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It was a good day for the brown bear. When he woke up, he went to the stream to quench his thirst, where he also managed to catch a few big fish to feed himself a little. Afterwards, he caught a couple of rabbits, and a snake, which he also filled his belly with pleasure. After that, the well-fed and satisfied bear returned to the cave for a sweet nap.
Unfortunately, his beauty sleep was interrupted by a strong and sharp hissing sound, followed by the pungent and familiar smell of herbs, which he hated with every fibre of his soul.
When he opened his eyes, the bear jumped to his feet and looked around restlessly, noticing the many sources of the strong flames. Confused for a second, the bear immediately smelled a new, even stronger and more toxic odour, which quickly brought him to his senses and forced him to make a decision to leave his cave. As soon as he stepped out, he immediately spotted two identical men with yellow hair and a white jacket with reddish edges.
Seeing one of them laughing at him and the other mockingly slapping himself on the arse, Bear realised that these were the perpetrators of the incident. Therefore, roaring furiously, Bear lunged at the pair of annoying twins.
(Something similar, but without the snow, and Naruto in different clothes.)
As the beast approached them, the twins immediately jumped aside, making him wonder for a second which one of them he should chase. This hesitation was a big mistake, as suddenly, right in front of him, a large fireball flew out of the thicket of the forest and struck him right in his big muzzle, scorching his fur and burning his nose, mouth, and eyelids.
Luckily for the bear, his thick hide, and rather resistant fur absorbed most of the impact, so the damage wasn't serious. But the main problem came later, as the bear finally realised that it had been glued under its mouth all this time with a strange paper wrapper with unknown contents, which immediately caught fire after the fireball hit it.
As soon as he smelled an even stronger and more pungent odour, the bear immediately realised what the contents of the piece of paper were. The bear immediately shook nervously, trying to get rid of the stinking bundle.
Suddenly, the bear caught sight of more people. It was three identical pink-haired girls, and three more of those same blondes. All six of them were holding more stinky wrappers in their hands, tossing them up and down, glaring at the bear. The bear was horrified at this sight, and he pushed all his irritation and anger aside and decided to get out of here as soon as possible, as he couldn't stand any more of this stinking and toxic herbal stuff.
He was already having a hard time breathing, so if those vermin had lit more of those herbs, he would have passed out, completely defenceless to those damned raiders.
Thus, the bear ran away from his cave at full speed, heading to the farthest part of the forest that had a river so that he could try to wash off the smell.
While he was running, the bear didn't notice that all the "twins" had disappeared, leaving only a couple of people from a girl and a guy, the latter of whom was laughing happily after the running beast.
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"That was perfect, ha-ha-ha," Naruto grinned contentedly, "I think pranking the bear will be the most impressive achievement in my record, dattebayo!"
Making sure the beast had escaped, Sakura let out a sigh of relief as Naruto's plan had worked exactly as planned. This couldn't have been more gratifying, as the bear was indeed incredibly large and strong. Even Sasuke's fire jutsu, incredible in her opinion, had not done any significant damage to the bear. She was sure that their academic training kunai, would have left nothing but simple scratches on its hide. It would definitely only cause more irritation to the beast.
Turning her gaze to the blond man, who had finally stopped laughing and regained his calm and carefree expression, Sakura couldn't help but feel that perhaps, despite all his past foolishness and love of pranks, this guy was far more trustworthy than she had originally thought.
When Sasuke, who had been waiting in the bushes for the fire attack all the action, approached them, Naruto said:
"Great job, Sasuke! That fire technique of yours is quite impressive."
Grunting, Sasuke just looked away and answered indifferently:
"Hm, I know that without you, dobe," saying this, the Uchiha's eyebrows furrowed.
In reality, Sasuke was not happy with his performance of this technique. Seeing the bear literally take no harm from his fireball spoke volumes. He was sure that if "he" had performed this technique, the bear would have been at least left without a head.
Gritting his teeth, Sasuke realised that he needed to train more and become even stronger than before so that he could face any opponents without any tricks like stink bombs. His belief that anything not related to training was just standing in his way was strengthened even more.
Hearing a similar response from Sasuke, Naruto just shrugged, and turning his gaze to Sakura, said:
"By the way, Sakura, you have really good chakra control. Your illusions were created with perfect precision. I'm even a little jealous, since I still can't make them so detailed without losing their shape."
