Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Imouto Trilogy :: Hatake :: Even After All These Years ❯ Chapter 7: The Team ( Chapter 7 )

A/N: This is the last of the chapters that I have up on FF.net. That means that from now on the updates will be coming every week, usually on Fridays. Anyways, this chapter is mainly just more of Naruto's training, though with some twists thrown in (grins) It'll be with the next chapter that the main plot of the story will start. You'll see (cackles) Anyways, please read, review, and enjoy! Ja ne!

 

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

 

Claimer: I do own Kyomi and the story plot.

 

Thanks to my beta reader, BattleStations!

 

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Even After All These Years

 

Chapter 7

The Team

 

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Nervously, Naruto crouched down inside of a bush. It had been two weeks since he had received his new outfit and begun his stealth training, and he was beginning to curse whoever decided that shinobi would be masters of stealth. Learning the jutsu had been no problem, but it was what came after that that Naruto hated. Hearing a snuffling only few feet away, the blonde shrunk back even further, sweat running down the side of his face as he focused on keeping the three stealth jutsu that he had been taught up around him.

 

Naruto had done surprisingly well with Kakuremino no Jutsu (Cloak of Invisibility Technique), so after only about half a week Kyomi had begun to teach him Muon no Jutsu (Soundless Technique) and Miotosu Nioi no Jutsu (Fail to Notice Smell Technique). It was also then that Kyomi had begun to summon her Ninken. Hiding from summoned dogs that had been trained from a very young age to track shinobi was not something that Naruto would wish on anyone. It was probably one of the most taxing training that he'd ever been through, worse even than Kyomi's physical conditioning--which he still had to do everyday--, which was probably why he still hadn't been able to completely master the three jutsu, even after two weeks.

 

The jutsu themselves weren't that difficult to learn--at least not for him considering his massive chakra reserves and relatively excellent chakra control--but keeping them up was difficult. Even he couldn't keep them up for more than five-ten minutes at a time. Because of that Naruto had to learn when to keep up the jutsu, when to drop the jutsu, and which ones to put up at which times. For example, most of the time he had to keep up the scent jutsu, but the invisibly jutsu he could drop if he was in thick foliage or not anywhere near the Ninken. He could also drop the sound jutsu if he was standing still or, again, no where near the dogs. He currently had all three of the jutsu because one of the Ninken was not three feet from his hiding place.

 

Speaking of said summon, Naruto heard the rustling of foliage slowly approaching him. He tensed, knowing that the dog was going to find him soon as it usually did. The Ninken tracked his scent and trail through the woods, following just signs of his passing where his scent disappeared, so eventually they always found him. With the time however, Naruto was learning how to show almost no signs of his passing. This also meant that he was getting better at tracking other things himself. He had come pretty close to finding Kyomi the other day with her leaving almost no signs for him to follow!

 

Abruptly the Ninken, who couldn't have been more than a foot from the bush Naruto was in, turned and began moving in another direction. Naruto waited several minutes after the dog's departure, staining for any sounds, before letting out a shaky breath and dropping all three of his jutsu. He raised a shaky hand and wiped his forehead. He couldn't believe that he had actually managed to outwit one of Kyomi's Ninken. It was the first time that he had ever managed to do so.

 

Slowly, and carefully, Naruto stood up. He glanced around warily before slowly stepping out of the bush he was in. Immediately, a large spotted brown and gray dog leapt in front of him, growling. Naruto groaned and hung his head. Ah, man! And he had lasted so long too...

 

Sighing and running a hand down his face, Naruto glared at the Ninken. "Alright, alright, take me back to Kyomi-sensei." Naruto could swear that the dog smirked at him before turning around and leaping into the foliage. Still, glaring, Naruto followed.

 

A few minutes later Naruto arrived back to a small clearing in the center of Training Ground #38, the forested training ground that he and Kyomi were currently using, and in said clearing stood Kyomi. The Ninken that had found Naruto was no where in sight; Kyomi had probably already dismissed her pack.

