Chapter 841: 18
Chapter 17: Home Is Where the What?
The amassed team of Genma Shiranui, Naruto Uzumaki, Kotetsu Hagane, and Izumo Kamizuki stood in front of the Hokage's desk, having just given their report on the mission to Kumo. Tsunade had to rub her forehead at the report, "Naruto… how do you get arrested in Kumo after being there for four hours tops?"
Naruto shrugged, "Hokage-sama, Murphy's Law just loves me like that I guess. Come on now, are you really surprised by this point that this stuff happens to me even when I don't instigate it? You should know this by now."
Tsunade sighed and waved it off, "Alright, other than the extracurricular activities of someone here." She said while looking at Naruto, "Good work. You're all dismissed and have a few days of leave."
The group nodded and turned to leave, "Naruto you stay." Tsunade said before he could exit the office. Naruto turned back around to face the blonde woman, "Can I talk to you for a moment?"
Naruto walked back over to her desk and leaned on it, "What do you need baa-chan." The toothy grin on his face let her know that he knew this was personal more than anything else, "I need to get some sleep and then head into my favorite place to get some destructive new jutsu down."
Tsunade shook her head in amusement, "Alright brat, I asked you before, but I'm going to try it again. How strong do you think you are?"
Naruto raised an eyebrow, "In a straight up fight or when I get the drop on somebody?"
Tsunade blinked, "Both if you know."
Naruto though about it, "Well I'm good enough from the shadows to kill one of Orochimaru's bodyguards before he even knew I was there, and I can stay hidden in an enemy stronghold for months at a time if I had to, I don't really like that though, it's nervewracking." He started pacing around her office, "What would you rank Orochimaru's right-hand man Kabuto and Kimimaro Kaguya if you had to?"
Tsunade understood where he was going with that. It was hard to rank yourself, so he was comparing himself to others, "Both of them would be considered jounin level."
Naruto nodded, "I don't really count Kabuto though, he didn't try fighting me for real until I had him beaten so I only have experience against one jounin level ninja since my promotion. You just promoted me like two months ago, are you really looking to do it again so soon?"
Tsunade picked up Genma's written report from the desk, "All of your teammates have stated that you might make a good candidate in the future for Anbu. I already figured that you would be a jounin in a year or two if you keep growing. Now enough about that, what did you actually do in Kumo, your report says that you spent some time with a few of the people there but you didn't elaborate at all."
Naruto sat down in a chair and smiled at Tsunade. She was very good to him after he had brought her back to Konoha. It was something akin to a sibling-esque relationship, she was his boss, but she legitimately cared about him. Naruto was very grateful to her for this, he probably would do anything in his power that Tsunade asked of him, even if he didn't directly answer to her, "I beat up an entire team of Kumo chunin that challenged me to a spar after my arrest, by the way there were two girls on that team and they seem to like me. I met Kumo's two jinchuuriki. One of them is utterly insane, like on the level of Lee and Gai, insane, but the other one is a few years older than me and she's hot. She's a sweetheart too."
Tsunade's eyes gleamed, 'Finally I might have some ammunition on the brat. Drink yourself into a stupor without me will you? I'll show you.' "So what else brat?"
Naruto ignored the look as he kept listing things off, "Let's see, I made Kotetsu and Izumo give themselves alcohol burns on their testicles, I won all of their money, by the way place their paychecks for the mission in my name, and some guy tried to kill me. Oh! And I also-."
"What?" Tsunade almost roared at him, "Someone tried to kill you? Who? Did Kumo order-."
Naruto had to place his hands on her shoulders to calm her down, "Whoa, whoa! Calm down baa-chan it's okay. He tried to kill me, but he got captured by the Raikage's forces and I got to execute him the next day."
Tsunade raised an eyebrow, "That was in the report wasn't it? So what did you do?"
Naruto sat back down and leaned back in his chair, "I had him hanged, drawn, and quartered. I did it myself."
That method of execution hadn't been done since the Second Great Ninja War. Particularly brutal method that, "How do you even know how to do something like that?"
Naruto let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like 'Root' and Tsunade ended up nodding in understanding. Naruto stood up and stretched, "So where's ero-sennin? Is he here so I can start my training or am I on my own for the time being?"
Tsunade shook her head, "He's out gathering information on a lead on the Akatsuki, trying to find out exactly what they need the Kyuubi for, he's also trying to find out who other members are. He'll be back in a few months, I'll clear your schedule for that point in time and let you know in advance."
Naruto made a grunt of affirmation and walked towards the window, "Alright then, like I said before; I'm going home, taking a nap, getting some food, and then I'll be spending some quality time in the Forest of Death in order to avoid collateral damage from the training I'm going to go do. If you need to find me then that's where I'll be."
Tsunade turned her head as he walked past her, "Brat take the door for crying out loud."
Naruto grinned as he pulled the window open, "What was that baa-chan? The wind is kind of heavy today, did you say doors are for losers? Because I agree with you wholeheartedly on that front. Tell Shizune-neechan I said hi!" With that, Naruto jumped out of the open window and vanished in a shunshin.
Tsunade slapped her forehead, "Great… Now both the brat and the pervert get their jollies from going in and out of the window."
XxX
Naruto opened his apartment door and wasted no time in dropping face-first on his couch with a massive sigh, "*sigh* I need a bigger house…" Naruto simply lay still face down while his door opened silently and slowly. The figure crept through the living room until Naruto's voice rang out, "If you want to keep all of your limbs attached I would stop moving forward if I were you."