A little surprised at his praise, Sakura quickly pulled herself together, and with a slightly proud raise of her head, replied:
"Of course, for the top students in the class, such things are a trifle! Right, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura tried to draw the boy's attention back to her, and draw him into the conversation.
Unfortunately, the scowling guy only tsked, and ignoring the girl, headed inside the cave they had just beaten back. The frustrated girl slumped her shoulders, and sighed dejectedly. Seeing this, Naruto only shook his head, and said:
"Alright, let's quickly prepare the cave to camp minimum, and start searching for our targets," saying this, Naruto also followed into the cave.
Sighing once more, the girl slowly followed the blond man. Inside the cave, they found a suitable rock formation where they could set up in case they needed to sleep for the night, and then, after gathering various leaves, they spread it all out like a mattress.
Just as they finished, Naruto received information from the last clone, who had finally managed to find one of the targets, the location of which was vague.
"Hey. My clone just found the right location. After looking around a bit, he didn't see any traps. There's a small slope underground, inside the roots of one of the trees. I think this is the place we're looking for."
"Hmm. Show me the way." Sasuke said nothing more, looking at the blond man, ready to follow him.
Nodding, Naruto began to lead the team to the location his clone had discovered. It took them only ten minutes to reach the location. The place was rather inconspicuous, so if Naruto's clone hadn't spent all that time looking for it, it would have taken them much longer to find it on their own.
The tree under which the strange passage underground was located appeared to be quite large and old. The passage down itself was in the centre of its root system. Before going down, Naruto created two more clones to send them first in case there were traps. When the clones informed them that all was clear, the group descended into the dugout and found themselves in a small tunnel that wasn't too long and led to a small steel door. As they approached it, they realised that it was locked, and given its dense materials, it was unlikely to be able to be kicked open.
"Looks like we'll have to pick the lock." Saying that, Sakura frowned a little frustrated, "I remember lock picking lessons, but after those lessons, I never took my lock picking sets with me again. I didn't think I'd need them so soon."
"Well, it's a practical training mission, after all," Naruto shrugged.
Glancing at his 'mates,' Sasuke tsked irritably, and said:
"Useless, step aside, I'll handle this myself."
Frowning at his remark, Naruto still stepped aside, along with a frustrated Sakura, who once again failed to show off her skills in front of Sasuke.
The Uchiha himself got down on one knee in front of the lock, and folding a series of seals, released a concentrated stream of small flames directly onto the lock, holding it long enough to melt it completely.
Sasuke stood up from the ground, then gave Naruto a smug smirk and swung his foot at the door, tearing off the remnants of the molten lock and opening the steel door.
Although Naruto didn't quite understand why Sasuke seemed to want to assert himself somehow, he was quite impressed with his solution to the problem. Although, in his opinion, such a method created too much noise. Sakura, on the other hand, was clearly pleased with such an unusual approach from the black-haired guy, and thus said happily:
"Oh, that was incredible, Sasuke-kun!"
But alas, the guy ignored her joyful exclamations as usual, heading forwards through the open door. Seeing this, Sakura began to despair more and more, as his complete ignoring seemed even worse than his usual irritation he showed at times when girls were circling around him.
The blond smiled at Naruto, and with a nod towards the door, he stepped inside the room, his gaze as calm and serene as ever, Sakura thought that it would be nice if she could keep such a carefree mood too. At that moment, the blond smiled at the girl, and with a nod towards the door, he stepped inside the room. Shaking her head, the girl followed the guys.
Inside, the group came across a small lectern containing a scroll of information. Taking it and running his eyes over it, Sasuke again clicked his tongue displeasedly and handed it into the hands of Sakura, who, noticing the same encryption seal, quickly realized what he wanted from her. After using the correct decryption key, the group was finally able to see the contents.
Inside the scroll was information on how to overcome some of the traps at the only open point. There was also a strange seal whose meaning was unknown. Seeing this Naruto realised something, and said:
"Judging by the structure, this is a small piece of a much larger seal. I'm guessing that when we collect all the pieces, we'll be able to assemble the whole thing."
"Hmm... If the other places have the same difficulty finding it, it's going to take us quite a while," saying that, Sasuke looked at the team, "I think we should split up."
"What? But, that's dangerous!" Sakura felt herself disagreeing with Sasuke for the first time.
Looking at the girl with an annoyed look, Sasuke replied:
"If this sort of thing is dangerous to you, and you're afraid to split up, you can go home. Either way, you two are only slowing me down."