 

As Naruto approached her, Kyomi smirked. "Good job, Hige-kun," she congratulated him. "You lasted longer today that you ever have before." Naruto blinked in surprise. Kyomi was praising him? That was something that she almost never did, to the point that Naruto didn't expect it at all, even when he did fairly well. Naruto immediately flushed as the words sunk in, and then scratched the back of his head sheepishly, at a loss for words. The two then spoke for a couple of minutes about Naruto's performance before their conversation paused again. As this point Naruto spoke up, deciding to voice a question that had been on his mind for a while.

 

"Hey, Kyomi-sensei," he began. "Why are you focusing so much on my stealth?"

 

"Well," Kyomi grinned. "It's because of your style. The way you fight is basically 'use brute force to tear your opponents apart'. Now if you increase you stealth skills to match your offensive skills, then the two styles combine and you become one hell of a shinobi." Kyomi grinned again. "And since most shinobi only focus on being just offensive or just defensive, this will help you out a lot."

 

Naruto nodded, "Okay, but do you really have to use your Ninken everyday?" The blonde then hung his head.

 

A decidedly satisfied smirk came onto Kyomi's face, but before she could even open her mouth to reply a whooshing noise was heard and a black cloaked ANBU landed in the clearing, right next to Kyomi. The ANBU bowed to the kunoichi, holding out a scroll before him.

 

"Ookami-sama," the ANBU greeted.

 

Nodding in reply, Kyomi snatched up the scroll and opened it. The black cloaked ANBU then disappeared, his task complete. Kyomi quickly scanned through the contents of the scroll, before nodding to herself.

 

"Sorry, Hige-kun," she said as she rolled the scroll back up. "But it looks like we won't be able to spar today; the Hokage has requested my presence. You can go ahead and head home now." Naruto nodded and then, without waiting for a further reply, Kyomi disappeared with a flash of handseals and a quiet poof of smoke.

 

Naruto wasn't quite sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed. Sure he was going to miss out on being beaten into the ground, but then he was also going to miss out on a chance to train and get stronger...Shrugging it off, Naruto began to make his way out of the training ground; after all, there was nothing that he could do about it now.

 

Just a few minutes later, Naruto entered the village. He immediately took to the rooftops, carefully maneuvering away from any other people. Over the last few weeks he had gotten pretty good at this and he was almost positive that no one had recognized him yet, except perhaps for the ANBU.

 

Abruptly sensing another person in the corner of his peripheral vision, Naruto leapt down from the roof he was on and onto a lower balcony. Still continuing forward, Naruto sharply turned a corner and waited beneath an overhanging ledge. He heard the shinobi pass by and then waited about thirty more seconds until the sounds of their passing had completely disappeared. Only then did Naruto come out, leap back onto the rooftops, and continue on his way.

 

All the way home, Naruto never used any of his stealth jutsu. He never did; it was kind of like a personal challenge to himself to get to and from training unrecognized using nothing but his own skill. And, fortunately, he had yet really to need to use the jutsu either. Naruto swelled with pride at this thought; a month ago he never would have been able to do this, especially with his old orange outfit. The blonde was only just beginning to realize how much of a damper on his skills the jumpsuit had been, and yet he still had to wear it everyday when visiting with his Genin cell.

 

Lost in thought, it was only a couple of minutes later that Naruto arrived at his apartment building. Silently, he made his way into the building and toward his apartment. Reaching the door, Naruto dug his key out of one of his pockets, unlocked the door, and then sealed it shut again behind himself. Using his chakra, Naruto activated some trap that he had set up around the entrances to his home; Kyomi had gone over traps one day a little while ago when they'd had some extra time, and Naruto had put the knowledge to good use. Most of the traps were prank style--as he didn't want to get into trouble for hurting anyone--but they were also most than enough to ward off anyone who tired to break in from doing it a second time.

