezes, he put the bottle down, brought out one of the cotton balls and began lightly pressing on the now wet scrape with the cotton ball while also blowing cold air into it.
After a while of doing this, Naruto brought out a bandage, placed it over the scraped knee, asked Sakura
"Want me to kiss it better?"
She blushed but nodded her head.
Naruto of course, gave the knee a kiss.
Sakura wanted more though, so she decided to milk the situation for all it was worth and asked him
"Can you give it three more kisses?"
Sure" Naruto said with a smile before giving it three more kisses.
'That feels, nice' she thought with a blush while looking down at her crush.
(Present)
"So that was also a moment where you tried to get his attention?" Hinata asked.
"Yeah" Sakura said with pride.
The girls just reveled in all the memories they made with the boy they loved, outside of just the mementoes they made with him in the park. They could just never get enough of Naruto.
After speaking about the blonde for a little longer, they got off the swings and headed out of the park.
(Back With Sasuke)
Sasuke was currently hiding behind a big tree, having lost the monsters a while ago.
He was breathing in and out heavily while inwardly repeating
'I wasn't ready, I wasn't ready, I wasn't ready, what the fuck!?'
Before eventually hearing footsteps, covering his mouth and holding his breath to avoid being heard or detected.
He heard hissing and squeaks for one whole minute before hearing them seemingly go away.
Once he was sure that he was in the clear, he removed his hands from his mouth and started breathing in and out deeply, but quietly.
Once he fully caught his breath, he thought
'Okay, I have to think, how the hell am I gonna survive this?'
So he began thinking quickly and quietly and after a while, he got an idea.
He immediately put the plan to action and started by grabbing a kunai from his pouch again, and cutting the tree he was hiding behind.
After cutting the shape of a diamond into the tree, he used it as a planning board.
Once he was done with the planning, he brought out all the weapons he had in his pouch and began setting something up.
With a smile on his face, he thought
'This is definitely going to work.'
As Sasuke was doing this, the shadow clone of his brother, who was watching over him, thought
'Good, he's using his head.'
(Five Hours Later)
It was dark outside now and Sasuke was done with everything he had planned.
So with a smirk, he thought
'Time for some payback' and then put his plan to action.
He walked off to go find the the rat and cockroach that he has been running from all day and with vengeance on his mind, he found them.
He was hiding behind some vines and with an evil grin on his face, he whistled at them.
They noticed him and as soon as they did, he said
"Over here!" Before running.
They hissed and chirped before chasing after him.
Sasuke was running as fast as possible but was also making sure he didn't step anywhere he wasn't supposed to.
While he was running he turned his head around to look at the rat and cockroach and sure enough, after a bit more running, he saw the rat get its leg caught in a handmade wooden bear trap.
It let out a loud screech before trying its hardest to tear the trap off.
The screech from the rat actually messed with the cockroach and caused it to get caught in a a bear trap itself.
It hissed in pain from the trap and like the rat, tried prying it off of itself.
As you could probably tell, Sasuke spent the last five hours setting up as many booby traps anywhere within a 50 feet radius, and was just really relieved that at least two of his traps worked so far.
Once he saw the two finally break out of the traps, he just continued running and luring the two animals into more and more traps.
After half an hour of setting off every single trap the Uchiha set up, both the rat and cockroach were buried in rocks right in front of him.
Sasuke, who was currently just sitting on the ground, exhausted, couldn't see their bodies and figured that it was finally over.
"Alright!" Sasuke shouted with an arm raised, relived that the rat and cockroach were dead. "My plan worked!"
As soon as he shouted that though, he heard breathing and then almost instantly afterwards, the cockroach and rat were both back up to their feet.
So Sasuke, as scared as he was, screamed really hard and loud, then ran away again, as fast as possible.
(With Hinata and Sakura)
Hinata and Sakura were both currently at Ichiraku Ramen, just enjoying some of their favorite ramen while also talking about the many memories they made with Naruto in that stand, when they had zero food in their mouth of course.
