Chapter 077

Naruto sweatdropped, "Uh…yeah, let's go with that. So…" He grinned, "are we gonna get this show on the road or what!"

"We would have done that an hour ago if you had been here…" Tazuna mumbled.

"I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that and assume you said, 'Gee I'm glad he's not three hours late like Kakashi'." Naruto shot back with a small glare.

Kakashi shrugged as they began walking, "Well don't worry, I'm sure if you work on it a little more, you'll be three hours late too."

Naruto face-faulted at his sensei's words before getting up and run a hand over his face, "Sometimes I worry about you sensei."

(Three Days Later…)

It had been six days total since Naruto and the others had escorted Tazuna to Nami No Kuni, and in those six days the three genin had grown much stronger. Thanks to Naruto's tort-training, Sakura had actually managed to increase her reserves a fairly decent amount. She had not mastered tree climbing, but had managed to at least double her reserves, though she still refused to do any physical exercise in fear of looking 'manly'. Both Kakashi and Naruto had tried to get her out of that phase, however neither had any luck with it and eventually gave up.

Sasuke had improved much more drastically than Sakura. While his reserves had not improved much, he had mastered tree climbing. He had also admitted, even if only to himself, that Naruto was alright. He had noticed that the more time he had spent with the blond the stronger he got, and so did not complain or let his jealousy get to him too much.

Not that it had changed the dynamics of their rivalry; Naruto still thought the raven-haired Genin was the arch-typical brooding teme. And Sasuke still believed that Naruto was a blond idiot who was inferior to him, even if he knew that was not true as the two were fairly close to even when it came to their physical prowess in hand to hand combat.

Naruto himself had probably improved the most. Not that anyone other than Kakashi would know that since the blond preferred to keep his training secret in order to avoid any jealousy on his team's part. He had managed to learn Shunshin, and could even do it without hand seals, giving him an edge when he needed extra speed. He had also mastered water walking and was now adding the leaf floating exercise to it. He had also increased his training seal to level two.

Of course he had found level two nearly impossible to move in for the few two days. Naruto had learned that in order to properly use the training seals he had to enhance his body with a constant stream of chakra so that his body could move when the resistance seals were on. Once he could move through a set of taijutsu kata's at the speed he could normally, he would slowly decrease the amount of chakra he was using to keep himself moving. It was a slow going process, especially because he had to sometimes take the seals off so he could get used to his body's speed without them, but he knew that once he started getting the hang of it, this form of training would be allow him to use his training to its maximum effect.

His elemental manipulation had unfortunately, not gone as well as he had hoped. So far Naruto was only able to slice the leaf one third of the way through. Thankfully some good did come out of the training, as all of his wind jutsu took less chakra to use and he had better control over some of the higher level ones.

Things had also gotten a little better at the house as well. Inari though still quiet, no longer made comments against Naruto. Sometimes the whiskered blond had even caught the kid watching and following him when he trained, though the blond had no idea what that was about. His relationship with Sakura had remained unchanged, she still seemed to either ignore him or tried to hit him on some occasions. Though this may have been on the account that Naruto had begun finding amusement in torturing the girl every chance he got with comments on her obsession with Sasuke. He and Tazuna got along pretty good, they would often tell jokes and Naruto, in a bout of inspiration had used his Tajuu Kage Bunshin NoJutsu to make a one hundred man strong work force, much to Tazuna and the workers amazement and delight. Kakashi also seemed to be treating him well, not that he hadn't always, but the man seemed to respect him more. Something Naruto suspected came from when he had made that excuse for being late.

Naruto had also spent more time with Haku, who had come to meet him in the same clearing every day since they had met. The two had grown extremely close despite the short amount of time they had been together due to their similar experience they shared from their past. They had never spoken of the time Haku had mentioned her past; and in truth, they didn't need to, having come to understand each other well enough due to the similarities in their lives.

Instead Naruto would often regale her in tales of his pranks. How he had started his pranking career in order to get back at all the people who had ignored and made fun of him, though the main reason was a little darker than that. He would tell of her setting up stink bombs in restaurants, small explosives in toilets that would go off when someone flushed in the academy, painting the Hokage Monument in broad daylight and other pranks he had pulled throughout the years.