"Wow shithead, nice to see you too."
Naruto lifted his head and rolled over to get an eyeful of Tayuya, "Tayuya-chan? What are you doing in my apartment?"
Tayuya rolled her eyes, "I heard your door open and heard your loud-ass buffalo noise when you dropped on the couch. What, are you not happy to see me?"
Naruto shook his head, confused, "It's not that, it's just, what are you doing here?"
Tayuya gave him a grin, "I live in the complex. I'm actually right next door to you shithead. Surprise!"
Naruto's jaw dropped as he mulled around what she had just said in his head, "So you're out of confinement?" He got a nod in response, "And they're letting you stay?" Another nod, "And you actually chose to live in this complex of all places?"
Tayuya sighed, "Listen up, I'm an Oto kunoichi shithead. There isn't a person in this place that isn't paranoid about me, you're the only person that would treat me decently, therefore I want to stay close to you until things look up for me."
Naruto sat up straight on the couch, "If you want I can help you booby-trap your place if you're worried about that."
Tayuya let out a laugh, "Maybe later shithead. So where have you been?"
Naruto moved over and let her sit down as he stood up and walked to the kitchen, "I was in Kumo. It was just a guard detail, nothing really strenuous, I kept active and I learned something pretty cool that I need to go test out full scale later, I was going to go train."
Tayuya frowned, "Who the fuck trains right after they get back from a mission? Give it a day at least. Kami, do you ever rest?"
Naruto grinned at her as he began boiling water for his ramen, "Not really. I've got things to prepare for, I can rest when I'm dead."
Tayuya walked over and poked Naruto in the chest, "Listen up, I've been spending time with two full-fledged medic-ninja and one that's in training and that kind of ended up beating some basic fucking knowledge into my head. Don't push yourself, I know you're some kind of demonically rage-ahol fueled juggernaut of energy, but everyone needs down time."
Naruto rolled his eyes, "Tayuya-chan, I just got through with resting before I took the last mission. It's not like I'm burning out, how could I? I'm thirteen." Naruto stopped stirring the ramen he was making and placed the spoon in her hand, "Stir. I need to go get something."
Tayuya grumbled, but carried out Naruto's request, "Stupid shithead making me stir his stupid fucking ramen."
"Language." Naruto walked back into the kitchen with a smirk, ignoring Tayuya's muttering of 'fuck you', "Now what would you do if you had your flute back? You wouldn't try to kill me again would you?"
Tayuya gave him a deadpan look, arm still stirring his ramen, "I can't beat you even with the flute. Orochimaru made us specialize when we were training, genjutsu is what I'm best at and you can walk right through it. Besides, I like Konoha a hell of a lot more than Otogakure, here I don't have to worry about some goon trying to take advantage of me when I let my guard down."
Naruto nodded, "Good answer. Here." He threw something at her from behind his back.
Tayuya caught it and went wide-eyed, "My flute! But I lost it during the fight."
A snickering laugh came from Naruto as he took the spoon back from Tayuya and kept stirring while he turned his stove off, "Who do you think took it from you in the first place? What, did you think I just dropped it in the forest and left it there? I've been keeping it."
Tayuya just kept looking between her flute and Naruto who just kept on grinning, "Now you can register as a ninja for the village and can get a rank higher than genin and avoid the grunt work of D-ranked missions." He noticed she hadn't moved yet, "Are you happy?" She nodded, "Good! You can go on home and start cataloging your jutsu for tomorrow."
Tayuya nodded and walked out of Naruto's apartment almost zombie-like, eliciting laughter from the boy as she shut the door behind her. Grabbing a bowl for his ramen he smiled to himself, "Glad to help Tayuya-chan."
XxX
(The Next Day)
Naruto's personal obstacle course of death that had used to hone his reflexes and increase his speed since he had gotten his memories back wasn't really an obstacle course at all. Naruto would make a random number of Kage Bunshin and send them out into the heavily wooded areas of the Forest of Death and have them set traps, hide themselves in order to attack him during his dash, attract animals that had the potential to harm him, and anything else his twisted clones could think of to hurt him. He would make the clones, meditate for three hours, then he would begin his deadly game.
Naruto would traverse the rugged terrain back and forth five times each. Each time was a length of 5 kilometers from a starting point in the forest to the gate leading to the outside and was fraught with peril. His clones were utterly ruthless in their attack and despite their one-hit limit that they could all take they were more of hit and run type attackers, engaging Naruto himself when he was not expecting attack and fighting to kill. In Root they would do the same, only with real people so it was never as many as it was when Naruto used Kage Bunshin, it was also done in a long corridor that Danzo manipulated to his liking for whatever situation you were training for.
This training was two-fold. Not only did it allow Naruto to train himself on speed, evasion, and trap detection, it also worked on Naruto's ability to set traps and ambushes. Being able to see both sides of the conflict, both from his own view and from the memories of his Kage Bunshin, allowed him to analyze what he did right and wrong on both fronts, and to adjust for using the traps on other ninja in real-life combat situations.
