At the gates 3rd pov
The two guys finally made it to the entrance gates where the other two genins were waiting.
"Alright everyone's here, let's get going." They began walking on the long journey that laid ahead. They all made small conversation amongst ourselves, well more of Sakura trying to get closer to Sasuke and bad mouthing Naruto from time to time. Naruto and Kakashi ignored everything the other two were saying and kept most of their conversations in their link.
'What do you think this mission will be like Naru?' The Elite asked. He knew the boy's thought on things even without much info were pretty accurate. 'Still a bad feeling. Our real mission may include a few of the Akatsuki members actually being there.' The kid theoretically stated.
(Later that night)
"Alright we should set up camp here for tonight and take turns keeping watch." The silver haired man instructed. They started a fire and heated up some canned food they brought along.
"Me and Sakura will take the first watch while Naruto and Sasuke will take the second one."
'Are you sure that's a good idea? He hates me.'
Naruto questioned a bit confused.
'Yes because I know you won't talk to him and he won't speak either. If you were paired with Sakura she'd keep going on about how she doesn't like you, and you already know we wouldn't get any sleep if she was paired with Sasuke.' He explained while Naruto couldn't find a way to retaliate and just rolled his eyes.
Once everyone finished eating Naruto and Sasuke went to sleep while the other two kept watch. Much to Kakashi's surprise, the pink haired girl stayed quiet the entire time.
A few hours later it was time for Naruto's and Sasuke's shift. They were on opposite sides of where they set up camp. None spoke a word but many questions flooded a certain Uchiha's mind. How did he even train? I've seen him many times just hanging out with his friends doing nothing. There's no way he could've become stronger than me. Maybe he got help? Ugh this is killing me! He thought in anger.
This time he broke the ice and ditched his pride for once to talk first. "Naruto.." he said under his breath, but Naruto of course caught this and turned his head towards him. "Who taught you the jutsus you used during the chunin exams?" He looked at the blonde dead in his eyes.
"I trained myself." Was the only thing he said giving the boy almost no details. "Impossible. You couldn't have trained that much to learn what you know at our age. That's beyond genin teachings."
"No it's not. Just because they don't teach us genin these things doesn't mean we aren't able to do it. Just like your fireball jutsu in the beginning. Genin at that time didn't even know to perform those types of jutsus." Naruto countered back at him. This made Sasuke mad for not getting the information he wanted.
"You had to have some type of teacher. You couldn't have done all of that alone." He started glaring at the boy, searching for the hidden answers. He didn't realize how much Naruto has sort of discarded the lazy personality he showed in the academy.
"You're right."
Sasuke's eyes widened until they returned back to a glare. "Who?" He asked coldly, almost trying to be intimidating but Naruto has felt more darker feelings from just the villagers.
"Kitsune and Eagle remember? After the third phase." He joked.
"That's not what I mean."
"But that's the truth. We all learned something from them." I turned my head away from him, ending the conversation. "But..why....?" He questioned.
"Why the hell do you know so much? You didn't do anything during the academy, you were the lazy student. Now you seem to know everyone and do things beyond genin capabilities. That... should have been me."
Naruto only sighed. He could tell his desire for power is still there even after knowing the truth. He turned once more, and saw he was correct just by the look in his eyes. 'Eyes that hold darkness.' He thought.
"Everyone is different Sasuke. I don't see why me knowing more matters to you. I just-"
Naruto was cut off by his voice. "It doesn't matter it just makes no sense. I'm the Uchiha. I have the sharingan. There should be no way you're stronger than me."
The blonde was about to say something back until the Elite suddenly intervened. "That's where you're wrong Sasuke. As I said before, don't rely on that power of yours, it'll be your destruction. The fact that you seem to rely on them shows how some of your peers could be stronger. They don't rely on just one single thing." He tried talking some sense into the boy, only to have him scoff it off and go back to being silent.
'I think the team made the right choice in not revealing your true identity. If he would've found that out, who knows how'd he react.' Kakashi mentally sighed.
'I agree. Since he doesn't have his avenger drive anymore, I can tell he's trying to find the meaning of his life's purpose. It's not going too well.' Naruto responded before packing up his stuff. The only one left asleep was Sakura who slept through the whole thing.
"Come on Sakura, it's already morning." Kakashi called out and the pinkette loudly yawned to show she was awake. Once she was done packing they all continued heading to their destination.
Naruto had to be more careful than usual on this double mission of his and to make sure his teammates don't suspect a single thing. Sasuke didn't show it, but he was still mad about last night and decided to watch Naruto more closely.
By the time they made it to the village, Naruto secretly used his sensory to locate any suspicious people. They walked into the village and Naruto felt a large amount of chakra from two people. Luckily for him he knew these two people.
'Yagura! Utakata! We're here!' The disguised anbu mentally yelled enthusiastically.
