When Naruto infused his chakra in the chakra paper, it sliced into 4, diagonally cut pieces, one was crumpled up in a manner that implied it was electrocuted, another was set ablaze, another became extremely damp, and the final one crumpled up, split itself into another four smaller pieces, was burned, then right before the paper turned completely into ash, it was doused in water again. Kakashi took in the information calmly, but inwardly he was in awe of the spectacle before his eyes. Kakashi hypothesized that Naruto got his natures from his mother and father, considering Kushina had both the wind and water natures, Minato had wind, fire, and lightning release, but even then, four elemental natures in a mere genin was unprecedented and extremely important. If the council found out about his chakra natures… even worse, if Danzo found out about his chakra natures, he didn't know if he could protect the boy. He also didn't even want to think about what they'd do with that information. It was… unsettling to the seasoned jonin and former anbu captain. Next up was Sakura, and when she infused her chakra into the charka paper, one half crumpled into dust and the other became damp. This time, Kakashi was impressed and was starting to worry that all three of his genin were prodigies, much like his younger self. He understood that being a prodigy lead to a person's downfall if they weren't properly mentored, leading to their downfall. The man sighed and waited for Sasuke's turn. Naruto and Sakura were complimenting each other on their natures, hyping each other up as they waited for their final team member to reveal his chakra natures. The paper immediately crumpled up, similarly to how Naruto's previously did, then was set ablaze in a bright inferno, implying Sasuke had an extremely strong connection to fire. It wasn't surprising to Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi, but Naruto congratulated his long time friend and rival nonetheless. After they learned their natures, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura were given three C-rank ninjustu to learn each in their own personal scrolls. Naruto's scroll had the wind style: gale palm technique, the water style: wild water wave technique, and the lightning style: lighting ball technique. Sakura was given the water style: water bullet technique, the water style: water prison technique, and the earth style: terra shield technique, which was a weaker version of the earth style: mud wall technique. Sasuke was given the fire style:flame fist (formerly called fire attack) jutsu, the fire style: phoenix sage flower technique (which Sasuke was already familiar with), and the lightning style : rat tremor jutsu. Their assignment was to learn a bare minimum of one of these jutsus and prove to Kakashi they could adequately use the jutsu by way of sparring against each other in one on one bouts after they learned them. The genin had three weeks to complete this task, but until then, they could take no more missions. The genin were dismissed, and unlike in the first week when they were assigned teammates, they all walked together.
"I'm beat. What do you think he wants us to learn these jutsu for?" Naruto asked his teammates, with his hands behind his head and his arms raised.
"I'm pretty sure it's because he, much like ourselves, wants to do more exciting missions. But he gave us scrolls and took us off of duty to get that point across," Sakura answered.
In response to her answer, Naruto shrugged and right before he spoke again, his stomach gurgled thunderously.
"I'm guessing you're hungry too, huh dobe," Sasuke taunted.
"You're the one that eats like a little girl; when no one is looking, teme," Naruto snapped back.
Admist their banter, Sakura began to giggle, which caught the pair's attention.
"She never laughs," Sasuke whispered.
"You're right… is this the Sakura we know?" Naruto trembled.
"I'm not impressed, you two," she sighed, huffing satrically.
"Wait, but seriously, what are we eating?" Naruto queried.
"I'd eat anything," Sasuke offered.
"I could go for some yakiniku," Sakura input.
Naruto inwardly deflated, because if anyone didn't have an idea of where to go he was going to teach them the wonders of Ichiraku's ramen. As they approached the BBQ restaurant, they felt an increasingly powerful and familiar wave of klling intent coming from the Nara compound.
"Is that…. Shika?" Naruto storted.
"Yeah, I think it is, but the question is…" Sasuke replied
"What could make him of all people this angry?" Naruto interrupted. Sasuke, for his part, only rolled his eyes in annoyance but nonetheless, the trio continued walking forward.
"I quit," Shikamaru exhaled.
"You what? I didn't hear you," Lu snarkily retorted.
"I said-"
"I don't hear you," The darker-skinned boy chirped.
"I SAID," Shikamaru loudly retaliated, "I FUCKING," he paused for a second, as if he was building more strength to yell louder than he previously was," QUIT. Damn it," he sighed. It was just ridiculous, utterly insane. There was no person ever that could match him in a game of shogi even further less beat him. Lu truly was an endlessly adapting monster. It took the silver-haired boy a mere three games, which all spanned the course of thirty minutes to an hour, to beat Shikamaru in a shogi match. Upon being asked to rematch, the pony-tailed genius obliged; just to lose two more matches in a row.
"It's not that serious, Shika," Lu shrugged, patting his long-time friend on the back.
"It's not about me losing, it's about how long it took me to lose. Most geniuses can beat me in a game of shogi after maybe twenty or so matches, if they get lucky, but you're more than a genius, you're like a wildcard, you're unpredictable," Shikamaru defeatedly complained.