After finishing his 'warm-up', Naruto called his remaining Kage Bunshin out into a clearing and made even more, around three hundred or so. Looking at them all he began barking orders, "Split into five even groups!" The clones scrambled to follow his orders, breaking off into five groups in even rows, "First set of you, find a spot and get to splitting leaves, any review work is still very much needed! Also I want you to work on kunai balancing!" Pointing to the next group he continued, "You all will go back through our jutsu catalogue and start getting down the ones that we still can't do." He looked at the last group, "You all will be on stealth detail. You will be following people of interest and shadowing them. Do not get caught, this is on my reputation here. I expect some cool memories upon your dispelling at sunset. Now go!"
Naruto cracked his neck and made his way deep inside the forest for some live-fire combat training, "Oh spiders… you and I still have a gripe…"
XxX
Team 8's training for the day was driven to say the least.
Ever since Kiba and Shino's humiliating one-sided losses at the hands of Naruto, both had been training hard to catch up to the boy that had blown right past them. Kiba worked on his speed and combination tactics with Akamaru and was also trying to teach the puppy how to better defend himself in case they ended up being separated or one of them went down in battle. After hearing how Naruto dealt with the majority of the Sound Four with little to no effort in the least and how he himself instead had to be saved at the last second by Neji and Kankuro, Kiba resolved to somehow get to the blonde's level.
Shino was inspired by a combination of his crushing defeat by Naruto and the knowledge of the Sasuke Retrieval mission that had failed. It was almost a prerequisite by this point for all jounin sensei to venture to the site of Naruto's battle with Kimimaro with their genin cells in order to either inspire them to work harder, or to let them know just how powerful Naruto was. The sight of the countless bone spires sticking out of the ground, and the knowledge that Naruto was able to outlast such an enemy on his own planted a seed into Shino's head that if he didn't want to be left behind even more than he already had been then he needed to improve and fast.
Kurenai watched as her two students stood at opposite ends of the training ground with her lone female charge standing between them. In a blur, Kiba and Akamaru charged the blue haired girl and launched the Gatsuuga directly at her. On her other side, Shino unleashed a torrent of insects at her. Opening her eyes with her Byakugan active she began spinning and directing her hands in precise and exact locations all around her.
A field of chakra as precise as lasers surrounded her body, bouncing Kiba off and actually shredding Shino's kikai insects on contact.
Kurenai had to smile as her most timid student had come up with her own technique on par with the Hyuuga Clan's Hakkesho Kaiten. The Shugohakke Rokujuyon Sho (Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms) was more tailored towards Hinata's flexibility than the rigid form that the Kaiten required from its users. The fact that she came up with the technique on her own without help, except to test its development was incredible to Kurenai.
Kiba stood up from where he was launched off, holding his head that had a gash on it, but with a smile on his face as his ninken came bounding up to him, "Wow Hinata, that was rough… And you're saying that it's not finished yet?"
Hinata smiled as she turned off her Byakugan and dropped her stance, "No, it's close though. I'm not sure what it would do against an attack from all sides the level of your Gatsuuga, but when focused in just a few areas it should be fine."
Kurenai smiled, at least Naruto's utter thrashing of everyone's genin in front of the entire village did good things for the majority of them, Hinata's stuttering had all but vanished, she had learned that things with Neji were getting better, even her father was beginning to improve "Hinata that was very impressive. When that jutsu is complete it should be B-rank if not A-rank."
A blush came to the girl's face but she gave a firm nod. Shino walked over and despite not giving away any expression nodded his agreement that he was very proud of her, "Thank you Kurenai-sensei." The words of one particular blonde boy rang out clear in her mind as she felt like she was finally making strides for herself, 'I wonder what you would think Naruto-kun.'
XxX
Team Gai leapt through the tree limbs of the Forest of Death. They had been assigned a rare C-ranked mission inside the village gates. Recently there had been reports of an increased amount of loud noises coming from the Forest of Death over the last few months, which was quite impressive considering the size of the place, and when Anko Mitarashi had been brought in for questioning it was evident that it wasn't her disrupting the peace, so this mission had been commissioned to discover what was going on.
Now Team Gai had no idea seeing as how Tsunade, the only other person besides Anko that knew who liked to frequent that place, wasn't forthcoming with the info that everyone's favorite blonde kid had a habit of raising cain within the gates of the dangerous forest, thus the team lead by the green clad taijutsu ace had next to no idea what they were getting into.
Gai led the group, followed by Neji, who was flanked on both sides by Lee and Tenten. Lee had never even heard of a C-rank mission inside of the village, thus why he was excited, more excited than usual, "Yosh! What do you think could be causing such a ruckus in the forest? I have heard of all kinds of amazing animals within the forest, but did not get to see any during our first foray within with the exception of my youthful squirrel friend! I wonder how he is doing?"
Tenten tried to calm the hyper Gai-clone down, "Lee please be quiet. We didn't come across any of the weird things in here last time because we were careful. Don't go screaming your head off in here or who knows what you'll bring down on us."
Lee opened his mouth to retort in a youthful fashion, but Gai turned his head to give Lee a firm look, "Lee, Tenten is right. You may have made your way through the woods before, but you should count yourself lucky that you didn't come across any of the creatures in this place. I don't care if we are inside of the village, treat this like a hostile environment because it is. Even jounin are somewhat wary of entering this place."
Lee gulped and nodded after being reprimanded by Gai. Neji squinted and spoke up, "Gai-sensei I am seeing countless human life-forms in an upcoming clearing."
