Survival Training
That afternoon team seven had to paint the walls of the new swimming hall of Konoha. And Kakashi insisted that they didn't use ladders to reach the higher parts of the walls, but used tree walking to do it. After one and a half hours the walls were painted and Sakura exhausted. With her small reserves sticking to one place at the wall was really hard. She had hoped that they would be done with missions for today, but Kakashi had already got a follow up mission. He had taken it as it was at the same place as the first mission. The pool needed to be tiled. So after a short break the genin started to tile the walls, starting on the bottom end of the walls.
To Sasuke's surprise Naruto was pretty skilled at doing it. It looked like he had done it before. Unknown to Sasuke and Sakura, Naruto was skilled in many crafts. He needed to be with the civilian craftsmen refusing to do any work for him. So Naruto started on the long sides of the pool. Sasuke and Sakura got the short sides. Naruto had a well working system. He tiled as high as he could reach without a ladder and then constructed a pulley from the ceiling to reach the higher parts of the wall without having to wait for the tile glue to dry. With him using three clones on his side and four on the other long side, it took him three hours to finish the tiling. Sasuke, who had seen the method Naruto used to get to the higher part, had copied it and was finishing about the same time. Sakura was only halfway done with her wall.
As it was already seven and Sakura looked ready to collapse, Kakashi asked Naruto to have two of his clones finish her side. Naruto nodded and took over the upper half of the side. When Naruto's clones were done, Kakashi informed the manager of the hall that the pool was tiled and only needed to have seams filled once the glue had dried. The manager checked the painted walls and the tiled pool and signed Kakashi's mission scrolls.
Kakashi took his genin back to the tower and had them listen to the reports he gave about the missions.
"Okay, tomorrow you won't take a mission as we did two today. Instead I arranged for a sparring session with team ten in the afternoon." Kakashi informed them. "Your morning training will still happen as usual." He body flickered away after that.
The genin walked back to their homes. As it was late not many people were on the streets, most were at home. Naruto walked to his secret home after making sure he wasn't followed. He went inside, made two clones, and went to the shower. His clones started making dinner. He still had the meat of two rabbits in his fridge and his clones had harvested carrots and peas today from his field. They cooked some rice and prepared a sauce before putting everything on a plate. Naruto was just finished putting on fresh clothes when his dinner was ready. So he sat down to eat.
Once he had finished his dinner, he put the plate and glass in the sink and made hundred shadow clones. They all knew their job and got the sealing supplies to start making the seals the Hokage had ordered. Naruto cleaned the plate and the glass, went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and went to bed. His clones would stay up doing his work.
Just after team sevens normal morning run, Sasuke was at three laps around the village now, Sakura still had problems with her two, but Kakashi knew it would take time for the girl to make up for the training she hadn't done at the academy, Kakashi watched his students. He was curious if Sakura would pull through or quit. Both was possible, but if he didn't want to get her killed on a mission, the girl needed to be broken out of her fangirl attitude and delusions of how she could achieve to be a ninja. He was pretty sure her mother bore much of the fault for this. He knew Sakura's father had been one of the civilian casualties in the Kyubi attack and her mother blamed Naruto for that. She had been one of the cruellest members of the council, condemning Naruto to the treatment he had gone through as a child.
Naruto had done five laps in the time Sasuke did three. He himself had run ten laps, being serious about getting to top form as soon as possible. He felt taking over the Hokage position would go a long way to help his sensei's son and also lead Obito's last living relative in the village on the right path. With the resistance seals he wore, his training was more intense. He had planned on asking Gai for sparring matches in a month or so, before that time his team, besides Naruto that was, wouldn't be ready.
He had them continue with their stretching and physical exercises. Once they were done with that around nine, he called them together.
"Okay, team, for today I have planned some special exercises." Kakashi said, getting the attention of his team.
He saw a calm wait and see expression on Naruto's face, a look of attention on Sasuke's with a spark of excitement in the black haired boy's eyes and a suspicious and dreading one on Sakura's face.
"We will start your practical survival training. Sasuke you asked if you would learn to hunt and fish, well, today we will be doing just that. I will take you to a part of the woods where you will try to use the theoretical knowledge you got at the academy to catch your lunch. We will go over how to prepare the animals you get the best way and which plants go well with them." Kakashi said.