"Well, if you're not up for another game, I will take my leave, thanks for your hospitality," Lu bowed to Shikaku, leaving politely but very quickly as if he was trying to escape something.
'I wonder if he knew I was going to ask him to play a game, too,' Shikaku contemplated. His son, for one, could tell the man was going to ask his companion to play shogi, just based off of the slight smirk on the man's face.
"You've got that look again, old man," Shikamaru announced.
Just then, Shikaku realized he'd been caught.
"I don't think I would've won those games if Shikamaru was thinking completely logically, as he usually does. I might've thrown him off his game a bit by making him work so hard in the initial two games," Lu theorized aloud to no one in particular.
As he walked, his stomach lightly grumbled, and considering he was a few turns away from the BBQ shop sandwiched between the Nara and Akimichi clans' districts, he settled on going there to get a to-go meal.
"I still find it funny that someone could piss off Shika this late in the day," Naruto giggled.
"I can attest to that," Lu input, taking a seat with the trio who'd just sat down a few minutes prior to his arrival and were still waiting on a waiter or waitress.
"I have a suspicion you're the cause," Sakura pointed a finger at Lu, squinting to add comedic effect to her gesture.
"You'd be correct, but he could tell you all about it later, I'm beat. What about you three?" Lu buzzed.
"We were given an assignment by our instructor to learn one of three given elemental ninjutsu," Sasuke replied.
"Yeah, and we're barred from missions until it's completed," Sakura sighed.
Lu took this information with a grain of salt and conjured up a chakra bubble.
"Why do you need that in here?" Naruto asked his friend.
"I don't, I just wanted to practice my control of the jutsu because I have a few new ideas of how to use it. We should spar sometime, I don't remember the last time I trained with you two and I haven't sparred Sakura once since we left the academy," Lu offered.
"Sure, maybe it'll speed up the process of completing this asinine assignment," Sasuke yawned.
After the waitress came by and took their orders, they conversed lightly about the events that transpired since they became genin. Lu, for one, was amazed with the character development Sakura had. It was as if she'd blossomed into a completely different character. She was still nerdy, he could give her that, but she also stopped crushing over Sasuke as intensely as she did a few weeks ago. It was almost as if a switch was flipped in her head and she suddenly took being a shinobi seriously.
"You know it's rude to stare at a lady like that, right?" Sakura teased her former classmate.
Lu realized that, when he started to analyze her shift in personality, he blanked and was looking at her the entire time.
"My bad, I was looking at your shiny forehead the entire time, it had me stunned because the gleam reflecting off of it was so strong," he quipped back.
Sakura shrugged and went back to waiting for her food. After twenty minutes of the group waiting to get their food, the waitress came back three times, each with a different set of food for the genin. They thanked her, tipped her with some extra ryo, and began to eat.
"There's no way you're eating that much," Naruto jived, pointing at 5 medium slices of grilled steak on Sakura's plate.
"Seriously? Were you never taught, you know, not to talk about a woman's food?" Sasuke curiously judged.
"It's fine," Sakura shrugged, before eating at a speed that shouldn't have been possible for someone of her stature. Sasuke and Lu were in awe, but Naruto saw this as a challenge and that's what led to them starting an eating competition. By the time they were done, all of the money team seven kept in reserve from their 30 or so D-rank missions was reduced to a third of the ryo they'd accumulated. Sasuke sighed painfully as he planned to use that money to buy training equipment and split the money between the three of them, a third of the ryo going to each person. With this amount of ryo, he couldn't even buy a high quality tanto if he was interested in kenjutsu at any point in his genin career.
"That… sucks," Lu grinned, patting his friend on the back before paying, leaving 20,000 ryo on the table and wandering off into the distance of the BBQ restaurant.
Sasuke's eyes widened to a point you would've thought the boy just found a jackpot lying around. With this ryo, he could split the funds the way he'd intended and have an extra 500 ryo for himself. When they eventually left the BBQ place, Sasuke explained his idea and gave his teammates 6,500 ryo each and then told them to use it solely for training gear or anything they saw as useful for the shinobi field and they split their ways.
On his way home, Naruto was deep in thought, wondering what to use his money on and then he had a great idea. The blonde conjured seven shadow clones and instructed them to go to the library and get a couple of fuinjutsu scrolls, taijutsu scrolls, and kenjutsu scrolls. He created another clone and gave him a shopping list from a nearby weapon store consisting of: a tanto, some ink, empty scrolls, and told him to use any remaining expenses for food and water. After all of those instructions, he went to a familiar clearing to train in and waited for them to return. To Naruto's surprise, he saw Lu sitting by the stream, pulling water out of the stream and manipulating them into bubbles.
"Hey, L-" the blonde started. He never finished his greeting because he was immediately interrupted by seven clones with all of the supplies he asked for from the library. He then asked them to assist his other clone and shooed them away. Lu stood up and waved at his friend and went back to silently focusing on his water manipulation.
"How do we just keep finding each other at night, this is starting to creep me out," Sasuke grimaced when he arrived in the clearing with his three scrolls from Kakashi's assignment.