Sakura stood staring at Sasuke with her mouth open in surprise, not knowing how to react. At this time, Naruto finally decided to speak his mind:
"You know, Sasuke. Sakura is right. "
The blond man's words brought Sakura out of her shocked state, drawing a sad look from her. Sasuke on the other hand looked extremely displeased to hear Naruto support the pink-haired girl. While they looked at him, Naruto continued:
"We were divided into groups of three for a reason. Although we are ninja academy students with our own aspirations, but right now, first and foremost, we are a team!" Naruto put his hand on the shoulder of a surprised Sakura, "and I'm more than sure that this practical training session was designed to be performed as a team. If we split up and each of us starts doing what we want to do, it won't end well in the end. You should have noticed by now that even at this stage there were things we couldn't have done alone. So obviously it's not going to get any easier from here on out."
Listening to the blond man's words, Sasuke grew increasingly annoyed. And it was because the blond was right. The thought that he couldn't do it without Naruto's help, much less Sakura's, was unbearably disgusting. Still, he wasn't an idiot, and realised that the chances of completing this task would be much better if done as a team.
Taking a deep breath, Sasuke did his best to dispel all his frustration, then said:
"Alright," Sasuke nodded his head, and glanced glumly at the others, "we have to hurry up. I want to finish this assignment as soon as possible, and get back to real training."
After that, the scowling Uchiha silently folded the scroll into his pocket and left the room. Naruto sighed as he followed him, and said quietly:
"Damn, sometimes I think he has a stick stuck up his ass or something. Otherwise, I can't explain his constant dissatisfaction with everything around him."
Hearing Naruto say something like that about her Sasuke, Sakura couldn't hold back a small chuckle:
"Pfft..." the girl chuckled into her fist, surprising herself as she hadn't expected to find a joke like that towards Sasuke funny. It did help her back off a bit from the brunet's words.
Naruto hadn't expected such a thing either, as he had just wanted to change her sad mood, to classic annoyance or anger in his direction. However, the effect came out even better than he had hoped. Smiling, Naruto said:
"Alright, let's get out, and keep looking before Sasuke leaves without us. I have a feeling he got off on the wrong foot today."
Saying so, Naruto headed for the exit, and Sakura followed him. Once outside, they met an annoyed Sasuke, who was waiting for them with a disgruntled look. Seeing this, Naruto only smiled, and said:
"Relax. Even if we don't split up, we can still do something similar." Saying that, Naruto crossed his fingers, and created three clones that immediately nodded and scattered in different directions, "there, now they'll take care of finding the rest of the terrain points while we head towards the next closest target."
Seeing this, Sasuke calmed down a bit and nodded, after which the team headed towards the next closest location according to the first scroll.
The path to the next approximate coordinates wasn't too long, but finding a specific point was extremely difficult. Remembering the previous location, they decided to check all the large trees and their roots first. Unfortunately, they didn't find any underground passages. So they searched all the large rocks, hills and bushes.
For a moment, Naruto stared at the lake, and paused in thought. This caught Sakura and Sasuke's attention. The disgruntled Uchiha tsked, saying:
"Stop chilling dobe! Search first, then rest."
Naruto didn't respond, completely ignoring the Uchiha's words, feeding him his own medicine, which couldn't help but increase the guy's irritation. Sakura, on the other hand, cautiously approached Naruto at this point, and noticing his gaze, also looked towards the lake. Her eyes widened slightly as she began to realise something, and she asked in surprise:
"N-naruto, you don't think that..."
Nodding his head, Naruto looked at the girl, and replied:
"Think about it. We've already searched most of this area, but we haven't found anything," Naruto pointed his finger at the lake, "this lake is the only place we haven't checked yet."
Finally hearing Naruto and Sakura's thoughts, Sasuke frowned again, feeling even worse that the blond and the pink-haired girl had thought of it before him.
As he approached the lake, Sasuke looked around along the shore, then tried to gaze into the water column. But the further away from the shore he looked, and the greater the angle of observation, the more reflective the water was, making it impossible to look into the depths.
Still frowning, the Uchiha turned back to the team, and said:
"There's nothing to see from the shore. We'll have to dive in."
Just hearing that they would have to dive into this muddy and cold water sent shivers down Sakura's spine. She didn't at all like the idea of getting her clothes dirty, and messing up her hair. However, she realised the situation they were in, so she didn't voice her displeasure, not wanting to sink any lower in Sasuke's eyes.
At that moment, Naruto gave a sly grin, and looking at Sasuke, said:
"What, dive? Why? We can just walk on the water!"
"What, how's that?" Sakura, who in the past would most likely have slapped the blond man upside the head for another stupidity, this time, however, seeing the change in him, as well as his current reliability, she flared up with some hope, for if there was a way to avoid diving into the water, she was all for it!
Sasuke squinted at the blond man, trying to figure out what he was talking about. He remembered how, in sparring with Kiba, the blond had somehow managed to lock onto a tree trunk for a moment. It was to be expected that he had something else in store for him besides that.
"Show me," was all Sasuke said, staring intently at Naruto.
"No problem," Naruto smiled in his carefree manner.
Heading towards the shore of the lake, under the surprised looks of his comrades, the blond stepped onto the smooth water as if it were solid ground, and after taking a few steps away from the shore, he turned towards the audience, and spreading his arms slightly, said:
"Ta-da! That's roughly what it looks like."
Looking at Naruto with widened eyes, Sakura couldn't believe that he was actually walking on water. She really couldn't understand how Naruto could have learnt such an advanced skill.
"Is it really Naruto? How could he be so far ahead of the academy's knowledge?" the girl felt a little strange, because up to this point, she had considered herself the most advanced in the class in terms of knowledge, but now, learning more and more about Naruto's skills, she began to realise that in practice, most of her knowledge was not very useful, which is not the case with the blond's skills.
Sasuke, on the other hand, frowned even more, and looking at the blond man, asked:
"How do you do it, dobe?"
Naruto looked at the Uchiha with an odd glance, and replied:
"First of all," Naruto raised his index finger, "stop calling me that. My name is Naruto. Secondly," he raised a second finger, "this skill is a more advanced version of walking on vertical surfaces. It requires delicate chakra control, so you won't learn it right away."
Seeing the disgruntled expression on the boy's face, Naruto chuckled inwardly, but then, after thinking about something, he turned to Sakura, and said:
"By the way, Sakura, your chakra control is pretty high, so I think you can learn it pretty quickly."
From Naruto's words, Sakura was a little happy, but Sasuke became even more displeased. Because of that, he grudgingly bellowed:
"Just tell me what to do, dobe!"
Sighing heavily at his stubbornness, Naruto shrugged and said:
"Well, if you insist..." The blond man rolled his eyes and pointed his finger at the tree, "to make a long story short, in order to stick to the tree, you need to circulate chakra in your legs so that it draws you to the surface," here he pointed to the water, "and in order to walk on water, you need to release chakra from your legs to create enough resistance to steady yourself on the water surface. When you learn to walk on trees, you can start walking on water."
Alas, contrary to the blond's words, Sasuke concentrated chakra in his feet, and immediately tried to step on the water. Apparently, his foot went underwater immediately, causing a slight bubbling from the chakra coming out of it.
Seeing this, Naruto sighed again, and said:
"Alright, you can keep having fun. I'm going to walk around the lake and check it out for a target," saying that, the blond turned around and headed towards the centre of the lake.
Looking after him, Sasuke looked extremely displeased. Sakura looked at Naruto with relief, as she didn't have to get into the water herself. Walking up to Sasuke, the girl asked:
"Hey Sasuke-kun, while Naruto is checking out the lake, why don't we practice walking through the trees? Naruto said it'll be easier with the water afterwards."
Throwing a sharp look at the girl, Sasuke replied:
"I don't need advice from him, much less from you!"
Seeing her dumbfounded look, Sasuke only moved away from the girl, and once again continued trying to get up on the water. Seeing this, Sakura became even more saddened.
"Today Sasuke is acting somewhat colder and more distant than usual. And these constant harsh words of his..." Sakura just wanted to be alone with the guy and do something together, but instead, she gets either ignored or completely rejected. Honestly, it was starting to really dismoralise her.
Throwing another glance at the guy's attempts, she turned away from him, and went to the nearest tree to try and climb it, using the clues Naruto had given them.
At this time, unbeknownst to the group, they were being watched from the outside. It was Anko, who had been watching her young students with deep interest throughout the entire practice session. Watching the newfound team try to interact with each other was extremely fascinating to her. And if you eat dango with it, it's just perfect for a woman.