He didn't want to exhaust his genin too much before the sparring matches with Asuma's team, but he didn't intend to make it easy for them. If they got a good lunch would solely depend on their success in hunting and fishing. It was an important lesson for a shinobi to learn after all.
Kakashi led his team into a part of the forest six miles away from Konoha. Of course the ninja way by taking to the tree tops. He was content to see that his students were keeping up in formation. As he didn't go a very high speed to not lose Sakura, the boys were assimilating their speed. This formation was a standard one. He took point, Sasuke followed behind him, then Sakura and the end Naruto covered. It was normal for teams. If they were an experienced unit, the position Sakura had normally was the one of the team's medic or generally weakest member. Two strong members front to deflect attacks and the second strongest covering the back against sneak attacks from behind. In teams with Hyuga in them, they normally took the rear position as their byakugan enabled them to perfectly cover the team's backs.
After ten minutes the team reached their destination. Naruto knew this part of the forest. He had hunted here before.
"Okay, I will give you a few hints to where you can find some prey. There is a river a bit to the south west. So that would be the place where you can catch fish. Deer, rabbits, squirrels and birds can be found everywhere hidden in here. I first want to test your individual skills in this area. That means for once, you won't work as a team. After all on missions this kind of task is normally divided between the members of the team. So you all get an hour to catch at least one animal or fish. If you don't manage that, think about ideas what to do about food for lunch, because you only get to eat what you find and catch here. I have taken the liberty to steal your lunchboxes. You will get them back after the sparring session with team ten. So if you don't want to be hungry, I suggest you find food. I will observe you from the shadows, so don't expect to see me at all. Happy hunting." Kakashi said and disappeared.
Naruto copied his movement and left the other two standing there. Sasuke got the idea that he only had one hour to catch something. After asking Kakashi if they would learn how to use the theoretical skills and seeing the way his sensei trained his team he had made sure to read up on the techniques again. Now he was glad he had done so. He took off to the south west. Catching fish would probably be the easiest way to get food. There were some ways to catch fish that didn't take much time. After three minutes Sasuke reached the river. Thankfully it wasn't that big, so building a dam to intercept the fishes would work well enough. He looked for suited wood or stones and came to realize he would have to cut it from the trees mostly. Well, he was a ninja, so getting some branches down wouldn't be a problem.
He quickly walked up a good looking tree and cut four big braches. They wouldn't be enough to stop the water, but manage to keep the fishes in one position long enough for him to strike. Five minutes later his quickly made dam was ready. Now he just had to wait. Thankfully Kakashi sensei had been right and many fishes were coming his way. He stood in the water, keeping still until they were in reach and grabbed them, throwing them onto the shore. He made sure to throw them far enough so that they wouldn't be able to struggle back into the river. When he had six fishes, he walked out of the water and quickly killed the still moving fishes with hits to their necks. He tied them together with a bit of ninja wire and then went looking for some plants he knew would be edible.
He wanted to impress his sensei with his success. He was pretty sure Naruto would also do well in this test, but he didn't intend to fall back too much behind his team-mate. Over the past week he had come to completely rethink his image of Naruto Uzumaki. The boy was nothing like he had given himself at the academy and he wondered just why he had thought it necessary to play the idiot. Naruto wouldn't tell, so he had to find out on his own. But at least his fears to be held back by a weak team had been destroyed after seeing the kind of training Kakashi put them through. Not even the fangirl would be able to stay weak with how Kakashi put them through the grinder. Thank Kami for the old Uchiha bruises and muscle-soreness remedies. He had looked through his clan's scrolls which he had and one had been about them. So the second evening after starting on team seven Sasuke had been busy mixing components fort the salves. They were the only things keeping him functional.
He came upon a hazel bush and it was season for the nuts. He put some shuriken from his pouch on his right leg into the pouch on his back to have space for the nuts. Nuts were good for energy and full of unsaturated fats. After collecting a good number of them, he looked for other plants. Just nuts and fish wouldn't be enough for a meal fitting Kakashi's standards for a good diet after all. He came upon some berry bushes and had to improvise a transport container. Next time he would be ready for something like this. Probably realizing that he needed more variety in his equipment was also part of the exercise. It would be typical for Kakashi. Let his team make mistakes to avoid them in the future. He needed to look up better storage options. Just two pouches wouldn't do at all.