After taking a big gulp, Hinata looked at Sakura and asked her
"Remember when he first brought us here?"
Sakura took a big gulp as well and then said
"Yep, that was the day we both tried ramen for the very first time."
"And it was amazing" Hinata added.
Both giggled a bit but then got back to their ramen.
As they were eating their ramen, Ayame, who was making them more ramen, walked up to them and asked them
"Was that all you two could think of?"
"Huh?" They both responded in confusion.
"I remember a lot more memories you two had with him here than just the first time he brought you both here, hell, I remember the first time he ever came here at all."
"Oohhh" both Hinata and Sakura said with interest while holding both sides of heir face. "What was it like?"
Ayame just chuckled at the girls' hastiness and then explained.
"The very first time he ever came here, he was four years old and came with the Third Hokage. The second me and my father saw the Third Hokage, we bowed our heads and greeted him, Hokage-Sama however just waved it off and then told us that he'd like to order, and we simply asked him what he'd like. Hokage-Sama first asked Naruto-Kun what he'd like and he simply told him that he'd like pork flavored ramen, so that's exactly what Hokage-Sama ordered for him, but ordered spicy ramen for himself. Me and my father took our time making this, as it was for the Hokage, so it had to be perfect, and once we were done, we handed both Naruto-Kun and Hokage-Sama their bowls of Ramen. Naruto-Kun ate the ramen a little too quickly and that piked Hokage-Sama's interest, so much so that he asked Naruto a big and really important question. Hokage-Sama asked Naruto-Kun if he had eaten anything in the past few days and Naruto-Kun tried to lie, but he saw right past it and told him to be honest. So he was and told him that he hadn't eaten anything in a whole week. So Hokage-Sama bought him one of everything on the menu. It all ended with Naruto and Lord Third leaving with a bright smile on their faces."
"Wow" Hinata and Sakura said in response.
"I had no idea that it would lead to Naruto-Kun being a very common customer in our shop though and it turned out to be for the better, as he is the main source of our income, as our shop isn't really popular" Ayame admitted.
"But now he's gone" Sakura brought up.
"Yeah, that sucks, but we'll get through it, me and my dad have done so for years now" Ayame replied.
"That's nice to know" Hinata responded before her and Sakura paid for the food, got off their seats, and then walked out of the store.
(Back With Sasuke)
"Shit, shit, shit!" Sasuke yelled while running from the monsters who were tailing him.
It didn't take him long to realize that he was back to where he was when he pissed off the cockroach, near the big body of water, and the only reason he realized this was because the second he so much as touched the water, the big fish he also pissed off rose from the water and glared at him.
'Oh no!' He inwardly shouted before realizing he had nowhere else to go.
Seeing that the boy had nowhere to run now, the rat, cockroach, and fish just grinned evilly at him, ready for a midnight snack.
Sasuke was scared beyond belief at this point.
'This is, this is where it ends for me' he thought in fear before clenching his fist and with determination in his voice, shouting "No!"
This caught the three animals off-guard and caused them to do a double-take before seeing Sasuke assume a fighting position.
"I'm done with running, if I'm gonna die anyways, I'm gonna at least go down fighting!" Sasuke yelled with determination in his voice. 'I won't die, no matter what!'
As soon as this thought left his mind, the three animals rushed to attack.
As soon as they rushed in to attack, Sasuke went straight for the fish, jumped high, and drop kicked him as hard as he could back into the water.
Once he got back to his feet, he engaged the cockroach and rat in a two on one Taijutsu match, but was easily bested due to their physical strength, speed, durability, and versatility.
Sasuke only had two hands and legs after all, the cockroach had four arms and two legs, and the rat had his hands, feet, and a tail.
Once the two knocked him to the ground, he realized
'Okay, Taijutsu is a no-no, they're better than me and stronger than me, so I have to stick to Genjutsu and Ninjutsu.'
After realizing this, he formed the right hand signs and then called
"Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" Before shooting a big fireball at both the cockroach and rat.
The rat jumped high to avoid it, but the cockroach turned around and used its shell as a shield to protect itself from the fire.
Once the fire dissipated, Sasuke saw the cockroach still there, without a scar, and just seconds later, he saw the rat fall right beside the cockroach too.
After letting out a huge breath, he made more hand signs and tried to take the two down.
"Raiton: Raikou Kousen no Jutsu!"
Like that, Sasuke sent a blast of Lightning at both the rat and cockroach, however, they were able to evade it, but once they did, Sasuke made even more hand signs.
"Katon Ryuuka no Jutsu!" He shouted before sending a dragon made of fire at the cockroach.
The cockroach avoided the dragon, but, with some quick thinking, Sasuke redirected the dragon and made it strike the cockroach from behind.
The cockroach was protected thanks to the fact that the dragon hit it's shell and it actually turned its head to inspect the damage and saw that none was done.
However, turning its head proved to be a mistake, as Sasuke took this as a golden opportunity to make the same hand signs and call
"Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu!" Making the giant dragon made of fire crash to its front side, the only side that wasn't armored.
The cockroach hissed in pain and went to the ground, as soon as it did, Sasuke let his guard down and ended up being bitten by the rat from behind.
"ARGGGGHHGH!" He screamed in pain. 'Regular rats have a bite force of twelve tons, this thing is at least two hundred times the size of a regular rat though.'
The bite hurt, but the venom Sasuke could feel coursing through his veins hurt even more.
'This rat is...' Sasuke inwardly trailed off. "Venomous."
The rat just grinned with its teeth still attached to Sasuke's left shoulder.
Sasuke wanted to try and pry that thing off of him, but the venom was getting to him, and it was getting to him quickly, so quickly that he couldn't even move.
The rat got bored and wanted to see the human suffer, so he let go of the bite he had on him.
Once the rat detached its mouth and teeth from Sasuke's left shoulder, he chuckled evilly before smacking him to the side with his tail.
The Uchiha crashed into a nearby tree and stayed there, unable to move.
'Damn, I have to try something, but what?' He thought desperately while closing his eyes.
He couldn't think of anything though, and when he heard the sound of the cockroach chirping, he opened his eyes and saw the rat and cockroach creeping up to him, clearly intent on making him their lunch.
So he started thinking even harder and harder till eventually.
'Damn it, I hate to think of this, but what would Naruto do?!' Sasuke inwardly asked, swallowing his pride in the process.
As Sasuke was pondering what Naruto would do in this scenario, he angrily clenched his teeth before shouting
"No!" Which actually scared the cockroach and rat a bit because of how loud it was. "I won't get out of this situation Naruto's way, I'll get out this situation, my way!"
After shouting this, Sasuke closed his eyes, reopened them, and then accidentally activated his Sharingan.
It didn't take him long to realize that this was activated, as he was well aware of how it felt, and when he did, he thought
'My Sharingan, that's right, Itachi said that the best way for me to use the Sharingan it to first drain all my chakra, as I still haven't mastered it, and the venom from that rat must've drained me of all my chakra'
Before using his sheer willpower, to grab a nearby pointy stick, and stabbing himself in the stomach.
"Gah!" He yelped in pain.
He did this to take his mind out of the venom and focus solely on the pain from the stab, it was working, and he used that to fight back against the rat and cockroach.
He saw the rat coming at him with a tail swing, but he caught it, and used the tail as a whip to hit the cockroach.
The cockroach managed to avoid the three whips that Sasuke went for before the rat turned around and tried to bite him again.
Sasuke managed to counter this bite though by making the rat bite it's own tail.
It squeaked in pain but due to the fact that the venom was produced from its own cells and bodies, it wasn't weakened by it.
That didn't stop Sasuke from kicking it in the face and then backing away though.
'I see everything so clearly now' Sasuke thought while looking at the two giant animals.
Those same giant animals just turned back to Sasuke and then dove to attack him again.
Sasuke just grinned, thought
'Now the fun really begins' and continued to fight in the two on one.
The rat went for another bite, but Sasuke turned his body to the left side, avoided the bite, and then went for a knee to the chin, which connected instantly and brought the rat multiple steps back, and once that happened, the cockroach went for a quadruple punch, which Sasuke back flipped away from.
Once he landed on his feet, he ran at the rat, shouted
"Shishi Rendan!" Before kicking the cockroach up into the air.
Once the cockroach was in the air, Sasuke followed behind it, waited for it to throw a punch, moved to the left side, and then continuously kept kicking it higher into the air.
After twenty kicks and being thirty meters above the ground, Sasuke kicked the cockroach back down to the ground with all the strength he had.
"Take this!" He yelled as he went for the kick.
The kick was a downward kick to the top of the cockroach's head, and when the kick connected Sasuke felt the cockroach's skull crack open.
It hissed out one more time before crashing into the ground.
When Sasuke landed on his feet, he saw the cockroach, cut in half.
As soon as he saw this, he smirked and said
"That's one" before turning his attention to where he remembered the rat was last at.
He didn't see the rat though, so he asked himself
"Where is-" before getting down on one knee and clutching his left shoulder in pain. 'The venom, I forgot... about it, I should probably flee.'
As soon as he thought this though, the rat jumped high and far from behind him, and tried to bite him again, Sasuke however, managed to just narrowly avoid it in time.
"Whoah!" He loudly breathed out after just barely avoiding it. 'He's fast!'
As soon as this thought left his mind though, the rat landed back on the ground in all fours, turned his head to look at Sasuke, growled loudly, and then ran at the Uchiha again.
"Damn" he said before getting ready to fight the rat.
His Sharingan was still up and he was still ready for fighting, but the venom got in his way.
The rat went for a tail swing, and Sasuke was going to duck, but the venom kicked in and caused him to freeze in pain, allowing for him to get swung around to another tree.
"Oomph!" Sasuke wheezed out as his back crashed against a nearby tree.
"Rargh!" The rat growled out before running at him in all fours, intent on biting him again.
Sasuke tried his hardest but couldn't escape from what was coming and so he just closed his eyes tightly, reopened them, and accidentally caught the rat in a genjutsu.
He didn't realize it till he saw the rat stop moving and look at him as though he had no emotions.
As soon as he realized this, he inwardly asked the rat
'Can you reverse the effects of your own venom?' The rat nodded its head. 'Then cure me.'
The rat nodded its head, walked up to Sasuke and then bit him again, right where it bit him last time, and sucked all the venom out of there, effectively curing him.
Once Sasuke felt all the venom leave his system, he dropped his head and took multiple deep breath to compose himself.
As he was doing this, the shadow clone of Sasuke's elder brother was watching this go down, while holding a bottle of something in his hand.
'I guess he won't need the antidote' he thought before putting the bottle containing the antidote back inside one of his pockets. 'I prepared just for this occasion and it looks like he doesn't need it, at least not yet.'
Once that thought left the clone's mind, he went back to studying his younger brother's progress.
Once Sasuke finally caught his breath, he told the rat
"Don't move" and of course, the rat obeyed.
Sasuke spent the next couple of seconds detaching himself from the tree he was currently wedged into, and once he was, he took multiple steps behind the rat.
Once he was twenty feet behind the rat, he told it to
"Turn around!"
It did just that, and when it did, Sasuke told it to
"Snap you own neck" which it did.
The second the rat snapped its own neck, it fell to the floor, and so with a look of victory on his face, Sasuke said
"That makes two" before falling to his knees and again, catching his breath.
Once he did this though, he felt really cold water hit him right in the face.
"Oomph!" Sasuke wheezed out as he was sent flying many feet away.
He crashed into another tree, where he saw with his eyes what it was that hit him so hard.
It was the giant fish from earlier.
'Damn, I forgot about him' he thought as he detached himself from the tree.
Once he detached himself from the tree he took a couple steps forward and looked the fish who was multiple meters away, straight in the eyes, thought
'Guess that makes one more monster to take down' before forming the same hand signs and then calling out "Goukakyuu no Jutsu!"
Only for nothing to come out.
"Shit, I forgot, I'm outta chakra!" He yelled after remembering.
As soon as he realized this though, the fish opened its mouth, stored a lot of the water inside it, and then spit it out.
"Whoah!" Sasuke shouted before dodging the water. 'Okay, Ninjutsu won't work, so let's try some-'
As soon as he thought this though, his Sharingan turned off.
"No, no, no, don't turn off on me now!' Sasuke shouted in desperation while touching his face.
Focusing on his eyes though was a mistake, as the fish spat out another large ball of water at him, and since he wasn't paying attention, he was hit dead-on with it.
"Tohh!" He gasped out as he was hit with the ball of water in a downward way, and was brought down to the ground as a result.
The fish simply grinned at this, then filled his mouth with more water, getting ready to spit again.
'Damn, he's fast' Sasuke thought as he struggled back up to his feet. 'And I have to beat him without genjutsu or ninjutsu, just taijutsu.'
Once he got back up to his feet, he evaded the incoming waterball that the fish spat at him, and then ran at him.
The fish saw this as a threat and of course, kept filling his mouth up with water and spat out as many waterballs as fast as possible.
Sasuke used his superior agility to evade all the incoming waterballs while also getting closer and closer to the fish.
The fish didn't stop spitting water till finally, Sasuke leapt up to the top of the fish's head.
"Now!" Sasuke shouted while cocking his fist back. "The real pain begins!"
As soon as he shouted the last part out, he went for a punch, but ended up breaking his hand.
"Ahhh!" He yelled in pain while clutching his hand. 'Shit, that's right, fish have extremely dense and tough scales that are used to protect them, and one as big as this has even tougher scales.'
Sasuke then fell to his back in pain.
As he was squirming in pain on his back on top of the fish though, he began thinking
'But if one of kicks were able to, wait a minute... ' before making a realization. 'Damn, it must've acted like my kick did anything to it just to kill me itself.'
The fish just grinned before beginning to move around like crazy, trying to shake the Genin off. It wasn't able to though as Sasuke crawled as quickly as possible to its head fins and tugged on tightly to them, and so the fish dove into the water to try and drown the boy.
The second Sasuke saw the fish look like he was gonna dive, he took a deep breath, and once the fish dove, he held it.
Now underwater, Sasuke tried thinking of a way to harm the fish.
'Okay, it's scales are what makes it tough, so in order to do any kinds of damage, first I gotta pierce through the scales, but with what?'
So he really dug deep into his brain.
He had zero kunai, zero shuriken, zero weapons in general, so he was gonna have to get creative in a way to pierce through the fish's extremely dense and durable scales.
'Maybe I could stab him with a stick, but we're underwater, maybe I could hit him with a rock, first I'd have to get off him to grab one though and that's a no-no ' Sasuke began inwardly going over everything he could do.
As Sasuke went over his many plans, one in particular stuck to him.
'Yeah, that's it' he thought before executing the idea.
He pulled on the fins and made the fish crash into as many large underwater boulders as he could.
The first boulder the fish crashed into rocked his whole body, making Sasuke jump a bit from the force and power of the shaking fish, but he held on tightly and aimed it at another.
Once the fish crashed into this one, Sasuke started to feel his grip on the fins weaken, but he gripped it even tighter than before and aimed for another.
The idea, as you could probably tell, was to direct the fish to as many boulders as he could, in order to weaken and break apart it's strong scales, so that way, when they're weak enough or just completely off the fish, Sasuke can finally harm it with his bare hands and feet.
So far however, Sasuke didn't even see the slightest dent on any of the scales.
'Damn, those little shits are tougher than I gave em credit' he thought as he continued guiding the fish to more nearby boulders.
The more and more he made the fish crash into rocks, the more Sasuke realized that the rocks didn't even come close to grazing the fish's scales.
So he instantly began thinking of something else to do, or at least something else to add to what he was already doing.
'What can I do?' He thought before spotting something from the corner of his eye.
What he spotted was two halves of a large metal pipe, and because they were cut in half the pointy tips of both were sticking out. They were just laying on top of some big rock, not moving.
As soon as he spotted it, he realized
'There you go, that's what I need' and so he directed the fish over to the cut metal pipe.
When he got close enough, he let go of the fish and dove to grab both halves of the pipe.
He succeeded in grabbing them and once he did, he just stayed right there, and waited for the fish to notice him.
Once the fish noticed him, it swam at him with an open mouth, fully intent on biting the twelve year old boy.
However, the boy instead swam inside the fish's mouth and once he entered the inside of its mouth, he found that the fish's mouth was very dry, and so he was able to stop holding his breath and breathe in and out normally.
Once he took enough deep breaths, he jumped high and started stabbing the inside of the fish's mouth over and over again with the sharp sides of both pipes in both his hands.
The fish instantly started bleeding and upon feeling a large amount of pain in his mouth, it opened up its mouth again.
Sasuke knew this was inevitable though and held his breath as soon as he heard the sound of water rushing.
Just because the water rushed at him though, doesn't mean he stopped stabbing.
No matter what, he kept stabbing the fish everywhere.
He started with the top of the mouth, then the tongue, then the teeth, till finally, he managed to remove one of the teeth clean off its mouth, leaving an opening for him to swim out of, which he of course used for that exact purpose.
Once he exited the mouth of the fish, he instantly took it as a chance to swim to the top, but he was cut short as the fish saw him trying to escape and crashed into him as a result.
He rammed his head against Sasuke's back and then with Sasuke still in front of the fish, he crashed into a nearby boulder, and then repeated the process over and over and over again.
Sasuke was in bad condition to say the least.
He was getting crushed repeatedly by big boulders and the fish, all underwater, but still endured it all.
He tired his best to stay strong and look for a way out of this.
Luckily, the answers were still in his hands.
In one fluid motion, Sasuke brought out both his sharp pipes, and used them to stab both eyes of the fish.
The fish was now blind and Sasuke used that as his golden moment to finish it off.
So with a look of determination plastered on his face, he swam at the fish and repeatedly stabbed it all over the body with the pipes.
Above the mouth, through the nose, through the chin, you name it, he stabbed it.
None of the stabs had any effect of course, as the scales were still protecting the fish, that was till finally, one of the scales came off, and as soon as it did, Sasuke ran straight for the opening, jammed both pipes into it, and with all the strength he had, he ripped off hundreds and hundreds of scales, meaning that the fish was finally susceptible to pain, and Sasuke took full advantage of that.
With the same look of determination as before, he swam at the fish and stabbed it all over its body till finally, it's eyes rolled all the way back, and it was floating upside down, dead.
Once the fish was finally dead, Sasuke began swimming as fast as he could to get to the top, and when he reached the top, he again began taking deep breaths before swimming back to land, and once he got to land, he immediately rolled over in the dirt and softly said
"I... win" before closing his eyes and resting in exhaustion.
Little did he know, the moment he closed his eyes, hundreds more cockroaches, rats, and fish made themselves visible and surrounded the poor boy.
With a look of hunger in their eyes, they got ready for their meal, that was until a certain cloud of dust filled the air outta nowhere, and when the dust settled, Itachi Uchiha could be seen, shielding his brother from the animals, with his head down and on one knee.
The second Itachi lifted his head up though, he glared at all the animals, and out of pure fear and remembrance of Itachi, all the animals ran away as fast as possible.
Once all the animals were gone, Itachi turned to his brother, said
"You did good for your first day" before he picked him up and tossed him over his right shoulder. "When I first came here, I killed ten of each before calling it a day, but to be fair, I was fourteen, meaning this just proves how much potential you have."
Once the shadow clone of Itachi was done speaking, he shunshin'd away.
To Be Continued...
Author's Note:
Yes the chapter was mainly about the Uchihas, specifically Sasuke, but either way I hope you guys enjoyed it, and of course, I love you guys and I hope to see you again soon.
