3 Chapter 3: Guts, Training, and Survival

Naruto panted as he collapsed onto the ground. His clones had dispersed slowly throughout the evening and into the night. Which each dispersal, he had taken on the accumulated fatigue of each clone. On the bright side, he'd mastered walking on water in a couple hours. When he thought back to the time when he first learned, it hadn't taken him too long as he had already been through so many things. Making him used to expending his chakra. He grinned as he remembered how he met Jiraiya. Then he slapped his cheeks. "Alright, time to get back into it!" He told himself.

He had come to the realization earlier today that his chakra control felt off to him. He could still perform his techniques, but they didn't feel as stable as they should. When he thought about it, he couldn't come up with an answer right away. So in the end, he decided to train his chakra control to work out any discomfort he felt. Which caused him to remember the tree climbing exercise, as well as Sakura's explanation back then. He couldn't remember much from it, but he did remember her explaining how chakra was a combination of both physical energy and spiritual energy, and in the right ratio, would form chakra. Then it dawned on him, his spiritual energy was the same as his soul and mind, which came from the future, whereas his physical energy came from his body which was from his genin days.

Then it was no wonder his chakra control felt off to him. His physical energy was lacking greatly compared to his spiritual energy. Luckily, all he had to do was push his body beyond his limits through training to fix it. This realization greatly relieved him, because he was worried that something might be wrong with him.

He then pulled out a rubber ball. Earlier, after he had finished water walking, he sent out several clones to buy water balloons and rubber balls. When they had returned, he had begun training to do the rasengan. For the water balloon portion, he had grabbed one and tried it with a clone how he did it in the past and thr ballon popped like he thought it would. But this time, he wanted to be able to pull it off without clones. So he'd spent several hours with the clones trying to make it pop with just his chakra control. But just like with his rasenshuriken training in the past, he was slowly making progress.

He gripped the rubber ball and concentrated. Naruto gathered the chakra in his body into his palm forming the shape of a ball. Then he began to spin it in every direction, trying to compress it as it spun around and around. He started the rotations slow at first, slowly increasing the speed. Faster and faster he thought, then, the rubber ball popped. All the Narutos stared at the remains of the ball in his stand. Then they erupted into cheers, as they had finally done it. Naruto sat down against a tree as his clones dispersed. He looked up into the sky at the full moon. Just you wait, he thought, I'm gonna show you all something really surprising, he grinned to himself.

After about half an hour, Naruto jumped up and created 5 clones. So this is all I can create for now, hmm, how am I gonna pull off the survival training? He wondered, then he was struck by an idea. Soldier pills, that's it, he thought, during his training for the rasenshuriken, Sakura had made him a ton of soldier pills to keep him going. He then sent a clone to purchase them, and half an hour later, the clone returned with a bag of soldier pills. Naruto popped one into his mouth and swallowed it. After a few minutes, he felt full of energy and chakra. This is great, he thought, with this, I can complete my training easily.

He then got read and looked at a tree nearby, test number 1 he thought. Then he began gathering his chakra and rotating it in the palm of his hand. soon, a rasengan had formed and he thrust his palm forward, hitting the tree. He then felt the tree twist before breaking and spiraling away in front lf him. Naruto jumped up, pumping his fist into the air with excitement. He finally truly mastered this technique, now all he needed to do was practice using it in combat. He then instructed his clones to spar with him and each other. There were two sets of clones fighting each other leaving him with the 5th one. While he'd prefer sparring against someone else, this was also a way for him to check out his own weaknesses and improve upon them as well as see ways to counter his moves. That way, he would have an idea of what to expect.

Hours passed as he sparred with his clones, and soon, there was only him and one other clone left. The two clashed in mid air as the clone disappeared and Naruto fell to the ground exhausted. He was covered in sweat and had bruises and cuts all over. Breathing heavily, he pushed himself up off the ground. He grabbed another soldier pill and swallowed it. He knew he had about an hour left before he had to meet up with everyone. So he decided to end his training and clean up. He went back to his apartment and threw his clothes into a basket and took a shower. Once he got out, he put on some fresh clothes.

Naruto wore his orange jumpsuit again, even though he grew out of it, it still held a lot of memories that were dear to him. After getting dressed, he looked in the mirror and made sure he had everything. Then he left his room and headed towards the training field where he saw Sakura and Sasuke waiting for him.

He walked towards them and greeted, before sitting down nearby. He knew Kakashi wasn't going to show up for a while longer, so he had some time to kill. He then looked over at Sakura and thought about what he said earlier. He didn't mean to be rude, but he couldn't help getting angry.

"Hey, Sakura... I'm sorry for snapping at you yesterday." Naruto sheepishly grinned as he scratched his head.

Sakura looked at him surprised for a moment before nodding her head. "It's alright Naruto, she said, you weren't exactly wrong about what you said." She had spent some time thinking about it the night before, and while going over, she realized he was right. She didn't have anything to really offer towards the team. She had always just followed the crowd and her crush towards Sasuke. Finally, after being placed on the same team as him, she felt like she was on cloud nine. But then it was Naruto who had brought her back down, and realized that she had never taken any of thjs seriously like she should have. Then, when Kakashi had snapped at her as well, it really drove reality home to her.

While there was nothing she could do about the past, she had decided that she was going to get serious about training as a kunoichi. She was determined not to slow the team down in any way.

Naruto looked grateful to Sakura, he didn't like being at odds with his friends. Then he got up and stood in front of the two.

"You know, if we're going to be a team from now on, I think we should have a rough idea of who's going to be what in our formation." Naruto grinned at the two while he spoke.

Both Sasuke and Sakura looked at him, wondering what he was getting at.