Sakura was in a pinch. She wanted to catch some small animals, but they all noticed her before she could get close enough to hit them with a shuriken or kunai. Building traps had never been her forte and would take too much time. It was also too unsure to catch something in an hour. She didn't want to be embarrassed in front of Sasuke again. That had happened too often over the week. What other possibilities were there to get food if she couldn't catch animals? Edible plants, fruits, nuts, perhaps she could find some eggs. She knew the river was too far away to get there in time to catch fish. So she resigned herself to collecting as much as she could. Thankfully it was a good time for nuts and berries. Living in the land of fire had the advantage that they never really got winter. It was always mild, so the plants had two phases of bearing fruits.
She found that transporting the things she wanted would mean carrying them with the front of her skirt pulled up, but as she had short leggings under it, it wouldn't matter that much.
Once the hour was up Kakashi reappeared in the meeting place. His students were already assembled there. Naruto was busy unsealing his spoils. He presented them with three rabbits, two pheasants, one chicken, obviously it had been lost in the forest, a box of berries, a box of nuts, a crate of apples, a box of mushrooms and a wolf.
"What is the meaning of the wolf, Naruto?" Kakashi asked curiously.
"The wolf thought I would be easy prey, I taught him better. As I already killed it, I decided I would keep it for the fur. The merchant caravan pays good prizes for fur in a good condition. I regularly sell them the fur I get from the animals I catch. Mostly it's deer or rabbit though. After all those are the animals I hunt mostly for my meals." Naruto explained.
"Why wouldn't you just buy the meat in a shop?" Sakura asked stupidly.
"I won't give the shop owners any money that I don't need to give them." Naruto answered coldly.
Sasuke put that information away as another part of the puzzle that was Naruto Uzumaki. He presented his collection. The six fishes, the nuts from his pouch, a hand-kerchief with berries and some leaves from a form of wild salad.
Then it was Sakura's turn. She let the contents of her dress roll to the ground. There was an assortment of nuts, berries, some mushrooms, three eggs, a few plums and three apples.
"Okay, the good news is, none of you will have to go hungry. The bad news is that you still need to cook your meals." Kakashi announced. "But before we start doing that, I would like to ask about your impressions of the task."
"While catching the fish by building a small dam to intercept them in the river was easy, I found that transporting smaller things like the berries and the nuts was complicated due to limited space. If I had to do a task like this on a mission for the whole team, the only thing I could easily provide would be the fish as I can just tie it to a stick with wire, which makes for easy transport." Sasuke said.
Kakashi nodded. He had observed each student either himself or with a shadow clone. Sasuke's method of organizing food was solid, but could need some improvements. He would have a lesson about sealing scrolls next. Nothing better than addressing problems after the genin had spotted them themselves.
"Catching animals isn't easy. They have fine senses and with a time restriction building traps isn't that useful. As Sasuke said, transport is also an issue if you are not prepared for a task like this." Sakura said.
At least she hadn't totally failed the exercise. Kakashi had told them if they couldn't catch anything, they would have to collect food. And with the eggs she at least got some proteins.
"Correct, that means we will have to work on your stealth. Naruto, as you obviously were the one best prepared for this task, please tell your team-mates how you solved the task." Kakashi said.
"As I said, I have experience with hunting, so I know how to read animal tracks. I quickly found a clearing where the rabbits were grazing. I got close by sneaking up from above. I killed them with a senbon to the forehead. That damages the fur least if you don't have the time to use slings. Pheasants are pretty stupid, even if they are shy. A bit of corn in a place I could see in well, a bit of patience and again, senbon to the brain killed them good. The chicken was a coincidence. It just crossed my way and I used the same method like with the pheasants. I sealed the animals in sealing scrolls and took to collecting berries in a box, nuts in another, the same for the mushrooms and as the apples were too big, I needed a crate. I have different containers in a sealing scroll which I always carry with me in case I need to transport something." Naruto explained.
