Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
Day 341
Fugaku was already at the training ground when we arrived.
"Good morning, Sensei," Kenji greeted him, and Kaori and I followed suit.
We received a nod of acknowledgment from him.
Soon, he started with our evaluations, and it felt like I was back in the academy with our weekly evaluations.
There were no major changes. We were still at the beginning of learning our respective jutsus.
Still, Fugaku noted down every little detail in his notebook.
By the time we were done, it was already afternoon, and we all took a lunch break.
Each of us had brought our own lunch, even Fugaku.
The atmosphere was a bit awkward at the start, as it was his first time eating lunch with us.
But after Kenji started telling one of his stories, it got better, and I thought I saw even Fugaku a bit relieved.
I think we were a team full of introverts, with only Kenji being the exception, and I believe he had realized this.
Once we were done with lunch, Fugaku called for a team meeting and made us sit, as he stood in front of us.
"Team, I am satisfied with your work. If each of you continues to be diligent like this, soon its effect will start showing. Always remember, preparation here might save your life out there," he said seriously.
"Now, along with individual training, we must also improve our teamwork."
"Teamwork is ultimately a way to multiply our individual strengths or cover individual weaknesses."
"Teamwork improves as we start to understand each other better, train together, and gain experience together."
"So, as a teamwork exercise for our team, we will do survival training in the forest. Every other week, you will spend some time in the forest with only basic supplies to help you, and I will give you an objective that you need to finish to come out of the forest. Any questions?" He ended his explanation, and even Kenji was too shocked to ask questions immediately.
So Fugaku continued.
"Today, I will teach you how to set up a tent, what places to look for if you don't have a tent, how to get drinkable water if no one in your team has a water affinity, and similarly how to make fire if there is no fire user. How to take care of your waste and other important things."
"Let's start."
And so that's what we did. He was greatly disappointed when he found out we didn't carry a notebook around with us, and after a stern lecture on being prepared, he gave each one of us a notebook and a pen.
Was he simply carrying extra stationery with him?
Well... that was being prepared, I guess.
Our training continued. He brought out three tents and other tools, and I saw a storage scroll for the first time.
I attentively looked at the writing in the scroll as he opened it, and I... was left confused.
I couldn't recognize any of the writing in the scroll.
I had always liked fanfictions with MC learning Fuinjutsu and getting all powerful.
Doing that might be difficult here, but I determined to ask Fugaku about Fuinjutsu at an appropriate time.
"Satoru, pay attention," Fugaku suddenly called out.
"Yes, Sensei!" I went back to paying attention to what he was trying to teach.
Afterwards, he made us set up a tent by ourselves, which we all did successfully.
Our day ended with Fugaku asking questions related to the things he taught today.
We were able to answer most questions correctly. The notebooks came in very handy, and I resolved to indeed carry one wherever I go.
Once Fugaku was satisfied, our training finally came to an end.
"Good work, team. Continue working as per your scrolls and revise what you learned today. I will meet you all next Friday, and after our evaluation, we will do our first survival training. I will provide the necessary equipment. Make sure to inform your parents, as we will be staying for two or more days."
On our way back, we talked about our upcoming survival training. Once the shock of it wore off, we were all pretty excited about it.
I wished for next Friday to come soon.
Day 348
Like the previous week, Fugaku was already present when we arrived at the training ground.
We went through our evaluation with some minor progress.
After almost two weeks of training, I realized just how difficult nature transformation really was.
And I was supposed to have a great affinity with fire.
Perhaps my earlier success with the Blue Fire Jutsu made me have unreal expectations.
I also remember Kakashi explaining to Naruto just how difficult it is supposed to be and how his shadow clone use was a complete cheat, cutting down months or even years of practice time.
It shouldn't take me years, right? I wanted to learn new jutsu.
Fugaku, in his infinite wisdom, had not mentioned any time frame in the scroll for nature transformation.
When I asked him, he said not to worry about it, as the usual timeframe would not work with me due to my higher affinity with fire. Instead, if I started to base my progress on that, I might slow down.
I am starting to doubt if I had any such higher affinity and it was all a cover-up by the Repository Department because they couldn't replicate the Blue Fireball Jutsu.
Really, incompetence in government bureaucracy might be universal or multi-universal.
"Satoru, pay attention," Fugaku interrupted my spiraling thoughts.
"Good work, team. Although minor, improvements are starting to show up," Fugaku complimented us.
"Now, I hope you are all ready for the survival training and informed your respective guardians."
I saw both Kenji and Kaori nod.
"Then let's be off. Follow me," Fugaku said as he started running towards the forest that surrounded our training ground.
We followed after him as instructed. We continued to run deeper and deeper into the forest.
The only forest I remember from the anime was the Death Forest, where the second phase of the Chunin exams was conducted.
Surely that was a special forest, and no giant bugs were in a normal forest.
I was getting more anxious as we continued running.
I looked around to see Kaori and Kenji running with stoic faces. All signs of excitement were completely wiped off their faces.
They might be simply tired, my mind supplied.
We had now been running for a solid three hours.
Did Fugaku finally snap and was just leading us deeper into the forest to kill us?
My anime knowledge told me all Uchiha were a bit crazy. No Uchiha in the anime was really sane.
Was this the butterfly effect of my presence? Making Fugaku Uchiha snap?
"Let's stop here," Fugaku called out, snapping me out of my insane thoughts.
We were near... a tree.
To my eyes, there was no difference between here and all the forest we had been traveling through.
"We will be making camp here. Satoru, set up the tents. Kaoru, make the fire, and Kenji, gather water. Meanwhile, I will go hunt for food," Fugaku instructed swiftly.
And we all immediately started with our tasks.
By the time I had set up all the tents, both Kaori and Kenji were already back, helping Fugaku with the food.
He had caught a boar and was explaining to them as he cut it open and prepared it.
I joined them too, and soon after, we were sitting around the fire with a pot boiling in the middle.
My stomach was grumbling with hunger. We had skipped lunch, and it was starting to get dark.
"Sensei, how much longer will it take?" Kenji asked the question I desperately wanted to ask.
Instead of answering, Fugaku opened the lid and skewered the meat with a senbon.
It was not up to his satisfaction as he frowned afterward and replied.
"At least half an hour more."
We all sighed at that.
Later that night, we all sat around the fire having finally eaten dinner.
"Sensei, do you have any scary stories to tell?" Kaori suddenly asked Fugaku.
"Yes!" Kenji exclaimed.
"Sensei, please tell us a scary story," Kenji added excitedly.
"Why?" Fugaku asked, brows furrowed. He looked confused but I noted he didn't say no.
"Well... usually during camping, when people gather around the fire at night, they tell each other scary stories for fun," Kenji explained, and I saw Kaori nod.
I remained silent and secretly hoped that Fugaku would decline. I was not good with scary stuff.
Fugaku thought for a while, but to my disappointment, finally nodded.
"I am not sure if you could call this scary, but it was... shocking."
Both Kenji and Kaori nodded at that, and even I got a little curious.
"There was this case I came across a few years ago when I was still a Chunin, and I was assigned to a Senpai in KMPF to follow and learn from him," Fugaku began.
"It was a rainy night, and it was already past ten. I was alone in the office finishing up some paperwork when suddenly the door opened and a man in a raincoat entered."
"Classic rainy night, nice," Kaori interrupted Fugaku with her excited comment.
It looked like she really liked scary stories.
Fugaku's glare calmed her down, and then he continued.
"The man entered and exclaimed, 'Oh! Good, Fugaku, you are still here.'
It was my Senpai, but I was not able to recognize him because his face was shadowed by the raincoat.
"I need you to file a missing person report, prepare the documents, and leave out details; I will fill them in later. Here, take this photo of the missing person and put it alongside the documents in a file."
He handed me an envelope and left before I could ask anything.
"Does KMPF take cases like that?" This time, Kenji interrupted Fugaku with his question.
"It's not standard. Generally, you need to come to the station and report your complaint, but sometimes we do go to individual homes to get case details. We did this for the elderly," Fugaku answered and then continued with the story.
"So, I followed Senpai's instructions and, before I left, I put the file on his desk.
The next day, Senpai didn't come to work. In the afternoon, one of his friends and my senior at work asked about Senpai, and I told him about last night's events.
He left, and the day ended without Senpai coming to the office.
The next day, again, Senpai did not come. Again, a few seniors came asking about him, and I repeated the story.
I was not sure what was happening. Senpai had never taken a leave in all the time I had worked under him, and suddenly two days of leave? Without informing anyone?
I was getting worried and resolved to go to his house after my shift.
So after my shift, I went to his house. He was single and didn't have parents, and thus lived alone.
His door was locked, and when I asked his neighbors, they said they hadn't seen him in a while. But before I left, I saw a piece of paper sticking out of Senpai's door.
I took it, and what I saw made me more worried.
In capital letters, the word 'FIND W' was written, and the rest of the paper was torn. It was Senpai's handwriting." Fugaku paused here.
"Any guess what 'W' in 'FIND W' might mean? The clue is already there, and it's not a name," Fugaku asked us.
I thought about it but came up blank. I could swear Fugaku was smiling.
When no one could come up with the right answer, Fugaku continued the story.
"Now I had made up my mind, I was going to talk with the Captain of our station.
The next day, again, Senpai was absent when I came to the office, and I immediately went to the Captain's office and told him everything.
The Captain closely looked at the paper with 'FIND W' written on it.
'You told me he gave you some envelope that night? Bring it here, bring the whole file,' the Captain instructed.
I ran back to the office and picked up the file. As I ran back to the Captain's office, more people had gathered.
I handed over the file to the Captain.
He quickly opened the envelope, and the photo inside shocked all of us.
It was supposed to be a photo of a missing person, but it was Senpai's photo." Fugaku stopped there and looked at us.
"Shocking, right?" he said, now openly smiling.
"Sensei, what happened next? Who kidnapped your Senpai? Is he... alive?" Kenji started asking loudly but then slowed down towards the end.
"I will tell you tomorrow," Fugaku replied.
After some grumbling from Kenji and surprisingly Kaori, we all decided to sleep. I was also a little disappointed as I had gotten engaged in his story. But anyways, we will find out tomorrow.
Fugaku assigned each of us for night watch.
With me being first and him being the last. We had four people, so each of us was assigned two hours of night watch.
Soon everyone went to sleep, and I sat near the fire thinking about today.
I was not expecting this... camping-like environment. I was expecting days like Team 7 experienced in the Forest of Death.
Maybe Fugaku decided to take it easy the first time around?
I had no complaints.
I spent my night watch playing with the campfire, trying to control it.
Soon time passed, and Kaori took over from me, and I went to sleep.
Day 342
"Guys! Come out, Satoru! Kenji!"
I woke up at the sound of Kaori shouting.
I got out of my tent, and immediately Kaori was in front of me.
"Satoru-kun, Sensei is gone," she said.
"What?"
She handed me a note.
"I woke up just now and found this pinned to the tree where Sensei's tent was."
I unfolded the note.
"Team, your mission is to get out of the forest in twenty-four hours," it read.
I looked at Kaori and asked, "Do you know which direction to go?" She shook her head.
"When we came into the forest, we made so many turns, I lost track of direction," she said, frustrated.
Kenji walked out, and I handed him the note. He read it and asked, "Umm... do you know which direct..."
Before he could finish, I shouted out, "Fuck."
A/N: Please comment/review, would love to hear from readers.
Also please visit pat^re^on / johnblack6826 for next three advanced chapters.