Chapter 2: Land of Wave Arc Part I

It had been a few days since the newly formed team 7 had their fight against their sensei. Since that moment, Naruto and the others had started doing D-rank missions. The missions were often boring, including them doing many forms of yard work, cleaning different places, or other menial tasks. All the missions were like that… except for one… The Tora mission.

This mission was not like other D-ranks. It was a recurring mission. Tora, the cat, would often escape from her owner, and it was the responsibility of young genin to catch and return her, however, Tora was no ordinary cat. Tora was the bane of everyone who was unfortunate to run into her. She knew her way around every street and alleyway, and was vicious when she was captured. After each Tora mission, at least one genin would end up with scratches all over their body, primarily their face. Naruto was the unlucky member of the unlucky squad that was chosen to return Tora.

Naruto walked with Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi back to the Hokage building in order to report how their mission went. Their sensei, characteristically of him, was reading his Icha Icha book series on the way back. Sasuke was twirling a kunai on his finger, and Sakura was trying everything she could to get Sasuke to pay attention to her.

"Hey hey Sasuke, do you think my hair looks good? Hey Sasuke, do you think we could go see a movie after this? Hey Sasuke, do you–"

"Sakura could you please shut up!" Naruto shouted. Everyone else looked at him inquisitively as he usually was very nice to the girl. Sasuke also had that look of question on his face, but on the inside he was thanking Naruto with his entire soul. Even he couldn't deal with her rants for that long of a time.

When they reached the Hokage's tower, they entered the main room where the Hokage and Iruka were. "Hey Iruka-Sensei, we're ready for a new mission!"

Iruka chuckled, Naruto was still full of energy as always. "Alright Naruto, well we've got an interesting mission for you. It may seem a little early, but due to all of your success with the D-rank missions, we have an escort mission for you, a C-rank. Get ready to leave for your mission tomorrow morning."

All the original four nodded and left the building. Once they were out of the gate, Kakashi announced, "Alright team. We'll meet by the village gates at 9:00 tomorrow, make sure you pack all necessary supplies." He then walked off, and so did Sasuke and Sakura.

Naruto started on his way home. Along the way, outside of a shop, he saw a girl with short blue hair standing with something in her hands. He wondered if… "Hey Hinata!" The girl turned around to look at the person calling her. Naruto grinned, he was right. Looking at who called her, Hinata turned pink.

"H-Hey Naruto-kun."

"Whatcha up to?" Naruto asked.

"O-oh, I-I'm g-getting some r-rice for some f-food." She stuttered. "I'm h-heading home n-now."

"Well, I've got nothing better to do, could I walk home with you?"

Hinata turned from an already pink face to red. "S-sure, N-Naruto-kun."

"Lead the way!"

Naruto walked with Hinata back to her house talking with her all the way. Hinata loved talking with him and cherished every moment of it. Eventually they reached the gate to the Hyuuga compound and it was time for Hinata to go home.

"Hey, it was nice talking to you Hinata!"

"Y-yeah N-Naruto-kun, I h-hope w-we can d-do i-it a-again sometime." She added quietly.

"For sure Hinata, I'll see ya around." Naruto waved and walked off toward his apartment. It was nice talking to an old friend. As for Hinata, she could not believe that Naruto offered to walk home with her and she walked home with him. She walked into her house, forgot to say hello to everyone she saw, walked into her room, and flopped onto her bed. She was on cloud nine.

– – –

Naruto reached his apartment and went to his cabinets for some ramen. He sang and hummed a tune along with the words of "Nothin' better than ramen!" while he made his food. Naruto started to cook his ramen, bearing those horrible three minutes. After it was made, Naruto quickly slurped up his noodles before making some more and then laying down on his couch to relax.

– – –

A little while after Naruto had eaten his ramen, he created some shadow clones to go to his room and practice making seals. Naruto had gotten quite proficient with some seals such as storage seals and silencing seals, but some of the more advanced stuff he still had a lot of trouble with. As for Naruto himself, he went and grabbed his sword, Sorukishi, previously his mother's. He had asked Kakashi to train him in kenjutsu today, so he started off to training ground three, the one their team always used. Naruto got ready in his ninja gear, got his sandals on, and packed some storage seals and was off.