Kakashi nodded. That was a good summary how a ninja prepared for any mission.
"Where can I buy some sealing scrolls?" Sasuke asked. "I wouldn't be able to make them myself, so buying is my only option." He said.
"I recommend Jakonato's shop for shinobi equipment." Kakashi said. "Genzo Jakonato is a retired shinobi and knows the needs of a ninja well. His goods are high quality and reasonably priced."
Sasuke nodded, swearing next time he would be better prepared.
"But isn't Jakonato's more expensive than other, civilian shops?" Sakura asked. Her uncle had a shop that sold ninja gear after all.
"No, the problem with civilian suppliers is that in ninety five of all cases the equipment they sell is of low quality as they don't know how trying our job is on our clothes and weapons. You need a special mix of metal to get good kunai or shuriken that don't chip on their first use. It's even more important with swords and the like. While you were at the academy there was nothing wrong buying your supplies there as they were cheaper, but on real missions quality equipment can save your life. What would happen after all if an exploding tag doesn't work properly? Either you miss your target or worst get killed. That's the reason Hokage Sama has fuinjutsu experts supplying the shops run by former shinobis with good seals." Kakashi explained.
Sasuke nodded, making a note to visit Jakonato's in the near future. Sakura frowned. She hadn't thought that there would be such differences between a civilian shop and a shinobi shop. Naruto kept quiet; after all, he was the one that made the seals for the shinobi shops now.
"I haven't heard a lot about fuinjutsu at the academy. If seals are so useful, why don't they teach them at the academy?" Sakura asked.
"It's a difficult art to learn, which takes precision and a lot of study. True masters are really rare. Konoha has one acknowledged seal master at the moment, Jiraiya of the sannin. The other seal master we had was the Yondaime Hokage. There are perhaps six seal experts in the village. I am one of them as I learned a lot about them from my sensei." Kakashi informed them.
"Who was your sensei, Kakashi sensei?" Sakura asked.
"Minato Namikaze, the Yondaime Hokage." Kakashi answered.
Sakura looked impressed. Her sensei had been trained by the Yondaime himself. Sasuke mentally was very satisfied with the way things had played out for him. Having a student of the legendary Yondaime as his sensei would surely make him strong enough to kill Itachi. Naruto just smiled. The way Kakashi had worded his information concealed that there could be more seal masters, they were just not acknowledged. He would wait until Jiraiya came back; he really wanted to talk with the famous sannin about his self-invented seals. But the Hokage had said it could take a month or more until he came back to the village.
"Okay, now that you have the food, you need to prepare it. One thing every ninja needs to know is how to disembowel animals and gut fish. I know you already know how to do it, Naruto. Have either of you done it before, Sasuke and Sakura?" Kakashi asked.
"No, but I have seen how my mother gut a fish once when I was six." Sasuke said, looking sad at the mention of his mother. He missed her.
Sakura just shook her head. This didn't look promising for her. And it would be disgusting to have to do it.
"Okay, Naruto, can I have the chicken for a demonstration?" Kakashi asked.
"Sure." Naruto said and handed the dead bird to Kakashi.
"First you need to do is to pluck the feathers. Especially if you can use them for something like putting them in pillows or for rare birds, sell them. If you don't pluck a bird first, the feathers tend to get bloody and washing out blood is not that easy. With more valuable feathers that can ruin them. With chicken and goose feathers it's not that much of a problem. Next is bleeding out the bird. You cut off the head and hang them with the head down. That will take some time. For animals with fur you need to skin them and then bleed them out." Kakashi demonstrated his skill in quickly plucking all feathers out of the chicken and cutting off the head. He let it hang on a tree-branch.
"For a fish things are different. What do you remember of the procedure, Sasuke?" Kakashi asked.
"Well, first the fish is cut open opposite the top. Then you take out all the offal and depending on how you want to prepare the fish you either let the hide on or cut it away. I have been told in the field you mostly put the fish on sticks, which you roast over an open fire." Sasuke said.
"That's the way it is done. Try it with one of your fishes." Kakashi said.
Sasuke took one fish and cut the underside open with a kunai. He took the offal out, looked through the cut if he had overlooked something and turned to Kakashi, who gave him an eye smile.