 

Throwing his keys haphazardly on his little table, Naruto began to make his way toward his small kitchen setup to make some dinner, but then froze when he saw what his keys had landed next to: a scroll that certainly hadn't been their that morning when he'd left. Sighing as he guessed what it was, the blonde slowly made his way back to the table, and then picked up the scroll and opened it. It read:

 

Hige-kun,

 

Sorry, but Tsunade-sama has called me out for another mission. It's only A-class, so I should be back in just a couple of days. Tell Kakashi-nii-kun that I'm on a mission when you see him tomorrow, will ya? I had to leave quickly and wasn't able to let him know. Oh, and don't forget to keep up with your physical condition while I'm gone or I will pound your ass into the ground when I get back.

 

On another note, I have decided that you're doing very well with your stealth training, so you're going to be doing a kind of a "final exam" while I'm gone. If you succeed not only will I start you on learning a new jutsu, but I'll also have a special surprise for you too.

 

Here's what you'll have to do:

 

In the middle of the night you'll have to enter the Inuzuka compound undetected and leave a large--and it better be a damn good one--prank for them before leaving. No one must sense that anyone is there while you are doing this and they cannot figure out that it was you who pulled the prank. This means that you can't do any type of prank that you've done before. Oh, and don't tell anyone--not even Kakashi-kun--about this; the Godaime will have my head if she finds out that I had you do a prank as a part of your training.

 

Well, good luck, be creative, and have fun!

--Kyomi

 

Naruto sighed again. Yep, he'd figured when he saw the scroll that Kyomi had had to go on a mission again. This had happened two times before and, fortunately, both times she hadn't been gone for very long at all. Naruto did, however, grin when he read the part about his "final exam".

 

This was awesome! Not only would he get to start on a new jutsu if he passed--and get something else too, apparently--but the exam itself was something that he loved to do anyway! Naruto's grin took on a slightly vicious quality that was surprisingly similar to Kyomi's own. Because of their extra sharp senses and their dogs themselves, Naruto had never been able to prank that Inuzuka clan.

 

This would be fun.

 

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The next morning Naruto woke up and began to get ready with his mind racing He'd stayed up late last night working on a plan for the upcoming prank and now he was just mentally straightening out the details. He had decided to do the prank tonight. He would go to his team's meeting like he usually did, then, once they parted ways, he'd do his usual physical training before heading out to get the supplies. Then, that night, he'd put his plan into action.

 

Nearly and hour later, after finishing getting ready and going out to eat ramen, Naruto arrived at Training Ground #7 with what appeared to be his usual grin on his face. However, if either of his teammates--who were already there--had looked close they would have noticed the slightly gleeful tint to it. As it was, however neither of them paid any mind to their blonde teammate.

 

Naruto stood quietly on the little red bridge, staring down at the water, like he did every morning. At first his two teammates had been slightly unnerved when Naruto had begun acting quiet in the mornings--which, unknown to them, had been mainly because he was usually so exhausted--but before long they just accepted it as normal and didn't even question him about it.

 

Just then Kakashi arrived. "Morning," he said lazily. Naruto and Sakura greeted him with their normal yell and then Kakashi continued, "We'll be heading over to the mission center again today." Without waiting for a response the silver haired shinobi turned and began walking away and the three Genin quickly followed after him.

 

While they were walking down the street toward the Hokage Tower, Naruto slowly dropped back from where he'd been by Sasuke and Sakura to walk next to Kakashi.

 

"Kakashi-sensei," he murmured quietly. Kakashi's eyes slid around to look at the blonde from the corners of his eyes, though he still held his little orange book up in front of his face. Taking this as a sign that he was listening, Naruto continued. "Kyomi-sensei wanted me to let you know that she was sent on a mission and won't be back for a few days."

