As the sun began to set, Sasuke began to speak.
"Can we beat Raito and his team?"
Naruto replied, "Do we have a choice? We know he wants the rank of chunin. We can't let him get ahead of us, especially with Kakashi sensei swearing to grow stronger."
Sasuke grinned and then said, "You're right. But I need my Sharingan to do that. I don't think I can match-"
"Sasuke.. You don't need a dojutsu to be strong. Look at all the shinobi who grew strong without a sharingan. The Yondaime, the Sandaime, and even our own sensei have no dojutsu and yet they are hailed as the strongest shinobi."
Sasuke's eyes widened. He'd always assumed that the Sharingan was necessary if he was gonna grow into a capable shinobi. But as he thought about Naruto's words, he found them to ring true. He could learn without a Sharingan, and he would need to.
"You're right, Naruto. I don't need the Sharingan."
Sakura found the two boys smiling and skipping rocks against the water. Both were relaxed, and both were unbothered by anything going on in her mind. She stood there for a minute, deciding what to say to her teammates.
She spoke, gaining no outstanding reaction, "Naruto-san. I'm sorry, I've treated you unfairly and not given you due respect. Sasuke-kun, I'm sorry that I've burdened you and the team. From now on, I want us to be cohesive and strong together. We can rise even higher than the Sannin did if we try hard enough."
Naruto grinned and replied, "Alright, Sakura-san. That's what I like to hear."
Naruto stood up alongside Sasuke, and the three teammates interlocked their fingers. It was humorous as they did it perfectly without prior practice.
The three genin yelled at the same time, "Greater than the Sannin!"
---
Kakashi and his team were in a forest near Tazuna's house. The genin were sitting down, gathered around their standing sensei.
Kakashi spoke, "Alright, I'd like to ask again. What are your dreams and hopes for the future? This time, I need you guys to tell me what steps you have to take to get there."
Naruto immediately began, giving his teammates no time, "I still want to be Hokage Kakashi-sensei. I think to do that, I have to earn the rank of jonin, and do something awesome, like winning a cool battle."
Kakashi immediately replied, "I agree that you need the rank of Jonin; however, there is no current war for you to fight in. So you need better stepping stones, and I mean that in the plural sense. I'd think about this as we continue to protect Tazuna-san and Wave Country."
To everyone's surprise, Sakura was the next to speak, "Sensei, I think I want to be one of the elite jonin in the village. To do that, I'll need to become a chunin, and to do that, I'll need to be a master of the basics, as I don't have any unique abilities. Unless you count chakra control."
Kakashi nodded and let his reply out, "Your steps are much clearer than Naruto's. For you to master the basics, you're going to need to let go of your desire to have an appealing figure for Sasuke. Training requires not just chakra, but normal cellular energy. I'd also suggest mapping out what exactly you mean by the basics, and what you are going to make your specialty."
Sasuke didn't say anything. His goal hadn't changed, and so he didn't have a changed response.
He simply replied, "I still need to avenge my clan and restore it to its former glory. However, I think I'd also like to become the strongest ninja in the village. I don't want the title of Hokage, but being strong is in my Uchiha blood."
Kakashi nodded and replied, "Of course. I'd suggest becoming a jonin as well. Jonins have much more leeway in their actions than a genin or even a chunin can get. To do that, I'd suggest not relying on your Sharingan. That's the mistake most Uchiha make, and I can promise you, even without a sharingan, I have more strength than most chunin teams can manage to muster."
Sasuke nodded. He'd had this conversation with Naruto already, and he was prepared to do exactly as his teacher said.
Kakashi spoke, "To start, then, I want you all to practice chakra control. We'll do this by tree walking," Kakashi walked up a tree, watching his genin's shock. "To do this it requires youneed to put a certain amount of chakra in your feet. Too much and you blow off the tree, too little and you slip off the tree and fall."
The team watched as their teacher walked up and down the tree before tossing three kunai at them. Naruto and Sasuke wasted no time rushing towards the tree and beginning the exercise with a large amount of struggle. Sakura, on the other hand, now that she had decided to focus on her shinobi career, succeeded within the first hour.
Naruto and Sasuke immediately asked her for as many tips as they could get. Sakura obliged and was then assigned to guard Tazuna for the rest of the day as she rested. She did not rest, though, using a wooden piece from the construction site. She practiced her shurikenjutsu and kunai throwing technique.
