Bab 37: Naruto : Chapter 37
He had found out about practical methods to ease transport, how to think like a ninja and improve his overall awareness. Kakashi was strict, fair but also had a sense of humour. And he knew how to train really hard. It was perfect to get closer to Itachi.
"Team seven, your turn." Kakashi called while team eight just ran over the finish line.
...
Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto went to the start line. Kurenai gave the signal and they were off. Naruto took point, Sakura the middle and Sasuke the rear.
"Okay, keep your eyes open for the red markers." Naruto said in a business-like voice.
Both his team-mates knew he had changed to mission mode and would treat this with utmost professionalism.
Sasuke was the first to spot a marker. Naruto had them stop and look if there were hidden traps. This time there were not and Sakura got the job to collect the marker and store it in her bag.
Naruto suspected that this would be graded for teamwork, so they needed to involve Sakura somehow. They took off again and reached the river. In the middle was the next marker.
"So do we need to swim over there next?" Sakura asked.
"Not necessarily. None of the members of teams eight and ten was wet. And I doubt they know water-walking yet. So there has to be another way to do this. Look around if there is a clue somewhere." Naruto commanded.
"Naruto, there is a kunai lying here with a red point on the end of the handle." Sasuke said from the direct shore of the river.
"I guess this is a target practice task then. Perhaps we get the marker if we hit the red marker bull's-eye." Naruto mused.
"Okay. I'll do the throw, you cover me. I don't want to be surprised by any nasty ideas Kakashi sensei could have come up with." Sasuke said and Naruto nodded, taking out his kunai, covering for Sasuke.
Sasuke aimed and hit perfectly. In the place where the kunai had been another kunai with a marker tied to it was thrown at.
Naruto looked at the source of the kunai and saw Kotetsu waving from a tree. Sakura collected the kunai and the marker and they continued their quest. The next marker was hidden in a trap field, which they needed to disable before getting the marker, nothing difficult for Naruto.
They had to climb a tree to get the next marker from a bird's nest. They let Sakura get it while Naruto and Sasuke fended off the projectiles that Izumo was throwing at them to keep them from getting their marker.
The next part was crossing a slim log over the river, nothing difficult with the tree-walking exercise. The next marker was harder to get. It was down in a pitfall full of hungry foxes.
Naruto solved the problem by having Sasuke secure his ankles, hanging down from the log over the pitfall and distracting the foxes with a dead rabbit he had in a storage scroll. When the foxes were done with the rabbit, Naruto was already up long ago.
This obstacle was followed by a crawling course where the genin had to get a marker from under a series of nets.
Getting the marker from above wouldn't have worked as the net was made from metal and at the ends lightning seals had been installed that would be triggered if they tried to cheat on this task.
Definitely Kakashi sensei's idea. Naruto being the one to be fastest got the marker while Sasuke and Sakura kept watch. Naruto simply transformed into a squirrel to run under the net and get the marker.
The next obstacle was sneaking through a part of the woods where seven bee hives had been placed around the marker. And as they needed to cross the part to get to the finish line, they all needed to get through and couldn't let one member of the team try it alone.
Sakura had to contain her fear of insects for this part. She repeatedly told herself that it would be over soon. Sadly she didn't look out for her way, tripped and alerted the bee hive next to her.
"Shit!" Naruto commented and sprang into action. If one bee hive was woken, the others would soon follow.
"Sasuke, we need smoke." He commanded.
Sasuke nodded and shot a modified version of his fire jutsu at the dry grass under the bee hive.
It was enough to distract them and slow them down for Naruto making two clones, one taking Sakura, one covering for the team, himself ripping the marker from its position and them all running as fast as they could towards the finish line. The bees close behind them.
Thankfully there seemed to be a barrier of some kind that kept the bees contained in a certain area. Once they crossed the finish line the bees stopped and returned to their hives.
Asuma had taken their time and noted it on a clipboard.
"Okay, you're done. Rest and meanwhile Kakashi, Kurenai and I will take the points the three proctors in the obstacle course have given you and add them to the time points." He said.
The three genin of team seven joined their comrades from the other two teams.
"Got the bees mad at you?" Shikamaru asked lazily.
"Yeah, Sakura tripped directly next to a hive and woke them up. We managed to buy some time by Sasuke smoking them out a bit, but we needed to get out of there fast." Naruto said.
"How did you get by that damn obstacle?" Sakura asked.
"Choji's food rations are good for something. He had honey covered biscuits with him. So Shikamaru decided we would place those biscuits around the hives to distract the bees with something better than us and sneaked through, getting the marker." Ino said proudly.
"And we have an expert on insects on our team. Shino just calmed them down with one of his clan jutsus and we got the marker easily." Kiba proudly stated.
"What did you think was the most difficult obstacle?" Ino asked the others.
"The pitfall with the foxes. The damn beasts were especially wild when Akamaru and I passed their pitfall. Hinata got a few bad scratches from them." Kiba answered.
"For us it was the net. It took so damn long to get the marker from under there." Choji said.
"That was no problem for us. I had Akamaru get it. He is small enough to not have any problems with such an obstacle." Kiba answered. "How did you solve that obstacle?" He asked team seven.
"Naruto transformed into a squirrel and got the marker easily that way." Sasuke answered.
Shino and Shikamaru wondered about that. Wasn't the transformation jutsu only an illusion? Perhaps there was an advanced version Naruto knew. With him everything was possible.
Finally their senseis and the three chunin came towards them.
"Okay, we have got the marks Iruka, Kotetsu and Izumo gave you. Totally team seven got sixteen points. Team eight comes to nineteen points and team ten to twenty points. The reasons for the results will be discussed with your jonin senseis tomorrow." Kakashi said.
He was a bit disappointed about the marks of his team, but he had expected them to do even worse with this type of exercise. There had been a huge focus on teamwork and that was definitely a weakness of his team.
"Hah, we won!" Ino cried jubilantly.
She hadn't expected to win, but obviously there had been other criteria than just being fast and getting the tasks done.
Sasuke didn't look happy that his team had come out last. He hated losing. He would need to see what the report from Kakashi would entail tomorrow. Perhaps that last obstacle with the bees had been to their disadvantage.
...
In the briefing about the test, team seven found out that the reason the other two teams had been marked better than them was that teams eight and ten had showed better teamwork and more consideration how to solve the tasks.
It had been a team decision. In team seven Naruto had mainly given the commands and the others had followed. While they had shown some teamwork in certain tasks like the fox-pit or the bird's nest, in others they hadn't.
The bees also didn't look good in their stats. It had been a stealth exercise and with them being forced to forego stealth that had been marked down. Their time had been the best of all teams, but that hadn't been the main focus, but brought their points up a bit.
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