 

Kakashi nodded, smiling slightly. He'd probably never tell anyone, but it still felt weird to hear Naruto call Kyomi his sensei. On top of that, Kyomi had never really been the "teaching" type, so that only made it all the stranger. Despite that however, Naruto appeared to be flourishing underneath Kyomi's guidance. This made Kakashi wonder how Kyomi would do as a Jounin sensei, but then he immediately discarded the idea; it took a certain type of person to even survive her training. Kakashi shivered slightly. He knew first hand what her Ninken--whom she'd personally trained--could do, so in a way, he wasn't sure if he even wanted to know exactly how Naruto was going to turn out after an extended period of time under her care.

 

"How," Kakashi began before hesitating. "How is your training going?" Naruto absolutely beamed up at him. The blonde Genin opened his mouth to reply when Sakura suddenly turned around, her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.

 

"Come on, you slow pokes!" she exclaimed. "We're already here!"

 

Sure enough, when the two shinobi looked up they saw the Hokage Tower stretching up above them. Immediately Naruto put a grin on his face. "Well, come on," he said, almost mimicking Sakura as he bounded past his teammates. "Let's go get our mission!"

 

As Naruto passed the two black cloaked ANBU standing guard at the front door, said ANBU inclined their heads almost imperceptibly in recognition towards him. Naruto nodded back ever so slightly, as to not alert his teammates. He still didn't understand, however, exactly why they always did that. He knew that being accepted as an apprentice to an ANBU made him special since ANBU almost never did that--though exactly why Kyomi had chosen him he still couldn't understand--but still...Naruto shrugged it off however, like he usually did. Maybe he'd remember to ask Kyomi about it sometime.

 

As Team 7 entered the Mission Center, Naruto immediately waved to Iruka, who was sitting behind one of the desks. The young Academy teacher smiled and waved back before returning to his conversation with the Chuunin next to him. Meanwhile, Kakashi approached Tsunade, who was sitting at another desk not too far away.

 

"Team 7 is here to receive a mission," the lazy Jounin stated, slouching as he stood. Tsunade grunted, randomly chose a scroll from the D-class mission pile, and tossed it to Kakashi, not even looking up from the paperwork that she was doing while handing out missions. She did, however, glance up momentarily to flash a grin at Naruto. Said blonde waved back at her before turning around and bouncing after Kakashi--who had already begun to leave--with a stoic Sasuke and an ever fawning Sakura trialing along behind.

 

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Several hours later Naruto wiped his forehead as he took a drink from his water bottle, having just finished up with his physical training for the day. He leaned against a nearby tree to catch his breath for a minute. Once he was feeling a bit more refreshed, Naruto packed away his water and began to make his way out of the training ground.

 

Like usual, Naruto was in Training Ground #38. Kyomi liked to use this one--or ones like it-- for his stealth training because, throughout the forested area, the foliage wasn't very thick, meaning that he had to work harder to stay hidden. Another good thing about being Kyomi's apprentice, Naruto thought, was that he had access to almost all of the training grounds; he was fairly sure that only the ANBU ones were off-limits for him. Hell, he could probably even go into the Forest of Death if he wanted!

 

As he began to approach the village, Naruto paused and then began to run through a couple of handseals; if he was going to be buying supplies for a prank that no one was supposed to know that he did, then no one could know that it was him who bought said supplies. And so, with a quiet murmur of "Henge no jutsu (Transformation Technique)", a brown haired, black eyed young man stood in place of Naruto. The former blonde was also now wearing the nondescript clothing of a villager and his hitai-ate was no where to be seen. Grinning, Naruto continued on into the village.

 

Naruto headed straight for a shop that he knew carried the supplies that he was looking for. Entering inside he picked up a basket and then began getting the supplies, along with a few groceries. A couple of minutes later Naruto turned the corner of an isle sharply, and bumped into someone. It was only his quick reflexes--perhaps dodging kunai and shuriken, which had recently been added to the mix, for an hour every day did help after all--in grabbing the other person's arm to steady them both that saved them both from sprawling all over the floor. Looking down at the person as he let go of their arm, Naruto was surprised to see that it was Tenten whom he had run into.

 

Tenten smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going," she said.