The next few days went on like this. However, Sakura's training moved on from just climbing the tree to having a Naruto clone throw shuriken at her, which then gave him an idea. From that point on, he used clones to help him practice his chakra control. He finished his training within the day and moved on to Sakura's training. Eventually, when Sasuke finished the next day, their sensei decided to speak to them about more training.
On the pier of Tazuna's house, they watched as their teacher walked on the water.
Once again, Kakashi explained to them the new chakra control technique. This time, Naruto, understanding how his clones could do the work for him, used fifty clones to practice the water walking technique. Sasuke had a problem with his use of the jutsu constantly and said he would begin to lose ground if Naruto had such a helpful jutsu in his arsenal already. Sakura, on the other hand, ignored it and once again mastered the chakra control exercise with ease.
While his students trained, Kakashi did not slack off. He, too, used shadow clones, and while his clones trained, he read his orange book and watched over his students. His clones were split into two groups, one that was practicing using the Sharingan and the other half was practicing one of his thousand jutsus. Kakashi decided after talking with Sakura that he would live up to his moniker and that slacking was not an option.
The first two weeks went by quickly, as the group practiced the two chakra exercises repeatedly and were forced to begin sparring on the two different fronts. On the last day of the two weeks, they'd done well enough to spar without any focus on the tree exercise and were close to doing the same on the water. Kakashi finished mastering the few techniques he'd already copied years ago. All three of them were wind-type jutsu, and so, it would surprise the ninja who would eventually face him.
At the end of those two weeks, Naruto and Sasuke were eating quietly, once in a while throwing verbal jabs, when a small boy appeared at the table. Naruto was grinning like a madman as he ate his fourth bowl of fish soup.
Naruto noticed Inari, and the boy immediately opened his mouth, "You two act like nothing is wrong. Look at you, walking up trees as if that's going to change the state of this country. You can't beat Gato. He has an army on his side, you Konoha children, who know nothing about loss or pain. If you did, you would know that the strong always control the weak…"
Sasuke snorted. Naruto raised an eyebrow, trying to control his anger.
He growled out, "My old sensei died protecting me, I don't know my parents, I know loss. The life of a shinobi is death; the weak should not strive to be weak like you. I mean, look at you, crying and sitting around wallowing in your misery. I've been hated by the very people I mean to protect in the future, yet I don't cry. Why? Because I'm nothing like you, and anyone with any strength would be nothing like you. You're not cool because you're weak…"
Naruto paused, letting a look of disgust form on his face before speaking again.
"No one pities you. You could be trying to do something for your country. No, instead you sit around watching foreigners save your country, because you're too weak to even recognize that strong people were once weak. Go ahead and go back to that pity room you call a bedroom, and for your own good, since a strong wind could blow you over, don't come back out."
Naruto finished. Then he walked out, he knew what he said, and while he wasn't proud of his thinly veiled anger. He wasn't thrilled at the younger boy's lack of internal strength.
He didn't return until the next day.
For the last two weeks of their stay, the team did not get to rest. Kakashi forced them to run from Tazuna's house to the bridge constantly, teaching them how to survey the land. This training was not fun, not even for Naruto. He couldn't use his shadow clones because Kakashi forbade it. So every day they would each get half an hour to run from Tazuna's house to the bridge, and then they would get a thirty-minute break, as they waited for the next teammate. Then they were forced to run back in thirty minutes to tag in the next teammate who was resting at the bridge builder's house.
Kakashi didn't slack off either.
He practiced a few jutsu and tried to return to his anbu physical capabilities. Which was not hard, but he found it a little bit troublesome. Constantly running without a break, he would watch his students while hiding his chakra signature. His shadow clones tried to use the next stage of his Sharingan, but immediately dispelled, as the chakra demand was too high. So Kakashi dedicated all his clones to recovering his copied jutsu, as he found the Mangekyou too much.
It was not long before the mission was close to finishing. One day, Kakashi let them all rest at the bridge and watched over the bridge builder. He himself stayed and read his book comfortably at Tazuna's house.
As the day was reaching its middle point, two people kicked the door off its hinges. Kakashi wasted no time, using a shunshin to appear outside the house. He silently approached behind the two thugs. The two former samurai didn't even get a word out before they were cut down in one foul slice of a kunai.
Kakashi turned around and gave a thumbs-up to Tsunami before leaving a shadow clone for them. He rushed towards the bridge, hoping to arrive fashionably late to whatever was happening at it.