Gai nodded and looked back at his genin once more, "Prepare yourselves, when we enter the area who knows what will be here." Getting a nod from his students, Gai turned back ahead.
The group's mojo was disrupted however when Neji facefell onto one of the branches, forcing his team to halt. Tenten jumped back and helped the boy stand up, "Neji-kun, what's wrong? Are you okay?"
Neji nodded as he stood up and started jumping forward, ahead of the rest of the team, ignoring Gai's cries to come back. Pushing his way into the clearing he found a mass of Naruto clones, diligently at work spamming jutsu all over the place, some dispelling from lack of chakra, but otherwise it was something that the young Hyuuga genius had never seen before.
His team came up right behind him and were stuck staring at the scene before them much like Neji was. Tenten looked at the clones wide-eyed, "W-What is going on? Naruto-kun? He's everywhere."
Lee's eyes were ablaze with youth, "Yosh, such a youthful training program! I must spar with Naruto-kun!" Lee took off into the mass of hard at work clones, stopping in front of the first one, scaring the hell out of it and forcing it to electrocute itself with one of the jutsu Naruto had learned in Kumo and blow up in a puff of smoke. This forced all of the other Naruto replications to take notice of just who it was that intruded on their session. Lee ran up to another one and dropped into his stance, "Naruto-kun my eternal rival, I request a spar with you to stoke both of our flames of youth!"
The clones all looked at each other until one spoke up, "Um… We're all clones. Boss just told us to work on his jutsus until we dispelled from lack of chakra. He's out further in the forest getting even with those stupid spiders!"
The clones all broke into a smattering of chatter, mostly circulating around how the original Naruto was going to go medieval on those spiders' asses and how they all wished they could be there to fight too. Gai listened in to what was being said, "So you're saying that Naruto-kun is deeper in the forest." Getting a collective 'yep' from the clones he continued, "And he's actively trying to provoke the more dangerous wildlife just for training?"
They all nodded as one clone spoke up, "Yeah, I mean you're saying that like it's a bad thing. Sure there's a shitload of spiders in this forest, but they have to realize that they can't win after he slaughters like a few dozen of them right?"
Gai paled, concerning his genin, "Clone-kun, no one knows exactly how many of certain creatures this forest has. Especially the spiders, there are reports from Anbu of nests under the ground with countless amounts of them, and they're highly aggressive in nature."
The clones scoffed, "Well we could have told you that. Those eight-legged fucks mess with us every time we come in here to train. We have to divert clones just to keep a lookout and as extermination squads in case the bastards get too close."
Gai palmed his forehead, "Clone-kun you're not getting it. These spiders mature at an absurd rate, and they reproduce far too quickly. If your original is out there killing them for sport then he is in grave danger. Which way did he go?"
The clones all pointed northeast, "To the bad spot where we know the spiders hang out. Like I said, we have a gripe with those bastards. Knock over two barrels of my sake will they?"
Gai turned to his team, "We have to go get Naruto-kun out of there. Prepare for a battle, be fast and precise against the enemy, those spiders are fast, strong, and ruthless. Kill them and move on."
Neji and Tenten nodded while Lee was fired up, "Yosh! Let's go save Naruto-kun!"
XxX
(Elsewhere in Konoha)
Sakura smiled as the fish on her table flopped back into the water. Her skill with the Shousen Jutsu was growing every day. Soon Tsunade said she would be able to begin working on creatures with bones closer to humans. The last few months since her training began had been great for Sakura. Despite being harder than anything she had done before she could now see a reason why Rock Lee and others trained so hard. The feeling of succeeding after working on something for so long was well worth the effort put in.
"Good work Sakura." Sakura turned to see Tsunade had been overseeing her work with a smile, "You're getting better and better at the basic techniques. After you master most of the medical techniques I can begin teaching you my strength amplifying technique, now let's work on your taijutsu. You need to be able to keep yourself in one piece and defeat your opponents quickly as a medic-ninja. For now we'll begin working on your elusiveness and I'll teach you form later."
Sakura nodded with a determined look on her face. She wouldn't be the weakest link ever again if she had any say in her own skill.
XxX
Team Asuma had just returned to the village after a B-Ranked mission. Ino was groaning loudly while rolling her neck, "I'm so glad we're done with that mission… I need a hot shower and some rest."
Asume smirked as he took a drag of his cigarette, "Good work with those bandits team. Shikamaru, good work with the plan, it went off without a hitch. Choji, you're coming along nicely with your family techniques."
Ino looked at her sensei expectantly who looked at her for a moment before speaking up, "Ino that was a good use of Shitenshin no Jutsu to scout out the camp, I was sure that you wouldn't use that jutsu again for quite some time after what happened the last time. All of you, take the rest of the day off and meet me at our training field tomorrow." With that the bearded jounin walked towards the Hokage Tower to give his report to Tsunade about the mission.
Choji looked between his teammates, "Hey, do you guys want to get some barbeque before we go home?"
Shikamaru chuckled and patted his friend on the shoulder, "Sure thing Choji, let's go Ino."
The group found their way and ended up in a booth shortly. After placing their orders, the team started to converse, with Shikamaru launching out the first question, "Ino, you never told us why you stopped using Shitenshin no Jutsu after the fight with Naruto in the first place. Did he have some kind of defense like Sakura had that actually hurt you?"