'Hey Naruto, Kakashi. It's been a while, what beings you here?' The other two jinchuuriki's started to find the two.
'A secret mission and we're disguised so we can't act like we know you in front of our other teammates.' Kakashi explained.
The two jinchuuriki's stopped on top of a building where they saw their fellow friends. Naruto and Kakashi looked up and waved and made signals to meet later. They left and team 7 went to the Mizukage's office.
They entered the Kage's office where some anbu entered with their them for the protection of their leader. "I see the leaf team has arrived. Glad you could make it."
"We're here to pick up and drop off a scroll." Kakashi mentioned.
"Right." She pulled out a scroll as well as Kakashi. They made a quick exchange and were about to leave. While leaving, Naruto sensed some chakra fluctuate and every anbu level person in the room felt this too. "Alright you three let's head back." The Elite said trying to get his genin out of the village as fast as possible. The two genin were a good distance away for him and Naruto to make clones and sent them back to the Kage's office.
Real Naruto's pov
We jumped from roof to roof and instantly changed into our anbu uniforms without anyone noticing. Once we made it to the office again, every anbu recognized us and immediately let us in. "Two Sins are here? Did something happen?" The Mizukage questioned.
"Yes. Our Hokage sent us here because we've gotten word of the Akatsuki roaming around in the area." Dog explained.
"Very well. You two can go with a few of my anbu." She commented.
We all shunshined out and went to where the chakra was located. It led to the outside the village where two cloaked people stood outside the gates. "Well I didn't know we weren't invited." The blonde haired ninja confidently joked. The red head next to him only rolled his eyes and ignored him.
'I've read about them in the book we found in one of Orochimaru's hideout. The blonde is named Deidara and the red head is Sasori.' I explained to Kashi.
'I've heard of them before from neighboring villages. They're said to be pretty powerful even for the Akastuki to actually ask them join the group.'
'Well no matter. We just need to take them down without using Kurama.' He silently nodded and decided to attack first.
"Lightning Style: Lightning Rage." Lightning suddenly went into the ground and almost electrocuted the two rogues. They jumped out of harms way and one of them threw something that looked to be clay.
We all dodged it and saw that it made a decent explosion. The red head used this opportunity to use one of his puppets to attack. His human-like puppet shot into the air firing many kunai's and shuriken at us. Me and Kakashi just jumped higher in mid air while the other anbu deflected the weapons.
"Look we mean no harm here. Just hand over your jinchuuriki's and we'll be on our merry way." Deidara persuaded. "You won't get your way here. We won't hand anyone over to you guys." One of the anbu's protested.
"Then we'll just take them by FORCE!" The blonde shouted while throwing more clay while Sasori brought out a few more puppets. The anbu overall were able to defeat just about every attack the two threw at them but as time went on, most of them started to feel tired after the dragged out battle. This put them more at a disadvantage.
"You guys sure are persistent but the games should end now." Deidara made a huge bird out of clay and me and Kashi were about to go after them. Sasori brought out even more puppets as a distraction from us getting any closer.
"C3" was the only thing I heard until I looked up to see a giant clay bomb appear. 'This is bad.' I thought while making a few clones. The clones went to different sides of the village and once the clay bomb dropped I activated an enhanced perfect cube.
The bomb exploded on top of the barrier, making a small crack at the very top of it. Once the explosion went away my clones instantly disappeared from the big drainage of chakra. Both rogues were in shock that no part of the village got distorted from their massive attack. The clay dragon swooped down near the village and started setting buildings on fire.
Me and Kakashi caught up to them and decided this was serious enough to use our sharingans. I started using their own attacks against them and used the explosion style kekkei genkai to take down their dragon. Dog used kamui and almost succeeded in killing Deidara but only managed to take away his arm before a puppet distracted him.
They got away by the time we finished off the last of Sasori's puppets. "We'll be back for them. Just you wait!" The blonde blurted out before escaping at high speeds with his partner.
"Should we go after their scent, Kitsune?" I shook my head no. "More Akatsuki members might show up and without much intel, that could prove to be a bit difficult to handle, even for us." He accepted this answer and headed back inside the village.
"Thank you for saving the village and my people. If there's anything the leaf village ever needs, we'll help support in any way to show our thanks." The Mizukage offered. We said our goodbye to our fellow friends and went back to where team 7 was.
With team 7...3rd pov
They ran quickly out the village after being told to do so by their leader. The two genin didn't know why they were in such a hurry but decided not to question it. After a few minutes, far from the village a mini rumble in the ground could be felt, and it came from the direction they were leaving from. All of them looked back to see a huge explosion in the sky and to say half of them were shocked was an understatement.