 

Suddenly Rock Lee appeared next to Tenten. "Yosh!" he said exuberantly. "You have quick reflexes of youth!"

 

Tenten immediately flushed. "Erm, sorry about him," she apologized, quickly leading Lee away by his elbow before Naruto could even open his mouth to say anything to either of them.

 

Naruto stood blinking in surprise at their sudden departure for a moment, before remembering that he was under a henge and so they hadn't recognized him. He shook his head in amusement and then turned to continued on, when he suddenly caught the words of Tenten's and Lee's conversation picking up again.

 

"Anyway, Lee," Tenten was saying. "I'm sure that Kyomi-san..."

 

Naruto's head whipped around so fast to where the two Genin had gone that he heard a crack. Unfortunately, the two had already turned another corner and their voices were lost in the din of the store. Naruto hesitated for a moment, wanting to go after then and find out why they were talking about Kyomi--and how they even knew her in the first place--but then he decided against it. After all, he thought as he began to walk in the opposite direction, he had his "final" to worry about.

 

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It was one o'clock in the morning when Naruto left his house. He was wearing his black outfit and had a medium-sized drawstring bad slung over his shoulder. He carefully locked his apartment door behind himself, and then took to the rooftops, being twice as careful as he usually was about being discovered. He couldn't screw up, not tonight.

 

Naruto made a beeline towards the Inuzuka compound and arrived at his destination in just about ten minutes. Cautiously he crouched down on the edge of a roof across from the outer wall surrounding the dog clan's compound. He stayed like that, frozen in place, for five minutes, when he was sure that he knew how the guard system worked. Naruto then flashed through three different strings of handseals and turned invisible, soundless, and odorless. He then quickly moved into the compound, easily sliding past the guards.

 

Once inside, Naruto let out a sigh of relief. He knew, however, that he had to work quickly in order to get back out without being detected. The blonde pulled the bag that was slung over his shoulder onto the ground, drew it open, and then pulled out a few choice items. Turning to face the main wall of the Inuzuka building, Naruto grinned, and then got to work.

 

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The next morning Naruto woke up tired. Granted he wasn't as exhausted as he usually was because he hadn't done any personal training with Kyomi, but that was beside the point. Groggily, Naruto yawned and began to go through his usual morning activates. He got past his shower and up to putting on his orange jumpsuit before the memories of last night's activates fully caught up with him. At that point, Naruto grinned.

 

He had managed to get through setting up the prank with only minimal problems. At one point he had almost been caught by the dogs, their natural instincts alerting them to someone's presence even with the three jutsu on Naruto. Fortunately, standing frozen in place for nearly five minutes straight had managed to convince them that no one was there. For the first time, Naruto was actually glad of the intense stealth training that Kyomi had put him through by having him stalked by Ninken; he was sure that he wouldn't have been able to stand so still for so long before the said training.

 

For the most part, after that the prank had gone smoothly. Within fifteen minutes he was out of the compound, no one the wiser that he had even been there it the first place. It was also during the "exam" however that it really started to dawn on Naruto exactly what his stealth training was doing for him. After all that Kyomi had put him through, he'd now be able to easily complete almost any assassination mission or mission to steal something. He'd effortlessly be able to enter into just about any area, get to his target, and slip back out. He was sure that his stealth skills were easily up to Jounin level.

 

'And yet,' he thought with a grumble. 'It still can't find Kyomi when she hides from me.' Naruto sighed. Oh well, that just meant that he needed to work on his tracking skills some more. He wondered if Kyomi would give him a "final exam" for tracking too...

 

Shrugging off his thoughts, Naruto concentrated on finishing getting ready. Once he was indeed ready to leave his apartment, the blonde picked up his key from its place on his table, tucked it into the bottom of one of his pouches, and slipped outside. As he walked down the road, heading toward the Ichiraku Ramen stand, Naruto paid close attention to the conversations around him, hoping to hear something about how his prank had gone off.