"Well, if we just do whatever we feel like, then we won't have any coordination, and then we'd risk getting in each other's way when completing a mission. So if we each have a role we focus on, we'll be less likely to make a mistake in our teamwork." Naruto stressed the word teamwork when he spoke.

He knew he shouldn't give away too much, afterall, being told the answer and figuring it out on your own were two different things. He also felt that figuring it out on your own was better, and made the lesson stick more. But he had no issues about giving hints.

"For example, I'm primarily a close range fighter, so I would he best suited to getting the enemies attention on me, if Sasuke were to also try to do close range fighting, we'd be stepping on each other's toes before we could defeat the enemy. At least for now since this is the first time we've worked together." Naruto went on.

The two nodded finding sense in Naruto's line of thinking. Then, Sasuke looked up at Naruto. "So I should probably be in the mid range, since I have my fireball jutsu, I can support you with shurikens and while you distract the enemy, I can use my fireball jutsu to blast them from behind."

Naruto nodded, agreeing with Sasuke, he was actually about to suggest it himself. However, he hesitated because he didn't want to deal with Sasuke's pride, as it would only hinder their teamwork, so Sasuke suggesting it himself was perfect for his plans. Then Naruto looked at Sakura. At this point, Sakura had already caught on to the team's positioning and knew all that was left for her was the rear support.

"Then I'll be in the back supporting you guys as you fight, I can create traps that can provide you guys with the right openings." She finished.

The two boys nodded at her, and while they were busy discussing possible formations, Kakashi was sitting on a tree watching them.

Hmm, I could probably pass them all right now based on what they're doing... but, real life situations don't always go as planned, so I should still test them. At least they're on the right track, he smiled to himself. He then flickered and appeared near the trio.

"Good, you're all here-" He began.

"Ahh! Where have you been? You're late! I couldn't properly dry my hair this morning because I was afraid of running late myself!" Sakura held an accusatory finger towards Kakashi.

"Now now, I was lost on the road of life and then I saw a black cat so I had to go the long way around." He said smiling.

Sakura was still fuming, but she decided to let it go.

"Now then, today we will be conducting a simple survival exercise. Your goal as a team is simple, collect these two bells." Kakashi said, holding out two silver bells in his hand.

"Whoever is able to get a bell before 12 will pass and officially become a genin." Kakashi smiled.

"Hold on a second, there's only two bells and three of us, what happens to the one that doesn't get a bell?" Sakura asked.

"It's quite simple really, whoever doesn't get a bell, will be sent back to the academy." Kakashi said.

Both Sasuke and Sakura looked shocked, while Naruto on the other hand just smiled to himself. He knew this was coming, but he still found it funny to watch.

"Now, when I say, we will begin the exercise. Good luck. Begin!" Kakashi spoke.

When he looked around, he saw that Sasuke and Sakura were able to hide themselves well. However, when he looked back, he saw Naruto staring him down.

"You seem to be having trouble understanding the point of this exercise." Kakashi said scratching his head. He had felt previously in his few interactions with the group that Naruto was the more mature one, but he guessed he was wrong. This fit more with what the report had told him about Naruto at least.

Naruto glared at Kakashi before pointing and shouting. "I'm more than enough to take you down"

He then ran towards Kakashi and created two clones. He then tried to leg sweep Kakashi, who simply jumped above it. Then the first Naruto clone Jumped above him, swinging the second at Kakashi, trying to land some hits on him. Kakashi blocked both of the clones fists and swung him around throwing the clone at the other. Both clones dispersed into smoke while Naruto through shurikens aimed at both of sides of Kakashi who used a substitution jutsu to evade it.

Kakashi was impressed, while still rough around the edges, Naruto was excellent in hand to hand combat. He had a good grasp of how to use his clones and the use of shurikens to create surprise attacks. He then reached up from underground and grabbed Naruto. But then he noticed something wrong, Naruto was wrapped in paper bombs as he grinned down at Kakashi. The next thing anyone knew was the paper bombs exploding, creating a huge smoke screen that covered the area. Kakashi had just barely been able to get away in time before it went off. That Naruto, he thought, he was never there to begin with, he left a clone behind to figure out my fighting style. He was truly impressed with Naruto's ingenuity with his clones. To go as far as to use a clone as a suicide bomber.

Naruto opened his eyes as he processed the experience his clones had gathered about Kakashi and relayed the information to Sasuke and Sakura who were beside him. The two stared wide eyed at Naruto, he was like a completely different person from the prankster kid back at the academy. They then began devising a plan to corner Kakashi, who at the time was reevaluating Naruto in his mind.

"Alright, so our best bet is to get Kakashi to lower his guard down, that way, we can surprise him and get the jump on him." Naruto said. "With that said, I think Sakura, you should lay out some traps, at the very least, we can annoy Kakashi-sensei with them."

Sakura nodded her.

"Sasuke, you analyze Kakashi-sensei and wait for a chance to get him with your fireball jutsu, while I rush him and keep him on his toes. That way, we don't give him a chance to think." Naruto finished.

Sasuke nodded his head as well.

"Alright, so we'll set up the traps here, and lure Kakashi-sensei here, and with any luck, we'll get those bells." Naruto said confidently.

"But wait, Naruto, there are only two bells, what are we going to do?" Sakura asked, this question had been bothering her for awhile. She didn't want any lf them to be sent back. Sasuke was quiet as well.

"Don't worry about it Sakura, if we focus too much on the bells, then there's a chance none of us will pass this exercise." Naruto grinned at them.

What he said seemed to have calmed Sakura down some. Then the two of them looked at Naruto with determination.

"Right, let's get started!" Naruto exclaimed, he was ready to give Kakashi one big surprise.