"Isn't that where the village is? Should we go back to help?" Sasuke asked, just trying to see if he could fight and hopefully defeat some people. "No." The Elite said sternly. Sasuke didn't know why he was mad but he was suspicious that something was up. "Why not? You're one of the most powerful Six Sins, and with you, we all should be able to handle it." Sasuke protested angrily.
"Sasuke..." the Elite instantly disappeared and reappeared behind the boy before he got a chance to blink. "If you aren't able to fight people who are moving at this speed, then you won't stand a chance against them." The Uchiha was at a loss for words and decided to keep his mouth shut, no matter how much he hated what just happened.
Once it got dark they all stopped at a safe area to camp out. "Alright I know it's late but you guys should learn something during this, so follow me." Their leader announced while they followed him to a body of water. "You guys will be learning the walking on water technique. This will take more effort than the tree walking since water is always moving. You'll need to constantly change the amount of chakra on your feet." He explained.
Naruto's clone instantly started walking on water like it was second nature to him. "Just like how he's doing it. You can sit this out Naruto. You two ca-" Before he could finish his sentence Sasuke immediately tried running onto the water. The first step he took instantly shot him into the air and then into the water.
"The right amount of chakra applies to this as much as tree walking Sasuke. Use too little you'll sink and use too much you'll get shot up into the air. Try to take your time on this."
The Uchiha silently growled before walking back to the water. He, of course, was angered by the fact Naruto could do something hard like this with such ease.
In the midst of their practice the clones found a perfect opportunity to switch with their original selves which just got back from the village. When they returned they saw a drenched Sasuke and a Sakura that stood on the water. Sasuke looked like he was balancing on a tight rope so that he wouldn't slip up on his chakra.
"Great job. Now try running so that I know you at least have some mastery over it." The Elite instructed. Sakura went first and she easily ran across the water. Sasuke was next and was hesitant at first but he did it in the end.
"Alright now I think that's enough for one night. Let's eat then hit the sack." They all walked back to where the fire was and started preparing their dinner. There was a comfortable silence between them but Sasuke for once started a conversation.
"So sensei...may I ask a few questions about your anbu team?" He asked. This took everyone off guard especially the anbu commander himself. Naruto gave him a silent look of approval and let the boy ask his questions.
"It's confirmed that your team is made up of people our age right? Do any of us know them by any chance?"
"Let me rephrase my yes. I will only answer questions that doesn't reveal the identity of any of them. That's a question I can't answer." The Elite dodged a small bullet on that.
"Fine. I know we already asked this before during training but how strong are you guys really?"
"Strong enough to be labeled an SS rank team. Kitsune is confirmed by the Hokage to be stronger than himself."
Then genin's eyes widened hearing this. They didn't think someone so young could actually beat a Hokage. "What kind of training did you do?"
"Regular everyday exercise like running around the village and push ups."
"Just multiply the difficulty by 100." The fox snickered.
'Yeah no thanks to you, the one who makes our training excercises.' Naruto rolled his eyes while letting the boy finish.
"Do you think any of us could reach that level?"
The boy continued for answers.
"Possibly but it's not too likely. They started at super young ages to get where they are now and they were just beyond prodigies to be able to become high ranking anbu at such a young age." Kashi explained bluntly. He knew this wasn't the answer the boy was looking for but the Uchiha knew his words were right, which didn't make him too happy.
"Are you able to teach me the blaze kekkei genkai? Kitsune said I'd be able to learn it."
"No. Not because I don't want to, it's the fact that he also said the possibility of you being able to use it was near impossible."
"But you're able to use it. I saw it during the spar between you two." He defended.
"I had a certain person teach me and I'm only able to use it because I got help. This isn't something your sharingan could copy." He implied referring to Naruto and Kura.
"Can we at least learn the air walking ability? We just now learned the water walking texhnigue so that one shouldn't be too much harder."
"No as well. That technique is something that took all day everyday to learn. The steps to learn it difficult on its own but managing to actually do it and hold it for a long time is 100x harder than the water walking technique."
"But you can do it. All of your team can do it. So why can't-" he tried protesting until his leader cut him off.
"Because you're not them. Not everything they do is something you need to learn. It's impossible for you to do everything they can. It's best if you find your own abilities and grow that to be the best of the best." Kakashi tried persuading.
"Alright everyone let's hit the bed. It's been a long day and we have a long one tomorrow."
They each went to bed or patrolled through the night. 'He's becoming more persistent. It's best if we don't give him any more information. He might take it or our words the wrong way.' Naruto suggested. The silver haired ninja agreed with his brother before going to sleep.
The blonde stayed up but pretended to be asleep in his tent. He wasn't much of a sleeper during missions and his lazy tenet does that for him so there wasn't any harm not to. He meditated and used his sensory around the surrounding area. He only picked up the chakra of animals. It was peaceful for him, until the tiniest presence of chakra fled the area. Naruto found it odd but blew it off to think it was an animal.
That was going to be his biggest mistake.