"Yeah," said Naruto.
"Okay, I think I got it," said Sakura from where she'd been thinking.
"You found the underneath on this underneath?" asked Naruto, sounding a bit skeptical.
"What I think this is, it's to build stamina by working in the hot sun for hours in back-breaking work," suggested Sakura.
"Oh, I thought you were going to suggest we get rid of the weeds by using massive amounts of destruction," said Naruto, shrugging.
"No, that'd destroy the good plants too," said Sakura.
"Are any of these plants good ones?" Naruto asked a little louder and directed towards the farmer.
The farmer nodded.
"Damn, that lets the easy way out," said Naruto.
"So, tonight we go after the missing card, right?" asked Sakura with a much reduced volume as they went out into the field, getting two nods in reply.
"Ready... Now! Go!"
Naruto looked up briefly before taking a kunai with an explosive tag to the face.
Instead of spatter though, his intact body tumbled backwards and hit the ground. Then shimmered.
"Windy! Grab her!"
A glittering something in the air was abruptly stopped by tendrils of wind.
"You're caught, Mirror," said Naruto, jumping to where the glitter was spinning around. "You gonna give me more trouble?"
The glitter seemed to sag in place before it became a stream of light which solidified into a card.
Sakura got up from where she'd been ready to do fire support with kunai and dusted off her knees. "What's 'Mirror/Clone' do, anyway?"
"Gives me access to two major abilities," said Naruto, holding the card up to where his two team-mates could see.
There was an image of a young girl of silver, holding a mirror in front of her.
"One's basically like a bunshin, right? Hence the name," said Sakura. Did the card just wink at her? Well, yeah. That wasn't too hard to believe, was it?
"Yeah, but it can be a bunshin of anyone or anything," said Naruto. "I can also reflect some jutsu and attacks back at the attacker - so that can be handy. Right, Mirror-chan?"
A giggle sounded from the card.
"So, next we work on Sakura's talents," said Sasuke, collecting the kunai he'd used earlier. "How are those coming?"
"I've deciphered enough of that one book," said Sakura, glancing towards Naruto. "Naruto, I found something out about your abilities. Did you know that you could use fuuinjutsu to transfer a card's power temporarily to another person to use?"
"Huh? Well, I know that I can command a card to work for you," said Naruto. "Like using Windy to speed you up when you're trying to get to a target."
"No, this is a seal technique," said Sakura. "Basically you write out a seal on someone's back and then use a card you've got. That person can now use the card's power at will until the ink fades. The downside for you is that you lose access to that card, because if you use it - you break the seal."
"Why would I transfer then?" asked Naruto. "I can use two cards at the same time, and I don't have that many cards yet."
"Like you said, 'yet' - but you will. Also because then you could use another two cards, and the one you've assigned to one of us wouldn't be draining your chakra." Sakura shrugged. "For example, if you assigned 'Mirror' to me - I could then use that Reflect when you're unconscious or injured until I ran out of chakra or the duration expires."
"How long would such a thing last?" asked Sasuke, thinking of tactics.
"About a week, I think," said Sakura, a little less certain. "It might be use-dependent though. The more you use it, the shorter the duration. The text isn't really that clear on details and it was written in another language - we'll have to do some experiments when I've got the whole thing worked out."
"Well, it's late, we can always come back to this later," said Sasuke. He certainly didn't have anything against getting stronger himself, but he suspected Naruto wouldn't let go of that power easily. If the positions were reversed, HE certainly would be reluctant to even temporarily give over power to another.
"I hope we get a better mission tomorrow," said Naruto. "I mean, really, weeding a field?"
"Today's mission is... roof repair!" said Kakashi, reading the scroll.
"Are you going to give us any training afterwards?" asked Naruto.
"Only if you finish before noon," said Kakashi, knowing that this would take longer than that.
Naruto's grin reminded Kakashi that with THIS group, making predictions of that nature meant he was forgetting something.
The business owner of Takeshi's looked skeptically at the three genin. Especially the blond one.
"Right, let's get this going," said Naruto. "Wood!"
The ground split and wood erupted outward to form a ladder.
"Eh?!" asked Takeshi.
"Eh, what?" responded Kakashi from where he was leaning against the outer fence.
"That was wood release... but that would mean," said Takeshi.
"Oh? Was it?" asked Kakashi.
"So," said the boy as the dragon on his shoulder took off and found a part of the roof to perch on, "what's the 'underneath' here?"
The pink-haired girl replied something, but Takeshi couldn't make it out.
"'Underneath'?" asked Takeshi.
"Well, they're right in that a lot of things in the ninja lifestyle have hidden meanings and secrets involved," said Kakashi absently.
Takeshi heard that, put it together with what he'd seen and came to certain conclusions.
"Wood!" said Naruto from atop the roof.
"What is he... oh," said Kakashi, looking up from his book for a moment. Wood techniques. So he's using that to shore up the roof and mend the portions that were damaged. Well, he can't use that to seal the roof or put new tile down.
"Fire technique!"
And... Sasuke's using a minor fire technique to heat up the roofing tar so it spreads easier? That's fairly insightful actually.
"Okay, my turn!"
While Sakura is the one to figure out which tile goes into which place. This might not take all day after all.
"Target sighted. Am tracking. Do you want me to use Windy to bind it?"
Kakashi tapped his headset. "No, Naruto. Try not to use your cards for everything. You can't become dependent on a single technique."
"Hnnn?"
Kakashi groaned. One comment about Sasuke not being very communicative, and now the genin was taking that as a challenge. "Was that agreement?"
Sakura's voice came over the headset. "Translation: 'Practice in a signature set of techniques means you're more proficient in your technique, doesn't it?'"
Kakashi facepalmed. "You need to round out your other skills a bit too. Now..."
A rapidly moving shadow passed overhead. Kakashi's visible eye widened and he moved very rapidly.
Not rapidly enough to stop it, but fast enough to see a completely freaked out cat being lifted up past rooftop height in a dragon's claws.
Kakashi hit the transmit button again. "Uhm. Naruto. The mission was to retrieve the cat. Your dragon just swooped down and flew off with the cat."
There was a pause before Naruto's voice came over the transceiver. "Don't worry, Kakashi-sensei. I fed her earlier so most likely she won't eat the cat."
"Ah," said Kakashi. "'Most likely' does not fill me with great confidence here."
"Naruto," said Sakura over the radio channel. "If the cat goes splat you'll be knocked flat."
"Right, uhm," said Naruto. "Oh. Sasuke. I can see you. Fly card!"
A moment later Sasuke shot up out of the brush at high speeds, grabbed the cat from the dragon, and hovered there for a moment before darting back down.
"Interesting," said Kakashi, not having known several things about Naruto's jutsu that had just been revealed. One, that he had a 'Fly' card that apparently allowed someone to fly. Two, that he could use the card's ability on someone else. Three... "Naruto, why didn't you just fly up yourself and get the cat?"
"Errr," said Naruto's voice.
"It's because he tends to crash into stationary objects and his landings really stink, Kakashi-sensei," offered Sakura.
"Hnnn," said Sasuke, sounding pleased with himself.
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(Posted Tue, 08 May 2012 17:17)
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