Ino hugged herself slightly, "Yeah, but it wasn't really a straightforward kind of thing. Naruto's mind is strange… It looked just like Konoha, every inch of it was to scale. No one had a mind that extensive."
Choji squealed happily as the beef was placed in front of him. He wasted no time in throwing the meat on the grill while Shikamaru kept asking Ino his questions, "So just being in Konoha in the guy's mind freaked you out? That's kind of weak Ino."
The platinum blonde growled at him as she placed her own meat onto the grill, "That's not all that happened. I was wandering around for a bit when I felt the presence of something chasing me, I remembered what happened with Sakura and took off running. It corralled me to Naruto's apartment and left me there. I never saw it, but I could feel its presence the entire time."
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, "His apartment? You're not telling me everything Ino…"
Ino shook her fist at him, "I'm trying to tell a story here you blockhead!" She glared at him when a 'troublesome' slipped from the pineapple-haired boy, "His TV was on in the apartment, and I thought that was central control, the thing in everyone's mind that allows you to gain control after you use the jutsu, but it was his memories, or what seemed like memories, it had to be some kind of trick. It was already cued up to one in particular. It had Naruto running through an entire ballroom full of people like a hot knife through butter. It was the single most terrible thing I had ever seen, and when I started watching it I felt like I was actually there. I could hear the directions of the screams, the panic of the people trying to escape, I could smell the blood that spilled out on the ground and everything."
Choji paused in his eating for a minute before shrugging off that mental image and continuing to chow down. Ino continued her description of Naruto's memories, "That was just the first one, and I couldn't turn it off. I was in his body while this strange silent man in a mask just beat him while he was tied to a chair, he never spoke, he just kept hitting him and hitting him for hours until all I could see through his view was blood. All of the memories I saw were just like that, I finally had enough and cancelled the jutsu."
Shikamaru just stared at the girl, "Wow, that's kind of hardcore. You felt everything happen as if you were there? That means that it wasn't a trick or anything, you really were in Naruto's memories doesn't it?"
Ino shook her head, "Naruto couldn't have been any older than seven or eight years old when any of the things I saw happened. If it wasn't a trick then I sure as hell can't believe that those things were his actual memories. Those were things that dad told me the Anbu did on a regular basis. There's no conceivable way that while we were preparing for the academy, Naruto was taking on Anbu level missions. That just doesn't make sense."
Shikamaru stayed silent and pondered Ino's words, 'The things that Naruto did when he fought everyone, those techniques, that fighting style, the way he carried himself. All of those things didn't just come out of nowhere…'
XxX
(Forest of Death)
With game faces on, Team Gai headed into the restricted area of the Forest of Death where the level of peril went up. The forest grew darker, and it wasn't just because the sun was setting, the canopy was beginning to completely block out the sunlight above. Faint sounds of inhuman screeching rang out in the distance and was growing ever closer. The tense waiting was broken when the blonde that they were looking for flew past them into a tree, followed by the biggest spider that any of the genin had ever seen before, it was easily the size of a full-grown adult male and had launched itself at Naruto, fangs dripping venom.
Naruto pulled up his ninjato and drove it right through the spider's face, sending the blood of the arachnid spraying all over the place. Swinging his blade upwards with a burst of wind chakra to bolster it he cut straight through the deadly creature.
Spitting on the corpse of the spider he turned to Team Gai, "Oh sweet Kami, what are you all doing here? Do you know where you are?"
Lee ran up to Naruto, "We've come to protect you Naruto-kun! We'll get you out of here in one piece, it's a promise!"
Gai walked up to the two, "It's as Lee said, we've come to get you out of here before the sun goes down. Come on Naruto-kun, let's escape."
Naruto looked at Neji and Tenten who were both serious, but otherwise fully calm. He shook his head, "Gai-sensei is this the first time that you've ever come this far inside of the Forest of Death?" Gai nodded and Naruto sighed, "You guys have no idea what you're getting into. Neji activate your Byakugan and tell me what you see."
Neji did as instructed and gasped as he shakily spoke up, "I see at least a dozen of the spiders that Naruto just fought surrounding the area, watching us."
Naruto nodded as he saw the other genin pale, "That's why I don't tell anyone that I train here. There's no one that I would feel safe putting into this kind of situation. I come in here to fight against opponents that are willing to fight and kill me. I can't take on people, but if I want to split a spider in half there are always a few dozen skulking around this place. It's the closest thing to simulating a real full pitched battle against a vicious enemy that you can get, definitely not for genin."
Naruto propped his ninjato on his shoulder, "Since you're here now I have to cut this session short. I was going to keep going until midnight and then make a mad dash out of here to escape, but having you guys show up has forced me to skip straight to the bat out of hell rush that I was planning for later. You guys brought too many of them here. They'll come in waves to try and wear us down. You fight until I tell you to run and you follow me out. Keep your eyes peeled when we break out, those sneaky bastards like to hide in the canopy and jump you from the shadows."
Tenten had to choke down her fear at the situation and brandish kunai when Naruto placed his hand on hers, "Naruto-kun what are you doing?"
Naruto's eyes darted around the area, "You're going to need something bigger than those. That will just piss them off. Kami, I just had to get stuck in this situation with a team of taijutsu specialists. None of you know any jutsu or how to use your element with your fighting do you?"
Lee blinked at him in confusion, "Will taijutsu not work on them Naruto-kun?"
