A week later Naruto had mastered the tree walking exercise and Ino could run up and down the tree for four hours easily, granted Naruto could do it for ten days straight if he so desired but, eh... after Naruto had successfully done it he had started to go back to channelling his chakra into his kunai and was getting immensely better at it as time went on. He had found it to be easier after the tree climbing training and, when he threw his kunai it was going through the targets and through whatever was behind it six times out of ten. When Asuma got a look at how Naruto was progressing he thought to himself 'oh god, I might have to get him started on elemental training sooner than I thought...Why didn't my ol' man tell me that this might happen...' after that thought he sighed in annoyance. Currently though they were running through the streets like there was a giant boulder chasing them down. In actual fact though they were the ones doing the chasing; "damn that cat to the seventh circle of hell" Naruto exclaimed in annoyance as 'Tora', otherwise known as the 'demon cat' to many of the shinobi of Konoha, had escaped from them once again. "You know, if I didn't know better I'd think that we were the only ones that ever got assigned to chase this cat down" Naruto said as he was running after it.

"Well you're not, so now focus on the task at hand and save your complaining for later" Asuma said over the radios that they had been supplied with to communicate to each other during the mission.

"Hai, Asuma sensei...I'm just saying that I'm tired of chasing this damn cat all over Konoha because it gets annoyed at the smothering that the daimyo's wife does to it, that's all."

Asuma sighed and said "well, nonetheless, this is a mission and we are bound to do it" even though he was actually internally agreeing with Naruto's sentiment.

"I've got him in my sights" Ino came in over the radio.

"Good, now throw a kunai up its arse" Naruto said over the radio.

"Naruto!" Asuma said firmly.

"I know, I know, but one can dream can't they?"

"I can't believe that you are asking that Naruto" Ino said.

The four ninja then moved in and surrounded Tora before the cat raced up into Ino's arms, seeing the murderous looks on Naruto, Shikamaru and Asuma's faces. They then went to the Hokage's office to return the cat to its rightful owner. When they had the cat desperately tried to get away from the Daimyo's wife.

Naruto thought 'geez, I almost feel sorry for it now.'

'I can understand why it tries so hard to get away' Ino thought.

Shikamaru on his part thought that it was troublesome.

When the Sandaime Hokage asked if they would like to tackle another d-rank mission that day Asuma replied in the negative and asked if it would be possible for his team to receive a C-Rank mission the next day. The Sandaime accepted his request and then Asuma dismissed the team for the rest of the day. When they were leaving he called Naruto to the side and took him to their training ground and started him on elemental training.

Authors Notes:

Kind of lame end to the chapter I know, but it's been a while since I worked on this story, so I apologise for that.