"Well done, Sasuke. Would you mind giving one fish to Sakura so she can also learn it? I think we will leave the rabbits and the other birds to Naruto as he knows how to do it and I guess he wants to keep their furs for selling." Both Sasuke and Naruto nodded.
Sakura looked at the fish, fighting with herself if she could really do this. But then her inner voice reminded her that Sasuke wouldn't be impressed with her if she couldn't even gut a fish. So she took her kunai and tried to imitate Sasuke's former performance. She was disgusted when she felt the offal in her hand. A lady shouldn't be forced to do things like this. But everything to impress her Sasuke.
Meanwhile Naruto with skill coming from long practice skinned the rabbits plucked the pheasants and then let them bleed out. Once the blood was out, he took to disembowelling them. He collected the offal in a bowl and had a shadow clone carry them away.
"What are you going to do with the offal?" Sakura asked, too disgusted with having to gut the fish to be overly mean to Naruto.
"Burying it far enough away so that predators don't come close to my camp. It's a habit I learned to follow after a few foxes turned up after my first hunt on rabbits. I lost a rabbit to them and barely managed to keep the second one safe." Naruto answered. He was now cutting two rabbits in small pieces and put them in a lidded box. The pheasants got the same treatment. The last rabbit got put on a pole for roasting over a fire. "Do you want the chicken, Kakashi sensei?" Naruto asked.
"If you don't mind. I wouldn't have to go hunting myself then." Kakashi said.
"Take it; I have enough with one rabbit and the other things I collected." Naruto answered.
Kakashi thanked him and took to preparing the chicken. Once all of them had prepared their meals, Sasuke had decided to give Sakura a second fish, four were more than enough for him and he couldn't store the spare one, Kakashi had them set up campfires. He corrected them if they made mistakes, but otherwise he was busy with his own fire.
"What is the best way to start a campfire in an area that is safe enough to even light a fire?" Kakashi asked.
"A weak fire jutsu." Naruto said.
"Correct, why would a jutsu like Sasuke's great fireball be ill-suited?" Kakashi asked.
"Because it is too flashy and too hot. Even in presumed safe terrain a ninja has to keep his camp undetected if possible. And with a technique too hot you will burn the wood too fast and don't have enough time to roast your food. Which isn't much of a problem in areas like Konoha which are surrounded by forested areas, but in other regions wood is limited, so you need to get the best possible result with the supplies you have." Sasuke answered, remembering that lesson.
"Indeed. There is a jutsu, one of the fire jutsus that doesn't need the affinity for fire to be used. It was developed for situations like this, lighting a campfire. It doesn't work in a fight, there you need stronger jutsu, but here it's perfect. The handseals are hare and tiger. Try it. If you don't get it in half an hour, I will light the fires." Kakashi said.
Sasuke and Naruto had no problems with the jutsu. As Sasuke knew how to use fire jutsus already, this simple one was easy to perform. And Naruto had used that jutsu for years now. Sakura needed a few tries, but then even she got her fire started.
"Good work everybody. Now we will prepare our meals. Think how you can best prepare the things you collected. After that, I guess it will be time for an early lunch. But as we are meeting team ten at half past one on their training ground I guess that's good." Kakashi said.
Every member of the team took to cooking their meal. After thirty minutes the fishes were done for Sasuke and Sakura, Naruto's rabbit and Kakashi's chicken needed a while longer. Sakura had pierced her mushrooms on sticks and also roasted them. The eggs had been buried in the earth on one side of the fire as she had no pot to cook them. The nuts and berries she ate like they were, as she did the apples and plums.
Sasuke only had to roast his fishes, which looked a lot less mutilated than Sakura's, and the other things he ate like they were. Naruto had wrapped two apples and some mushrooms in aluminium foil and put them to bake in the heat. He had added a few herbs and spices in oil to his rabbit and the mushrooms. After cooking in the wild for so long, he knew what tasted good. He just had to make sure his rabbit was constantly kept covered in his mix.
Once everything was cooked, he took the rabbit from the fire and got his wrapped things from the heat. He had a metal claw for that sealed in his equipment scroll for cooking utensils. Soon all members of team seven were eating contently.
TO BE CONTINUED...