 

For the first couple of minutes, he didn't hear anything that he was looking for, but then he caught a few spurts from different villagers.

 

"...Did you hear about what happened? Supposedly..."

 

"...and when they woke up it was already like that! ...You should have heard how..."

 

"...the walls were covered in paintings of cats! Can you imagine that? The walls of the dog clan were..."

 

"...all of the dogs' fur was dyed hot pink. They know that it wasn't done via a jutsu, but have no idea how someone could have done that without waking the dogs. Still, I think..."

 

"...it's absolutely unbelievable. To think that someone with enough skill to get in and out of a clan's compound undetected..."

 

"...mustaches drawn on all of the dogs! And some had eyebrows done too! They think that..."

 

"...somehow there was itching powder put in the entire water supply of the compound. That means that in the morning, all the people who used water--which is just about everyone..."

 

"...flyers posted on the main doors warning of a flee epidemic..."

 

"...catnip in the clan leaders bed..."

 

"...and then they found out that the dye wouldn't come out..."

 

"...Oh, you can bet that it'll be the talk of the village! All of the other clans are tightening their security so that..."

 

"...and of course when they went to try to wash the dye out of the dogs fur there was still itching powder in the water so..."

 

"...there are actually 'Beware of Dog' signs all over..."

 

Naruto had to repress a vicious grin from taking over his face and forces himself to continue walking on as though he wasn't hearing anything. It appeared as though his prank had worked. And their reactions were almost exactly as he had predicted. The only thing he needed to find out now was whether or not anyone suspected him of pulling this prank.

 

Naruto continued on for several minutes without hearing anything new, before he finally caught a conversation between two Chuunin standing off to the side.

 

"...so do they know who did it then? I mean surely there must be some clue. They're the dog clan for Kami's sake!" exclaimed the first Chuunin.

 

The second one shook his head. "No," he replied. "At first they thought that it could be the Kyuubi brat," the Chuunin's eyes slid over to Naruto then, not even realizing that the blonde himself was currently listening to them, "But he would never be able to pull something like this without being discovered. Hell, he wouldn't be able to make it within five feet of the compound without everyone noticing!" Both of the Chuunin sneered in cruel amusement.

 

"Well," the first Chuunin continued. "If that's ruled out, then who could it be? It's obviously someone who's very skilled, probably at least Jounin rank considering that they outwitted the whole Inuzuka clan without being noticed, but then who of that rank would pull something like this?"

 

At this point Naruto tuned the two Chuunin out. Good, this meant that no one suspected him. Naruto's grin widened slightly as he placed his hands behind his head. He was sure that he'd passed the exam and, past that, Kyomi was sure get a kick out of this whole thing.

 

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Preview of Chapter 8: The Katana

 

"So someone caught wind that this attempt would be made, eh?" she murmured. "I figured that something like this would happen." Despite the fact that she was facing an ANBU, the kunoichi didn't seemed to be at all concerned. She seemed completely at ease in fact! The kunoichi continued to look at Kyomi and seemed to sense the unasked question hanging in the air. "Oh, don't worry," the shadow kunoichi said with a smirk in her voice. "Your jutsu are working just fine. I just have other ways of sensing you." The kunoichi reached behind her back and pulled out a gleaming scythe with a black metal handle. "In fact, it's really too bad that I was the one you had to run into." The kunoichi then lowered into a fighting stance. "I hope you said goodbye to your family before you left."

 

Kyomi's reaction was immediate. She dropped the scent jutsu, not needing it, but kept the other two up. At the same time she pulled her katana out of it's sheathe and leapt and the other kunoichi, wanting to incapacitate her before things went any further. Said kunoichi put her scythe up before her, blocking Kyomi's strike with the metal handle of her weapon. Kyomi quickly spun away and struck again, only to be blocked again. As Kyomi stepped back, the shadow kunoichi took the time to swing her scythe forward. Had Kyomi not flipped backward at the last moment the strike would have cleanly lopped her head off her shoulders.