Naruto looked at Gai and Lee, "If you can generate enough force to crush the exoskeleton then it can, but you don't want to stay up close with these things unless you can smash them in one shot."
Gai shot Naruto a shiny smile, "Naruto-kun, it's time to show you what good old-fashioned hard work and youth can do! Lee and I will have no trouble dealing with these spiders with our taijutsu! Neji how about you?"
Neji stood in his jyuuken stance, "If they have a chakra system, and they do, I can fight and kill them."
Naruto looked at Tenten who put her kunai up and unsealed a battle axe from a scroll, "I'm ready!"
Naruto stared at her blankly, "Tenten, you can use an axe? That's awesome…"
The first spider saw a moment of weakness and jumped from the trees at the group. Naruto jumped in the air and gave the spider a wide berth while swinging his blade. Extending the end of his sword with wind chakra he cut right through the spider and landed on the ground, "You fucking eight-legged pieces of shit just don't get it yet do you!" Naruto formed two Kage Bunshin to watch his back as he ran directly towards the closest spiders that would jump at him. He cut out one of the spider's legs from under it using a one-handed swing while simultaneously driving a Rasengan into the torso of another, carving into it with the force of a drill, sending guts all over the place, "I'm not trapped in here with you! You're trapped in here with me!"
Naruto's clones ran to back him up as three more spiders emerged from the surrounding area to attack. The giant arachnids were now extremely wary of Naruto's sword, seeing as how it had been his weapon of choice for the entire day's events. Getting sick of how the spiders were avoiding him he ripped a sword from one of his Kage Bunshin's hands and threw it at one while enhancing it with wind chakra, impaling it against a tree and killing it.
"Hey! That was mine!" Was the indignant cry from the victim clone. The original just shrugged before the three Narutos scattered due to being double-teamed by the two other spiders. The original and the clone that still had his blade engaged the spiders, with the clone being far more conservative with its way of fighting as one bad shot could dispel it. The original simply ran some misdirection and cleaved all four legs on one side of his spider off. Before running off to assist some of Team Gai he planted an explosive note on the nearly helpless spider, forcing it to explode in a shower of guts.
While he was judging which one of the team required assistance he ended up being blindsided by the spider that had dispelled his Kage Bunshin and sent sprawling along the ground by the powerful creature. The giant spider skittered closer to the boy before one of the more sizeable tree limbs from above came crashing down on top of it, killing not only that one spider, but two more hiding in the background. Naruto's other Kage Bunshin landed on top of the tree limb with his sword that Naruto had thrown in hand, "Hey boss! I found my sword!"
Naruto nodded, "Good work. I'm going to help the others. You wait for an opening to escape. Dispel when you see an opportunity to leave." The clone nodded and went off to stay out of the fight while the original Naruto headed into Team Gai's melee to assist.
Neji was not having much of a problem keeping the spiders off of him, he would use Kaiten whenever he started getting swarmed, but he was finding it hard to finish them off. The spiders seemed to have so many tenketsu in their legs that it would take too many shots just to incapacitate one, and when he attempted to just hit it straight on somewhere vital they would use their incredible agility to simply dodge and avoid a fatal strike.
"Fuuton: Fuujin Seiken (Wind Release: Divine Fist of the Wind God)!"
To Neji's shock, two spiders were sent flying. One off into the distance, deep into the forest, the other hit a tree with crushing force, turning it into a stain before the tree itself cracked and fell over. Naruto ran over to him, sword drawn, giving the boy a slight nod. Neji eyed the one remaining spider of this pack, "Naruto I can finish this one off. Go help Tenten or Lee."
Naruto heard his tone of voice and figured arguing or pulling rank on him would have just earned him some of the Hyuuga boy's ire. When Naruto left, Neji ran at the spider that backed up to get some spring into its legs for a pounce. Neji saw this coming and when it launched itself at him he slid underneath the spider's belly, hitting it in the spots that were harder to get, but were guaranteed to finish the monster spider off.
The spider tripped over its own legs and onto its back, kicking for a moment before crinkling its legs inward and dying. Neji smirked to himself before going off to find one of his superiors.
Tenten was having an easier time with her fighting. The spiders were knowledgeable about human weaponry and about the differences between male and female humans. Well the sight of a girl with an axe did not compute for most of the spiders that saw Tenten as an easy kill swinging that giant thing around. Too bad for them they didn't figure that she could actually swing that damn thing pretty fast, and was very good at timing their attacks. Each swing from the girl took out something, good thing it did too, that heavy axe was an energy sapper.
Naruto stood in a pile of four or five spiders, "So I guess you're doing okay for the time being?"
Tenten gave him a tired smile and a thumbs up while leaning on the handle of her weapon, "I was scared at first, but these spiders are kind of weak. But there are so many of them."
Naruto nodded while watching out for her, giving her some time to rest for a moment, "They aren't supposed to cause any ninja better than an academy fresh genin any trouble one-on-one, but they're persistent, ruthless, and they just keep coming. Hell I make a game out of counting them as I kill them."
Tenten raised a delicate eyebrow at that, "What's the highest you've ever gotten?"
Naruto thought about it as he watched Neji finish off a spider, "Well I got started earlier than usual in the day this time and I could swear that I was bearing down on some kind of record when you guys showed up. I lost count though I think it was getting up past two-hundred of them."