About fifteen minutes later, Naruto reached the training ground. He organized his storage seals and adhered them to himself through different jutsus. Quite soon after he was done organizing all of his things, Kakashi walked in reading his favorite Icha Icha series, looking all the same except for a sword on his back.

"Hey, Sensei." Said Naruto.

"Hey Naruto." He replied, "Before we start your training, I want to see something." He pulled out of his pocket little slips of paper. "These are elemental affinity sensing papers. By channeling your chakra into this paper," He said as he did so. "Your main element will be shown." His paper crumpled up. "As you can see, I am a lightning element, so let's test yours now." Offering Naruto a piece of paper as he finished.

Naruto took the paper, channeled chakra to it, and it did nothing for a moment, but then the paper began to grow roots and leaves out of it. Naruto looked at it inquisitively, while Kakashi had a look of shock on his face.

"Th-that's the wood style Naruto, don't you realize?"

"Hmm, oh, yeah! My dad left a note for me that said I might have this trait… He also said I might acquire the sharingan!"

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT NARUTO?" Kakashi screamed.

"Well, my dad left a note in case he died, that said I might get the sharingan and wood style. My grandparents were Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju, ya know."

Kakashi's eyes widened and then rolled back into his head. He decided that the training ground was a good place to take a nap as he fell down. "Sensei, sensei!" Naruto said as Kakashi fell.

Kakashi awoke a little while later to see Naruto reading one of his books on fuinjutsu. As he was lifting his head, Naruto saw Kakashi looking around at where he was. Training ground three, just like he was earlier. He recounted the memories of what had just happened to him right before he fainted. Wait, Naruto had wood style!

"Hey look Kakashi-sensei, look what I can do!" Naruto held his hand out, and out of his palm emerged a length of wood that connected to the ground and took shape before it stopped coming out of his palm. A small tree now existed where there was no such thing before.

"I just figured out I could do this," Said Naruto. "I sort of just held out my hand, thought of a tree and gathered my chakra, and bam! I guess. It actually kind of tickles." Kakashi was astounded by this information, and he knew. There was only one person in the village who could teach him about his ability. But for that moment, they would practice with their swords.

– – –

A little while had passed, and Naruto had finished training with Kakashi. It was getting dark and he had a mission in the morning, so he headed straight home. As soon as he reached his house, Naruto showered and put his weapons and training items away. Naruto made himself a cup of instant ramen and enjoyed the beautiful taste of it. He then went to bed.

– – –

Team 7 had gathered at the gate of the village with their client, an bridge builder named Tanzuna, waiting to leave. Team 7 that was, of course, with the exception of Naruto. A bright orange blur raced through the village toward the gates, at a pace so fast, the average civilian thought it might be the yellow flash.

"Where's the dobe." Sasuke said out loud.

Trying to impress Sasuke, Sakura screeched in agreement to him. "Yeah! That Naruto should be here already, I mean, I was, and so was Sasuke!" She then clung onto Sasuke's arm as he tried to free himself.

Sasuke cursed at Sakura in his head, why did he have to get stuck with one of his fangirls!

Kakashi was thinking about Naruto's ability he had learned about from last night, and how he could get in touch with the one who could teach Naruto about his ability. It had been a little while since they were on a team together.

Meanwhile, a brown haired ANBU sneezed.

Finally, a yellow haired-genin met the rest of his team at the village gates. "Sorry I'm late everyone," He said in between pants.

"About time dummy." Sakura said.

"We have got to get a move on people! My grandson and daughter are waiting in the land of wave for us to come!"

Naruto finally noticed the old man with puffy eyes slurring his words. "This guy is our client? He looks older than the third, and he looks angrier too! Oh, well, now he looks like he wants to hit me." Tazuna was indeed progressively getting more angry at Naruto. If he was going to have to deal with him the entire trip, he might go insane before they even reach their destination. "Anyways," Naruto turned to Kakashi, "are we leaving yet?"

