Soul of the Seal: The Ninja Adventures by MrDust
Anime » Naruto Rated: T, English, Adventure & Friendship, Naruto U., Kyuubi/Kurama, Words: 221k+, Favs: 1k+, Follows: 1k+, Published: Feb 23, 2008 Updated: Dec 27, 2009
Chapter 8: SOTS,1,02,01
(AN: For disclaimer, see my profile.)
SOTS-1-02-01
Soul of the Seal - Story 1 - Arc 2 - Chapter 1
Arc 2 - "Everybody Stand And Do The Wave!"
Chapter 1 - "The First Step Into Darker Waters"
It had been a rather difficult and strange couple of months for squad seven.
It was difficult, almost solely due to the very chaotic and stressed way that the team had started out in the first place. Things had started out tense, and had remained so. Conversation was always a bit awkward. It might have seemed to an outside observer, that Sasuke was either sulking (in his emoistic fashion), or he was in denial about something. He said as little as possible to Naruto or Sakura, usually only about specific instructions given by Kakashi concerning training or missions, or something along those lines.
Sakura didn't like the fact that Sasuke seemed to be actively avoiding her as much as he was Naruto. She was genuinely trying not to snap at Naruto over every little thing, trying to always keep in mind that he was the reason she was a genin. But she was a little confused that Naruto didn't seem to show the same level of ability that he had during their genin exam, nor did he ever discuss the training or studying he did on his own when not with the team. If anything, he seemed a bit slower than normal, as if something were weighing him down, even when he wasn't wearing that boulder he called a backpack. She tried to ask him about it once or twice, but Naruto just said that when they were on duty as a team, they should all stick to what Kakashi covered, so as to minimize confusion or criss-crossing of instructions. It was a argument that made some sense, but Sakura still didn't like the feeling that Naruto was hiding something important, that she felt he should have been willing to share with the 'team'.
Naruto was getting more and more frustrated as time went on. He had thought that being an active duty ninja now meant that his training would become more efficient and intense. He thought that they would be spending days on end doing heavy sparring and tactical studying. But it was turning out to be the opposite. The team would waste precious hours waiting for their habitually late sensei, only to barely get any work done. Their sparring was often short and light that Naruto never broke a sweat, if you could even call it sparring, as they never faced each other. They would only take turns against a disinterested Kakashi who would always call it off before it got serious, or against training dummies that offered no useful feedback information as a live opponent would. These so-called 'team training' sessions would take up about half the day, or more, if you counted the time it took for Kakashi to slowly walk his team from place to place.
What made these weeks strange, however, was, for Naruto at least, due to the fact that he kept feeling like Kakashi was always staring at him with a strange look. But this was a little hard to confirm, of course, since only barely one quarter of the jounin's face was visible. Whatever it was, it made Naruto nervous at times, and made him unwilling to do any of his own personal training in front of the others, for reasons he couldn't understand. But Kyaena agreed that it was best, as long as Naruto was stuck with such an unfavorable group, to follow the ninth ninja principle: The most dangerous opponent is the one you know the least about. Kyaena reasoned, that if something bad did happen between Naruto and his 'team', the less they knew about his true level of skill, the better.
