Friday Chapter here, get your Friday chapter here!
Patreon just got 66, Sakura's bullshit as always. Patreon is 7 weeks ahead, so you know, Sonya's in the discord dabbing on all the public people.
Also we got our first submission to the Omake challenge yesterday, feel free to head over there and make more.
Do it for the love.
Omake Challenge
All jokes aside, enjoy the chapter. Today we looking at the boiiiiiiizzzz!
"Sasuke, take front!" Naruto shouts as a dozen clones jump on the monstrosity trying to eat their brains, or body, or whatever it is giant snakes eat. It's huge, huge might be an understatement, Naruto's never seen something living that's so big and he's pretty sure it's not going to be the biggest thing he meets in this forest. Boss fights don't normally act as the opener.
Its scales alone are bigger than his head, and it's got thousands of them layering up and down its body in all directions. They're cerulean, they remind him a lot of Sakura's eyes back before she got possessed by a demon sword and now walks the mortal coil looking for souls to devour.
"I can't take front, I die when I die!" Sasuke shouts back at him, jumping over the snake's tail as it lashes out at him.
"My clones aren't infinite, Sasuke!" Naruto shouts back, "they die when they die too!"
"Your clones are too infinite!" A kunai bounces off the monster, so he takes a move from Sakura's book and charges it with fire chakra before stabbing into it again. It'll damage his poor kunai, but he's got thousands at home sitting in a box, he can lose a couple to the Forest of Death, as he's sure this won't be the last time he does this.
"Got it!" Sasuke shouts as the creature lunges towards Naruto. He has to hold on tight to the blade, because the air pressure against him alone from such a powerful movement sends him back and down its body. Luckily the knife that's embedded in it is red hot and steaming, so it cuts through the scale and flows down its body with him. His grip is firm and unfettered by the heat, protecting his hands with fire chakra is as easy as breathing for him, it's not his fault it was so difficult for Sakura.
With an open hole in the beast, he sets his feet down firmly, and uses the tree walking technique they learned back in Wave to power up his grip. He's happy to see it works, as he's learned during training it's hard to use on skin, but something as hard as these scales make it a cinch.
"Ready!" He shouts at Naruto, before with a quick set of hand seals, he's pouring fire into its open wound, focusing all his efforts on cooking the thing alive inside.
It thrashes hard, testing his grip with all its might, before as suddenly as it began it stops. He feels it drop into the dirt, and the shockwaves flow up his legs, making it harder to hold on. "Jeez." He looks up from the creature to watch Naruto's pop from flames shooting out the beast's mouth, and the original Naruto wiping sweat from his forehead. He did warn him, not his fault.
"Alright." Sasuke grunts, before depositing a kunai in his pouch, and pulling out a stone, a stick, and a little bit of grass to tie it all together. He starts cutting, slowly, and deliberately, working around the scales sucks.
"Why not use a Kunai?" Naruto groans as his steps take him to Sasuke's side, watching the jagged cuts, as well as the sprays of gore the poorly crafted knife is unnecessarily causing.
"Kakashi's trying to teach us how to live off the forest, if we use Kunai to butcher our meat, he'll probably show up and torture us as a lesson."
"He's already going to show up and torture us." Naruto says, "I think he broke my arm last time…"
"Your fault for healing so fast he can go all out with you," Sasuke says, knowing damn well Kakashi's hitting Naruto harder than him. It's obvious that the man is holding back with him. When Kakashi hits him there aren't shockwaves, when Kakashi hits Naruto, there are. "It's pretty clear he's not trying to find us very hard, or we would never last more than the hour he gives us," Sasuke says after a second. "He's probably watching us right now, waiting for us to fail some criteria of hiding that he can use as an excuse to come down and lecture us."
"You think he's that clever?" Naruto asks, "I mean, he's not-ommfff!"
"Hi, Kakashi." Sasuke grunts, working through a bit of muscle with both arms forcing it. He barely takes note of Naruto flailing in the man's arms, a hand over his mouth, the other focused on choking the life out of him with an arm crushing his windpipe. "Could I at least finish cutting this up?"
"Nope, consider that a part of your recovery hour." Kakashi asserts.
"This is ridiculous." Naruto groans, jumping from branch to branch while looking down at all the massive monsters below and trying to figure out quite how much of a fight they'd put up. "We weren't that bad to Sakura, were we?"
"No, we weren't," Sasuke agrees with him, secretly doing the same thing Naruto is, "but we weren't very nice either. Girls care about that."