Tenten's jaw dropped, "Two-hundred of these things? There are really that many that you can kill two-hundred before we even get here and still be worried about us attracting too many to you?" Both noticed Neji coming to their side and all three of them looked at what the two more eccentric members of Team Gai were getting into.
"Yosh! Gai-sensei who knew that this mission would turn into such a splendid battle! For Naruto-kun to seek out a challenge such as this, I truly have selected the appropriate choice for my eternal rival!" Lee ducked under the pounce of one of the spiders before launching himself at two more, "Konoha Daisenpuu (Leaf Great Whirlwind)!" Lee unleashed a torrent of high-speed kicks at the oversized arachnids, smashing them into a nearby massive tree.
Gai cracked one of the spiders with an axe kick that simply made it collapse in a heap, "Lee, use this as an exercise. Naruto-kun! How many of these creatures did you fell?"
Naruto watched the two identical taijutsu users seemingly having a blast fighting these damn things, "You mean since you've shown up, or since noon? Because that's when I started."
Gai sent Naruto a gleaming smile, "I believe in my Lee. Let's go with this afternoon!"
Naruto, Tenten, and Neji looked at each other before Neji and Naruto shrugged. Tenten sighed and answered him, "Gai-sensei, Naruto-kun says that he's killed around two-hundred of them since he came in here."
Gai stood seemingly shaking in place. Naruto thought that the number of spiders he killed had pissed Gai off, he didn't know Gai was all for arachnid rights, how was he supposed to know. Gai turned to Naruto with flaming, tearful eyes, however impossible that seems, "Such a youthful, combat filled day! Lee! In order to defeat your rival you have to defeat more than two-hundred of our eight-legged enemies!"
Lee's eyes blazed over in a similar fashion, "Yes Gai-sensei! And if I cannot best my rival Naruto's number of spiders slain then I will do 500 pushups on my thumbs!" With one last battle cry, Lee ran into an area where spiders were waiting for an ambush.
Naruto palmed his head as he watched Lee begin ripping into the spiders with fists and feet, "You guys are going to bring the whole damn population of the things on us. Look, we need to get out of here! The more you kill, the more show up. If it was this easy then don't you think it would be recommended for ninja to train in here? It's actually frowned upon, because you can't take them on forever. You'll run out of energy and chakra before they run out of bodies to throw at you. Kill all you want as we get the hell out of here!"
Naruto ran in and grabbed Lee by his collar before dragging him off with everyone else following close behind. As they started to go back through the thick of the woods a spider tried to come from behind a tree to sneak attack them. Gai saw it coming and flipped at the massive thing with punches and kicks, "Dynamic Action!" Turning the spider into goo as they didn't break their stride, "Naruto-kun, what is the best course of action to escape?"
Naruto moved back, "Gai-sensei, watch the front, I'll keep them off of our backs. Neji, Tenten, and Lee, stay between us, Neji keep your Byakugan on, Tenten prepare some kunai with explosive notes. Take to the trees, it narrows down the angles that they can attack from."
Team Gai listened to their chunin tagalong and got themselves into position as they leapt into the branches of the forest. Naruto's knowledge of the terrain by now was second only to Anko. He knew where the majority of things of interest in the forest were and the current thing of interest was the closest exit that wouldn't take them straight into the nest of the spiders, "We need to get further south. If we head straight north or east from here we'll have to go straight through the nest to escape, that would be suicide even for me."
Gai nodded and lead the group further south. During their run, Naruto held his head in pain and fell down on a branch. Lee jumped back to help the boy to his feet, "Naruto-kun, what is wrong? Are you hurt?"
Naruto cursed to himself as he grimaced in pain, "A bunch of my clones actually fully lasted for their time limit and dispelled all at once… It's like the worst headache you've ever had hitting you all at once."
Thanking Lee as he stood back up they were distracted by Neji's shouts, "There are more coming!"
Naruto turned around to see five of the spiders jumping from branch to branch, getting ever closer. Naruto threw Lee off of his branch at his team, "Stay back! There's something I need to test out anyway…"
They all watched as Naruto let the spiders in close before making a set of hand-signs and crossing his arms in an 'x' motion while crouching, "Fuuton: Senpuu Kakusui (Wind Release: Whirlwind Pyramid)!" Standing up and stiffening all of his appendages straight out, a vicious crosswind surrounded the area around Naruto's body, catching the spiders within and sending them flying into the air, some of them cut into pieces, others missing legs, all of the survivors hissing in anger and pain.
The jutsu faded after a few seconds and he turned back to Team Gai, getting everyone moving again to stay ahead of the spiders attempting to prey on them. The genin were pretty stunned by the use of Naruto's new jutsu, but were too occupied with staying in one piece at the moment to ask anything.
After another half-hour of random spider attacks and running, they escaped the Forest of Death and collapsed a good distance away from the gates that cut it off from everything else in the village. Naruto laughed to himself as he looked up at the night sky, "Well that was fun… You guys alright?"
Gai looked back at the Forest of Death, "We're fine. Naruto-kun what was the inspiration for going so far into the Forest of Death, you know how dangerous that place is don't you?"
Naruto stood up and dusted himself off, "Of course I do. That's why I went in there, for a challenging fight. I'm training to kill my opponents Gai-sensei, not just defeat them. I need to be used to ending lives whenever I need to and since I'm pretty sure that absolutely nobody would miss any of those spiders being gone I go in there to fight them. It's amazingly good battle experience."