Tazuna replied, "Come on twerps, let's not wait for the next year to come around." With that, he left and the others followed.

– – –

The five had been traveling for a while, Kakashi was still reading his book, Tazuna was still grumpily trudging along, and Sakura was trying to get Sasuke's attention, while strangely, he was having a conversation with Naruto. Kakashi decided not to pay too much attention, but he hadn't ever seen Sasuke interact… well… basically ever more than he was supposed to. They certainly would have to be talking about something interesting if Sasuke was part of it.

Sasuke and Naruto tried to the best of their ability to ignore Sakura. She truly was very annoying. Naruto questioned why in the academy, he even liked her. "Sasuke, did you see my new kunai… Sasuke, do you like my hair today… Sasuke–" It was not just Naruto this time, but both of the boys to yell at her.

"SAKURA! SHUT IT!"

Sakura jumped backwards and walked over to their client to avoid getting screamed at again. Sasuke and Naruto were both pleased to be able to go on with their conversation.

"So like I was saying Sasuke, there are different levels of sealing prowess. The higher the level one is, the more competent in seals they are. There are ten levels, I personally am only level two."

"Interesting… You said that the Uzumaki were seal masters, so do you have a special bloodline or something that allows you to learn seals better?"

"Indirectly you could say. Uzumaki have naturally large chakra reserves, so I can make a lot of shadow clones that can actually learn for me. It's quite useful."

"And, how long did it take you to learn all of this? Since when have you been studying this?"

"Since the day before we became genin, the hokage gave me some books that my mother had wanted me to study. I've been studying at night every day for a few hours with shadow clones. If you wanted to progress at the same rate as me by yourself, you would need several tens of days just to reach level two." Naruto replied.

"Do you think I could borrow some of your books on this stuff sometime?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto was flabbergasted, he never thought in a million years that Sasuke would ask somebody for a favor, ever. But, Naruto was more than willing to let Sasuke give it a go. "Sure Sasuke, when we return from this mission I could lend you some of the books. I could also teach you some seals while we are on this mission if you want!"

"Nah, I'm good."

"Ok then."

Watching the conversation, Kakashi was also curious. Naruto had gotten Sasuke to talk more in one conversation, then Sasuke had talked ever before. He inwardly chuckled, Naruto, you certainly do work miracles.

The group continued on their way for several more minutes until both Naruto and Kakashi noticed a puddle of water on the ground, yet it hadn't rained for several days. This is peculiar, I wonder how they'll deal with this. Kakashi thought. Ninjas. Naruto thought.

"Alright, you can come out now, we know you're there." Naruto loudly exclaimed. Suddenly, from the water, two shinobi wearing masks jumped out each holding a side of a ball-like weapon that connected to a razor blade chain. Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto jumped into a fighting stance, but Kakashi was too slow. The two shinobi surrounded him with the chain and started to pull in the opposite direction, ripping him to shreds.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura screamed.

Sasuke was also panicked, he thought that a jonin shouldn't go down as easily as that, but then again, he did fall for that eraser trick of Naruto's back at the academy. He looked all over for defenses, but his eyes rested on Naruto who was smirking.

Due to his wood style, Naruto could sense that Kakashi had switched with a log and that had actually gotten ripped to shreds, instead of himself. He knew that Kakashi was probably sitting in a tree nearby trying to test them and also assess the situation.

"Hahaha, your sensei was weak fools! You will die next!"

Naruto laughed, "Please, you won't even touch us." He raised his hands to the sky, and from the ground sprouted many tree branches. He directed the branches towards the two ninja and they were quickly apprehended by Naruto's branches, pinning their arms to their sides. "You're too weak, demon brothers. According to the bingo book, you're only B rank chunins, do you think you could beat us?"

"Wood style, but how! Only the first Hokage could use that!" The brothers said, astonished.

"Oh, that's quite simple really, Hashirama was actually my grandfather. Pretty cool eh!" Naruto was happily bobbing. "But anyways, now that you have been defeated, how about you stay here until later." Wood rose from the ground and pulled the demon brothers towards a tree that they were quickly pinned to. "Alrighty, Kakashi-sensei! Could you come out now?"

Sakura stared at Naruto in shock. Not only had he used an ancient bloodline used by the first Hokage, but now he was yelling for their dead sensei? Ha, Sakura had seen enough, but she wasn't stupid enough to see someone come back from the grave. "Naruto, can't you see that Kakashi-sensei is dead? I thought clearly that even you aren't stupid enough to say things like that, but I guess I was way wrong. Sasuke-kun would never fall for things like that." She added to the last part with a dreamy look in her eyes.

Naruto barely resisted the urge to strangle Sakura, but to his luck, Kakashi came out of the woods at the right time, but… still reading his book. Sakura's eyes widened as Kakashi came and walked over to the bridge builder with a tired look, putting his book away in the process.

"Sensei, h-how the fu–?" Naruto silenced the screeching Sakura with a quick blow to her neck, making her pass out.

And he saves the day again. Sasuke once again silently thanked Naruto.

"Tazuna, it is clear that they were after you, and not us. Mind telling us why this is?" Kakashi spoke. "This is supposed to be a mission dealing with bandits, not shinobi. Tell us the truth, the entire truth."

Tazuna sighed, "A man named Gato has been making sure the Land of Wave has been in dire straits. He has terrorized our people, killed many of our own citizens, destroyed our trade roots, destroyed our morale, and gotten rid of our want to live. This bridge will bring prosperity to the wave county, so that one day we might be able to regather our strength. It has to be built. But, because of Gato, we could only afford this mission to be called a C rank. Please help our village!"

Kakashi spoke to his team, "We could go back to the village, this is most likely a B or A rank mission if there are ninja involved."

Naruto immediately responded, "No way, Kakashi-sensei, this is our first C rank, and I especially don't want to have to go back to D ranked missions." He then shuddered. "I really don't want to go back to Tora."

Sasuke nodded in agreement, but he wanted to prove himself. Sakura, who had woken up a minute before, was not very keen to try a mission as hard as this one. However, seeing her two teammates both want to keep on going with the mission, she also nodded in agreement.

"Alright then Tazuna, I guess you got lucky because this team of mine wanted to keep going on this mission. We'll help you and your town."

Tazuna replied looking very relieved, "Thank you so much, ninja."

The five people kept on walking to the Land of Wave, with spirits high and a village ready to protect.

– – –

Zabuza watched through his magic ball jutsu (A.N. Sort of like the one the hokage had to watch Naruto take down Mizuki) to see the demon brothers defeated and the conversation between the ninja. This will need a little bit of extra firepower, Zabuza thought. He grabbed the handle of his very large sword and threw it over his shoulder, onto his back. "Haku, get ready to move!"

Just then, Gato, a shorter man with glasses and an attitude that made one want to beat the tar out of him, came into the room. (A.N. Maybe I have something a little against Gato) "I thought the demon brothers would be enough to stop them." He sneered. "You better get the mission done, or I'll kill you myself." He said while walking toward Zabuza.

Zabuza wanted to kill the man, but resisted the urge as he was instrumental for his and Haku's plan. "Understood, Gato." He forced himself to say.

– – –

Naruto and his team with Tazuna arrived at wave a few days later without any further problems. When they first arrived at Tazuna's house, they were greeted by a young looking woman, and a smaller kid.

"Father!" The woman called, running towards Tazuna.

"Grandpa!" The younger child yelled, following his mother.

Both the running people embraced Tazuna while he chuckled. "These are the ninjas that I hired to protect us. This is Kakashi, the jonin of the team," He said gesturing to him, "Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura are the genin on the team." Once again gesturing to each of them as he said their name. "This is my daughter, Tsunami, and my grandson, Inari." Tapping each of them as he introduced them to the team. The calm moment did unfortunately not last however, because Inari spoke up.

"Why do you all try?" Inari shouted, turning to the shinobi, his eyes glistening with tears, "All of you will eventually die, Gato is too strong, and if you try to stand up to him, he will just make a fool of you. You all will do nothing for this village, so you should just go home and escape while you can." He then ran out of the room crying, breathing hard.

Naruto turned and stared at the retreating figure of Inari. "What's up his ass?"

"Naruto!" Sakura hit Naruto on the head and quickly apologized for his behavior.

"What the hell was that for Sakura? It was a good question!" Naruto angrily blabbered.

"Indeed, I'm sure we would all like to know the background story behind this." Kakashi said to Tazuna and Tsunami.

Tsunami began to talk, "Well you see, Inari had a man very close to him, like his father. They were almost inseparable, but then Gato came. This man actually had a backbone, instead of acting like the rest of the village and bowing down to Gato, Inari's father stood up to him and refused to be subordinate. He was beaten and eventually killed, and used as an example, and with his death, the only sense of bravery our land still had in it, left with him. Inari is still sore on the subject, as we all are in this village."

"That is why the bridge building is so important." Tazuna added.

Team 7 nodded in understanding. "Well team," Kakashi finally spoke, "Get some rest, and tomorrow we will get to some training." And with that, he walked off. The rest of the team glanced at each other until Tsunami spoke.

"Come on, I'll show you to your rooms." Tsunami walked off with Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura in tow. She showed each one a room they could stay in, to which they all accepted and spent the rest of the day preparing for the next day.

Kakashi was outside meditating, he didn't know when the ninja would strike next, but he knew that if they did, they would have to before the bridge was built. They must be gathering higher levels of ninja if the demon brothers didn't work. I hope I can train my team enough to prepare for what they bring next.

– – –

The next morning, team 7 was with Kakashi in the forest, not without him being late of course. "Alright, I want the three of you to climb up these trees. He pointed to three quite large trees behind him.

"What's so hard about that?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah," Sakura agreed, "this seems pretty easy."

"No, without your hands." Kakashi stated.

"What?" Naruto asked, "Is that even possible?"

"Sure it is, just find a balance of chakra in your feet and climb." He said while walking vertically up the tree much to all of the genin's bewilderment.

"Ok I guess." Naruto was the first of the genin to try and take action. He started to run up the tree, and… not even three steps in, he fell to the ground. "Dammit, this is harder than I thought it would be. Alright, I'll give it another go." He once again tried to run up the tree, and made no more progress than he previously had. Sasuke was having the same problem as Naruto, making it a few steps higher than him, but still falling after a certain height. Sakura, however, was not having these issues.

"Hey guys!" She said waving to them at the top of the tree. The other two genin were shocked, while Kakashi was a little surprised as well. Sakura had really never shown any talent for anything. She was a Sasuke fangirl, and just froze when the demon brothers attacked. She ran back down to Sasuke and started to whisper to him. "Hey Sasuke, the secret is–."

"Sakura, please, let me try on my own for a little, and at least let Naruto hear as well if you're going to tell."

She was saddened, but quieted down. Tell Naruto? Why would I?

Naruto and Sasuke tried tirelessly till nightfall walking, running, and even trying to jump up the tree. Both Kakashi and Sakura had left by then. They had made progress, much but not enough. They had barely made it over 20 feet, with Naruto making up to 21 feet, and Sasuke 25. Naruto gave it one more go, and made it up to the same height as Sasuke had, making them even.

"Man, we have gotta go back to the house soon," Naruto panted.

"Yeah, but not before I reach the top of the tree." Sasuke returned with a grin.

"You're on!" Naruto replied.

The two genin repeatedly tried to run up the tree for the rest of the night until they both eventually fell asleep, both physically and mentally exhausted.

– – –

Sasuke woke up to find Naruto already back walking up the tree once again. Sasuke got up, cleaned off his clothes, and prepared to start climbing as well, until a voice came from the general direction of where the village was.

"Good morning Sasuke-kun!" Sakura came bounding out towards Sasuke with a basket. "I have some fruits here. If you would like some, you should take some too, Naruto. Naruto got down from the tree and walked over to where Sasuke and Sakura were standing.

"Good morning Sakura, Naruto." Sasuke said with a nod to the both of them. The genin talked for a little while, eating their breakfast that Sakura had brought. Finally, Sasuke got up and ran over to the tree to begin walking once again. Naruto took this chance to ask Sakura a question.

"Say, Sakura, how are you climbing up the tree so easily? What is your secret?" He asked.

Sakura was surprised with the question, Naruto had always been very rash and was the type of guy to do and not think, but over the last few weeks he had changed a lot. Sakura nonetheless answered Naruto's inquiries. "Well, all you have to do is channel chakra to your feet, and once you put one foot on the tree, you try and feel a balance of chakra. Make sure you keep that balance as you climb up the tree."

"Thanks, Sakura!" Naruto said with a smile. He ran over to the tree and the first time after hearing Sakura's advice, he made it halfway up the tree. Over the next few tries, Naruto got the same success as the previous time. Sasuke was now falling behind Naruto in his success going up the tree, so after a little while he decided it was time for him to swallow his pride.

"Naruto," Sasuke walked over to Naruto, "what did Sakura tell you was the secret to climbing up the tree?" Naruto was expecting Sasuke to eventually ask, so he told Sasuke and they both started making tons of progress. They continued practicing until they were called by Sakura to go back to the house to eat dinner, at which point they followed her.

Everyone sat at the table for their dinner where Naruto and Sasuke both rapidly ate… and threw up their food. The rest of the people at the table were disgusted with the boy's antics but didn't comment on the issue.

"Alright, we're gone!" The boys yelled, and then they were off towards the trees again. They raced each other towards the trees and continued to run up the trees.

"I will beat you dobe!" Sasuke yelled at Naruto.

"Not if I do it first teme!" Naruto yelled back.

They tried for the rest of the night, until they both, wth the knowledge they had gotten from Sakura, made it up the tree. They returned back to the house with Sasuke helping Naruto walk, and with them both having a look of triumph on their faces. "We made it." They said as they walked through the front doors of the house. They both went to bed that night at peace with themselves.

– – –

The bridge building went on like it had the previous days, with the only difference being that instead of running up the tree, Sasuke and Naruto were also involved in building it. Progress was going faster than ever before because Naruto was using hundreds of shadow clones to help with the building process. Kakashi was impressed that Naruto had thought of using shadow clones that way, but given that he also used them for studying, he knew he shouldn't be that surprised.

In the meantime, the real Naruto was sitting down studying his fuinjutsu book. He had recently been trying to work on the explosive tag. He had gotten it to explode, but he still had to learn to make it to a point where he could use a seal to activate them. It was a long and difficult process, but Naruto found comfort in learning to make seals.

He took his paper, quill and ink and wrote the kanji for the explosive tag. He once again tried to activate the seal with a tiger hand seal, but it didn't go off. At this point, Naruto was getting frustrated, he continued to try and activate the tag but it just didn't work. Kakashi, seeing Naruto's look of mild anger, came over to Naruto.

"Having trouble with a seal, Naruto?"

Naruto looked at him with a dumb look, "Yeah Kakashi-sensei."

"I can't help you with the seal directly, but there is a seal master in Konoha, Jiraiya of the sannin. Perhaps one day when we are back you could find him. I'll bet the Hokage could help with that, after all the Hokage did teach him."

"Really? That sounds amazing." Naruto definitely thought that he would have to go meet Jiraiya when they returned from the mission. For now however, he was stuck with the difficulties of an explosive tag.

How do you all like the story so far? I would appreciate your input on what you think I should work on storytelling wise, so please leave a comment on that. Also sorry for taking so long, I've been busy. The next chapter will be Land of Waves Arc Part II, so stay tuned! (This one should take much less time, maybe just a week instead of two.)