"This seems excessive for not being nice." Naruto points out with a wrinkle of his nose and a growl at his features. "It's gotta be more than that, since when has Kakashi cared about being nice?"
"It is more," Sasuke agrees, "we're making her hesitate, that's bad for the team."
"She's the one whose first instinct is to stab people." Naruto's face contorts into quite a green one. "I didn't see that coming back when I liked her."
"You don't anymore?" Sasuke asks.
"Well, um, not in the same way. It's different now." Naruto admits, frowning at the lack of a good answer. How does he feel? Why is it different? Is it just the violence? It can't be, she was violent back then! Worse, the violence back then was directed at him!
"I think, whatever Kakashi is trying to say, is something we're supposed to learn here," Sasuke says, "he's crazy but he's also lazy. This is a lot of work for him. He's not just getting his rocks off."
"What does that even mean?" Naruto asks, only to see the raven-haired boy shrug.
"We should probably get some rest." Sasuke asserts after a moment, coming to a stop on a tall branch high in the air.
"You're tired?" Naruto asks.
"No, but I will be in twelve hours when Kakashi won't let us sleep," Sasuke says, "let's use the time. Make some clones."
"How do you think Sakura's doing?" Naruto's question lingers in the air for a long moment, almost acidic and insidious. The kinds of thoughts such a question brings aren't suited for darting through a forest like this, and yet they don't go away after they're spoken. They can't leave, the thought of Sakura and her likely predicaments roam rent-free in their heads.
"Poorly." Sasuke mumbles, before they both bristle at the sound of Naruto's laughter escaping unbidden. "Be quiet."
"Sorry, sorry, it's just, I'm more worried about her teammates than her." Naruto laughs to himself. "They're going to panic so hard the first time she gets hurt!"
"I do worry about that," Sasuke admits, visibly uncomfortable. It's clear to anyone who could see that he's not used to feeling compassion yet, not of that kind anyway. "For both of them. What if someone who doesn't know tries to put her out of her misery after something happens?"
That thought sours both their moods in an instant, before Naruto breaks the ice again, "I'm sure they'll mostly just be super freaked out and go through a bunch of medical supplies and effort only to be mad in the morning."
"Probably." Sasuke agrees coolly, taking a deep breath-
"Grruaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!" Before the sound of a roar breaks through the depressing air, and catches both of their attention.
Naruto dives to the side just in time to avoid a massive bear that jumps from the trees. It's colossal and breaks the tension created as easily as it breathes, which might be slightly hard given how huge its lungs probably are. "I guess it's time to fight," Sasuke says out of nowhere, already readying hand seals.
"Are you crazy? We can't fight this thing!" Naruto shouts, summoning a dozen clones out of thin air on a hair's breadth of time.
"We fought a vampire." Sasuke argues, already moving to shoot a fireball the likes of which this bear's never seen. "I don't see the issue." With a deep breath-
He exhales and bathes this part of the artificial forest in flame.
"That was loud." Kakashi scolds them over their still bodies. Their groans give him the info that they're still alive, which is all that matters to him. "You couldn't kill it any quieter?"
"It started the fight at top volume!" Naruto shouts from his place under Kakashi's foot.
"Then you should have killed it before it did that." Kakashi points out, kicking him again, lighter this time though. Just a bit lighter… "You allowed a giant bear to sneak up on you because you were too preoccupied with your conversation. If it had been a ninja of even Sakura's calibur you'd both be dead."
"What about Sasuke's?" Naruto asks.
"You might be tied up, and then Sakura would have to save you," The cyclops teases, "you couldn't even beat yourselves as preoccupied with your concerns as you are. The entire point of this training is to put a stop to that. You will not be a burden on this team by the time she gets back, whether that's because I killed you and you're not on the team anymore, or because you learned, is yet to be seen."
"We messed up," Sasuke admits, "don't be so dramatic."
Kakashi has very little to say to that, simply observing the two boys trying to crawl to safety.
"Well, you have an hour to recover, during that time I'll watch over you. Then you have an hour to get hiding again and rest if you can manage it. I'll be right here waiting." He says before disappearing into thin air.
"The bear yelled, not me…" Naruto groans from his place on the ground.
"Shut up dumbass, that's half of the problem." Sasuke mumbles into the dirt.
"Do you think we survive?" Naruto asks, "he seems serious about all this."
"I think he sends a convenient medical ninja our way every few days that happens to be passing through," Sasuke answers, taking a deep breath, "and the rest is on us."
"Mnn… that sounds like him. I bet we're supposed to take notes and the ninja stops showing up halfway through." Naruto groans.
"Mnn…"