All this time, she's been trying to gauge how each member of the team interacts with each other, and how eager they are to work as a team. At the moment, her favourite was a certain whiskered blond man with a carefree expression. Not only has he always tried to stay calm, but he's also tried to keep the team together by maintaining a certain degree of support and positivity. Alas, teamwork is difficult when you have someone with a lot of internal problems and roaches in their head, like the last surviving Uchiha. Anko understood how a child might feel, and didn't judge them too much, but she also understood that for missions to be successful, you had to be able to put your feelings and grievances aside.
Thinking about this, the kunoichi grinned and thought:
«I was also a tomboy at that age who fought about everything, Basically, I'm still like that now, except I've learnt to keep most of it to myself.»
Shifting her gaze to the pink haired girl, and how easily she managed to climb the tree, Anko thought:
"Now that really is a surprise. She's a total wimp, but she's got a lot of chakra control. Although her chakra reserves are modest, she definitely has potential. The main thing is for her to start eating properly, and stop spending so much time on her nails and hair."
At that moment, the woman, as well as Sakura and Sasuke, noticed some sort of disturbance in the centre of the lake. Turning their gazes there, they could see Naruto sitting on top of a huge fish, pounding it with a blunt kunai, in the company of one clone. Smirking, Anko said quietly:
"Oh, looks like the kid's stumbled upon one of the target guards. That's so cute. Looks like I won't be bored here, hee-hee."
Back to Naruto, he was struggling to stay on the fish's back, and if he hadn't been able to attach himself to surfaces with chakra, he would have fallen off long ago. The fish was extremely large, and by his educated guess, a predator. His clone also tried to attack the fish, but only from the surface of the water, aiming his kunai at its eyes.
On the shore, Sakura was confused and didn't know how to help the blond. Sasuke looked more calm and focused this time. After a while, he clenched his teeth and took in a breath of air and shouted:
"Naruto! Bring that thing closer to the shore!" at the same time, without a shadow of a doubt, the guy started to fold the seals, while he accelerated towards the lake, and made a huge leap towards the battle.
The blond man who heard him began to direct the fish towards the shore, with the help of a clone, which lured the angry beast in his direction. At this time, Sasuke was descending towards the water, but at the last moment he directed the largest possible amount of chakra into his legs in order to make one single push from the water in order to shorten the distance with Naruto a little more, and having gained maximum height, Sasuke shouted:
"Move aside!" right after that, Sasuke finished the last seal.
"Katon - Hosenka no Jutsu!"
At that very moment, Naruto, who had heard the warning perfectly, had already jumped off the fish and dispelled his clone right in front of its nose, thus confusing it. Immediately after that, many fireballs flew into the fish's head, causing it many burns and damage. The eyes and spatial receptors in the form of small tendrils on the predator's face were particularly damaged.
Combined with the damage Naruto had already done, it was too much damage to continue fighting. So, the predator immediately dove under the water, and swam off in an unknown direction. The lake was quite large, so they would be safe for a while.
Sasuke landed in the water and swam back to the shore. Naruto took a breath and followed his companions with a satisfied smile. Naruto shook his head amusedly to shake off some of the moisture, which even Sakura found quite cute, then happily reached into his pocket and pulled out a scroll, saying:
"Look what I found!"
Seeing the scroll in his hands, Sakura gasped, and said:
"You got the scroll? So it was in the lake?"
"Yeah," Naruto nodded contentedly, "I saw a ruined stone structure under the water, so I decided to dive in and check it out. That's where the scroll was. Except that there was a predatory fish in there, so we had to fight for it. But now we have two more to find, and we can go after the last one!"
Sasuke walked over to the blond man, and taking the scroll from him, he saw the same thing he had seen in the past - a seal. Handing it to Sakura to open again, they could finally see that it contained even more information regarding the traps, as well as, as it turned out, the maze that awaited them at the fifth open point. It seemed that if they collected all four scrolls, only then would they be able to get the fifth.
Also in this scroll was another part of the seal, in which Naruto recognised the second part of the mosaic they had seen on the first scroll. Putting the scroll to the other, Sasuke turned to Naruto, and asked:
"Have your clones managed to find anything yet?"
"Yep, actually we got lucky as they found both places. So we should be able to tackle this task in no time, dattebayo!"
Nodding, Sasuke said:
"Alright then, let's move out. We have to get two more scrolls before dark."
Nodding in agreement, the group headed out to find the last two scrolls.
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From the Author:
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