"Yes, stop harping on it already. I heard you the first time and the second time and every time after that."
"And yet, I don't believe you're listening to me at all," said Kakashi. "So let me try another tactic. If you use this in your fight with Naruto, I will rip off your arm and beat you to death with it in front of the entire stadium audience. Is that clear enough?"
Sasuke actually paled at the threat, the killing intent from Kakashi making it very clear the man was completely serious. "I got it, I promise."
"Now I believe you. So, let's try again so we can get to taijutsu practice while your chakra recovers," ordered Kakashi.
Naruto sat very still at the edge of the clearing while the pair trained. Kakashi's threat on his behalf actually made him feel a little bit guilty about the 'pregnant girl looking for him' trick he'd pulled but that only lasted until he saw the taijutsu he was teaching Sasuke.
After Sasuke attempted yet another Chidori, Kakashi put the boy through his paces, teaching a taijutsu that mirrored Lee's almost perfectly even if Sasuke wasn't as strong as Lee and a fair bit slower than Lee. After about an hour watching the pair, Naruto's quest alert popped up letting him know he fulfilled the objective giving him leave to withdraw from this particular spying assignment.
It didn't take long after that for Naruto to return to the village and seek out his next target, Gaara. It actually wasn't hard given that he knew where Gaara was staying in the village. So Naruto camped out on the roof across from the building and waited. Maintaining the [Toton Jutsu] for so long while he continued surveillance was very difficult, fortunately, he had learned in the past three days that he was quite capable of using other jutsu while the [Toton Jutsu] was active, as such [Raiton: Chakra Denka no Jutsu] had gotten a fairly significant workout.
Naruto kept watch on the building but Gaara never left or was just never there in the first place. One thing he didn't expect to see was Kabuto enter the building fairly late at night. Almost immediately after Kabuto entered the building, Gaara exited the door to the roof where he perched on top of the ledge, not really doing anything, just staring out at the village.
It left him with a conundrum, keep watching Gaara in the hope he might do something or try and find out what Kabuto was up to. Kabuto won.
With as much stealth and control as he could muster he made his way to the building, using his recently upgraded goggles to tell him where the chakra sources were.
[Mini-map with Chakra Sensor Display to Face] – Add a mini-map display to ocular protection. Creates a visual map to track your location and terrain surrounding you as well as any chakra sources nearby.
He found that there were only four signatures in the building, all of them on the third floor. Naruto spotted Kabuto and Baki walking out onto the third floor balcony, speaking in hushed tones, so he hid himself by attaching to the balcony ceiling just below them.
". . . plans?" asked Kabuto.
"No, Kazekage-sama does not doubt the plan. He just worries . . . that man does not have a very trustworthy reputation."
"He would not jeopardize this, it is far too important to him. And is Gaara ready? Does he understand his part in this?"
"He'll be ready," said Baki firmly, only a slight quaver in his voice as he said it.
"For all of our sakes, he'd better be," said Kabuto. "Does he understand that the Uchiha is not to be permanently harmed? If there is any permanent damage he will not be pleased."
"Things happen in a fight. He'll do his best but what makes you think the Uchiha can beat the Uzumaki?"
"Naruto-kun is a joke. He's absolutely pathetic as a shinobi. He was dead last in his graduating class this year. From what I've been able to gather on him, he was most likely carried through the exam by his teammates."
"He seemed to have enough talent to beat that Hyuuga girl in a taijutsu fight."
"The failed heiress, that was no major victory and as for Kin, well, she was always meant to be a sacrifice anyway."
"I see," said Baki, but his voice betrayed doubt.
"It's far too late to back out now, Baki-san. Put away your doubts. Now tell me, what are you going to do about our little spy problem?"
For a moment the blood in Naruto's veins froze, he'd been caught. But the sudden movement from below him drew his attention to a Konoha jounin making a rapid retreat. It was Hayate, the proctor from the preliminaries.
"I'll deal with him, you'd better get out of here before someone else sees you."
Kabuto went back into the room while Baki chased after Hayate.
Once again, Naruto had to make a choice, keep following Kabuto and maybe find out who was pulling his strings or give aid to Hayate. If it wasn't for Kakashi's words ringing through his head he may have gone after Kabuto, after all, those who abandon their comrades are lower than trash.
So Naruto followed Baki at a distance, the jounin was way too powerful for Naruto to confront but if he saw an opening he'd take it.
Baki caught up with Hayate fairly quickly, forcing the retreating jounin into a fight.
Hayate drew a sword immediately to defend himself and fight back with while Baki used a combination of taijutsu and ninjutsu to attack. It was so fast, Naruto had trouble following it. He even barely avoided getting an arm cut off by one of Baki's wind blades, a technique Naruto wanted very much to learn and as such tried to memorize what Baki was doing to create it. Unfortunately, it was over much too fast for Naruto to assist in anyway.
Baki had caught Hayate's sword after it bit into the man's shoulder but not deep enough to kill or cripple him. Baki then had Hayate trapped, it was no surprise then when Baki used a close range wind blade to slice through Hayate's stomach and chest. Naruto saw the man's HP drop rapidly into a flashing red state that continued to drop.
"You were skilled, but not skilled enough," Baki praised him briefly before vanishing without a trace, leaving Hayate to bleed out.
Naruto though was already scrambling across the roof, pulling out his entire stack of Shosen Fuda Grade 3. "Just hold on Hayate-sensei," pleaded Naruto, rapidly stick on tags and charging a little chakra into them to activate them. It was intense, the rate Hayate was losing HP worried Naruto a great deal but his fuda was keeping pace, finally gaining a little ground even.
Hayate was in and out of consciousness, occasionally calling for "Yugao" whoever that was.
Naruto wasn't paying much attention, he was burning through tags too fast to care what the man was saying. Hayate would be able to say as much as he wanted if he survived.
When he was down to just five fuda the bleed effect on Hayate finally faded, he'd stabilized. Naruto used the last five anyway just to stabilize him a bit more so they could make the trip to the hospital so they could do the rest.
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