The genin all deadpanned, "We noticed."
Naruto chuckled but then turned a suspicious eye on them, "Wait a minute. What were you all doing in there? The only person besides me that ever goes in there is Anko, and she doesn't even spend time there like I do, she'll just go in far enough to train in peace or find me to spar, not deep into the back end of the place."
Gai nodded, "We had a mission to head into the Forest of Death and find the source of all of the sounds coming from the place."
Naruto laughed slightly, "Well, mission complete because you're looking at him. I make tons of Kage Bunshin and have them work on lots of different stuff. Pretty cool huh? While I handle my physical stuff they can handle things like my chakra control and ninjutsu."
Neji understood what he was saying, "So you get the accumulative memories of your Kage Bunshin and while they do memory related things you go in and develop things like strength, speed, and-." He stopped and looked back into the forest, "-Battle experience."
Naruto grinned and nodded. Lee ran up to Naruto and dropped into his stance, "You have inspired me Naruto-kun! I challenge you to a friendly spar!"
Naruto sweatdropped, "Lee, it's almost midnight, I've been spending the last twelve hours fighting a life or death battle against spiders from hell, you're all exhausted from looking for me and fighting spiders by my side, and lastly… how many spiders did you kill?"
Lee looked confused until his eyes widened and he hit the ground to begin his pushups, "You have bested me this time Naruto-kun! Next time I will win our challenge and show how splendid a ninja I am! I will complete these pushups or else I will run laps around Konoha on my hands until the sun comes up! And if I cannot do that I will-."
Naruto walked off with Tenten and Neji in tow as Gai stood over Lee shouting about his youthfulness. Naruto gave Neji a chuckling smile, "And that's how you handle that. I don't see what you and Kakashi were all bent out of shape about when it comes to those two. As far as having Lee as my 'eternal rival' it's easier than not having him as my eternal rival. I can just beat him once and not deal with him until he's through with all of his self-given punishments. He won't mess with me again until he's done with them all, and by then I can disappear."
Neji's eyes widened. He had never thought to realize that the times that he defeated Lee in their spars, Lee would leave him alone until three days to a week later. When he ignored Lee he would get a challenge every hour on the hour until he accepted. Naruto and Tenten laughed at the look of comtemplation on his face, "On the flipside of that, you two have to see him tomorrow and deal with him talking about how he's going to beat me next time all day long. He has to track me down if he wants to do that to me. Yep… being Lee's rival actually spares me more of the creepy sunset genjutsus then not being Lee's rival."
Tenten realized that Naruto was right, he'd only seen it twice. Once when they first met before the chunin exams, and once before they all went to get his sword; any other time when he was around them he would usually accept Lee's challenge, win or lose, and then bid everyone a swift goodbye. Compared to the people that are around when Lee and Gai have their little moments in town and not even trying to tally up all of the times that it had happened around Neji and Tenten since the team had been formed, she realized that Naruto had to have the pretty much lowest victimization rate of being subjected to the 'sunset of youth'.
Naruto grinned at the faces that both of them were making, "I can see that you both have something to say, so go ahead and say it." Before Naruto could notice, the tenketsu in his legs had been sealed off and Tenten and Neji had used his momentary incapacitation to start dragging him back to Lee and Gai.
Tenten threw him at Gai's feet, disrupting Lee's pushups, "Gai-sensei. Naruto was just telling me and Neji that he thought he needed more youth after all of the youth that he exuded during his last mission and during his training today." Neji nodded in agreement.
Naruto looked at the girl with a strange look, "Really? That was the best you've got? That was the stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone say about anything, ever. There's no way they're going to fall for that."
He noticed that his words didn't deter the evil grins on the faces of the 'normal' members of Team Gai who pointed behind him. Tenten waved to him, "I'll see you when my team meets up tomorrow Naruto-kun."
Before he could say anything, Gai and Lee had placed their hands on Naruto's shoulders and had hoisted him to his feet with tears pouring from their eyes, "Do not worry Naruto-kun. Lee and I always have time for a comrade in youth!"
Lee nodded vigorously, "If need be, Gai-sensei and I will stay up all night with you, making sure that your fires of youth are fully replenished!"
Naruto resigned to his fate and turned back to the still smiling Neji and Tenten with a dark look, "I hope you enjoy this. Because you both know that you're getting fucked for this right?"
He never got their response as Lee and Gai had dragged him off to their usual training ground, "Naruto-kun in order to build your flames back up I want 1000 punches with each arm and 1000 kicks with each leg! After that we'll go for an invigorating run around Konoha… on our hands! 10 times!"
Naruto's cries of protest could be heard throughout the night. A few particularly familiar screams of genjutsu induced horror may have woken the majority of the village's citizens, but in the case of one bun-haired girl and one young Branch Hyuuga, it was just what they needed to lull themselves to sleep.
Jutsu List
Fuuton: Senpuu Kakusui (Wind Release: Whirlwind Pyramid). B-rank Ninjutsu. Close range. This jutsu allows the user to expel a wild whipping wind around their body for protection purposes. The strength of the wind is dependent on the direction of the user's focus; while the technique offers protection on all sides, wherever the strongest point of the jutsu is placed, the exact opposite end of the technique would be the weakest area. In its strongest area the wind has the power to cut into whatever is being repelled. The length of the jutsu is dependent on the amount of time used to charge it up.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone