I would like to apologize about the wait, I lost motivation to write for a while and I also was very busy for a significant portion of the past month. I will try to update as much as I can in the time I have but I can't really say how often it will be. Anyways here is Chapter 5 and the beginning of the new Arc.

XxAshishxX, Thanks! Of course I will make Sakura, I think in canon she is severely under-powered.

Guest, Good point, so I'll correct myself. Sasuke has learned that he has unlocked that Sharingan yet.

DfangOO, Don't worry, I hate the obsession thing Sakura has over Sasuke, but I'm trying to remain realistic. Don't worry though, you'll start to seem some progression away from her liking Sasuke real soon. ;)

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto!

Key:

"Talking"

'Thinking'

"Tailed Beasts/Inner-Sakura Talking"

'Tailed Beasts/Inner-Sakura Thinking'

Flashbacks

Enjoy!

Ash Arc: Chapter 5 - Fire on the Horizon

(Two Week Timeskip)

"I honestly think there isn't anything underneath." said Sasuke, who was holding a shovel and covered in dirt.

"Well we'll never truly know until we see for ourselves. Alright so what could we do?" replied Naruto, who had a hoe for his weapon of choice and was also covered in dirt.

"Well what about us all going out to eat?" Sakura suggested, who had a basket of seeds on her right arm and dirt covering her left.

"Alright, we'll invite him to Ichiraku's!" Naruto said.

"Sasuke! Naruto! Sakura! Get back to work!" yelled Kakashi, halting any of the other two genins debate against the idea of going to get ramen.

They just looked at each other before shrugging and getting back to work. 'D-Ranks... Did I seriously go on a four year training trip just to be planting seeds, getting peoples groceries and chasing after an annoying loose cat.' He shuddered at the last of the three. "Damn Tora." he muttered.

They worked on for a couple more hours until they had finally accomplished the task and headed back to the Hokage to turn in the mission and get their minuscule pay. As they exited the office, they all turned to look at their sensei. As they opened their mouths to say something though, he just waved an 'innocent' eye smile and left.

"Damn it! I swear he's on to us!" Naruto complained.

"Well maybe if you keep your voice down then he might not be able to hear every word your saying." suggested Sasuke.

"Sasuke-kun! Naruto! Cut it out! I swear all you two ever do is argue and it always gives me a headache. We'll have plenty of opportunities to see what he's hiding under that damn mask later! But for now please spare my head the pain before I punch the both of you over the Hokage monument!" Sakura finished, nearly steaming in rage.

Meanwhile Naruto and Sasuke were looking at each other in astonishment and a slight amount of fear. She never threatened Sasuke, it was... weird. The just kept staring at her until she gave them a look to let the subject go. She then marched away.

"Uhm... yeah, scary" Naruto said.

"Hn. Of course you'd be scared, dobe." Sasuke said, trying to avoid that he was anything of the sort. Naruto just sighed and decided that arguing while Sakura is still potentially near was a bad thing and let it go. He said a short goodbye to Sasuke and went home.

Naruto arrived early at the training grounds as he always did. He then began doing his warm up laps around the grounds. While he was in the middle of it, Sakura also arrived earlier than usual.

'Hopefully Naruto or Sasuke aren't here, I really want to get out the anger from yesterday. Apparently smashing my door to pieces when I slammed it wasn't enough. Hey, if they are here then one of them can be my punching.' she smiled darkly. Oh poor Naruto...

Naruto finished his tenth lap when Sakura emerged from the forest into the clearing with a slightly sadistic looking smile on her face. He had been hoping she'd gotten over the events of late yesterday. Unfortunately she had not and to make things worse Sasuke wasn't here to take part of the beating she would most likely be giving.

"Oh Naruto-kun!" She sad with a way to friendly tone.

Naruto turned his face to her and quickly covered up his fear with a smile. "Yes oh so sweet and kind Sakura-chan?" he managed to say without stuttering.

"Do you want to spar with me for a warm up?" she asked, still using the same tone.

Naruto gulped, "I mean I was going to do some chakra control training but sure." he said still trying to keep his fear hidden.

"Good! Now if you'll excuse me for a minute." Sakura walked over to a tree across the clearing and set down a basket she had been holding. After that she quickly jumped into the tree and threw a now previously hiding Sasuke out of it.

Naruto smiled happily at this. He wasn't going to take the wrath of her alone. He watched on as Sakura began invoking that wrath upon the Uchiha spy.

Kakashi body flickered into the training grounds but he didn't expect to find two of his three genin brutally beaten while the third was smiling happily as if nothing had happened. He sighed, "Alright, what happened."

Sakura, looked at both of them while still holding her smile. Naruto spoke up, "Hehe well ya see" he started while rubbing the back of his head, "Me and Sasuke just went a little far in a spar." Sasuke immediately agreed. Kakashi decided to ignore it and continue on.

"Alright, well then let's start training. Naruto, I heard from Master Jiraiya that you've been taught about nature transformation." Naruto nodded. "Alright, well I want you to train Sakura on her affinity. Here is a piece of chakra paper so you can figure out what her affinity is." Kakashi then gave him a the paper.

"Sasuke, I'm going to do the same for you." Kakashi said.

"Why doesn't Naruto have to train?" Sakura asked.

"Because he is already training in a way only he could manage due to his extremely high chakra reserves." Kakashi said with a smile.

-At Another Practice Field-

All across the open field, Naruto clones were scattered trying to cut leaves with their chakra and in the middle stood a commanding Naruto clone along with a Kakashi clone. "I can't believe I never noticed the memories from the clones..." spoke the commanding Naruto clone. "I mean now that I think of it, I even remember gaining those memories." He said, shaking his head at his own stupidity.

The Kakashi clone just chuckled, "Maybe if you read more or listened to the Hokage when he taught the jutsu to you this wouldn't have happened."

The Naruto clone with stars in his eyes was currently ignoring him before finally blurting out his thoughts. "I can finally begin training using this! I'll be able to surpass Hokage-sama in no time! I'll do this everyday, for as long as I can! Yes, finally I can be recognized for my tru"

"Naruto I hate to break it to you but we'll be taking many more missions soon, and we really won't have that much time train." the Kakashi clone said, cutting off Naruto.

The Naruto clone's head sunk, "You just have to crush all my hopes and dreams don't you Kakashi sensei..."

"Of course! It's part of my revenge for you blowing up a piece of important literature." Kakashi responded with a slightly evil eye smile.

'I'm never going to get a break, am I?' the clone said.

-With Naruto and Sakura

"Alright Sakura-chan, how much do you know about nature transformation?" asked Naruto

"The academy basics." she responded and Naruto sighed.

"Alright, take this piece of chakra paper and put a little bit of your chakra into it. I'll tell you what affinity you have." Sakura put a small amount of chakra into the paper as instructed and witnessed as it became moist. "I'm assuming you can guess which affinity you have." he spoke.

"I'd say it's probably water. You know Naruto, when your more serious about something it's a lot easier to tolerate your presence." she said.

Naruto nearly face planted into the ground at that. 'Am I really that bad? Maybe Jiraiya-sensei was right, I need to act more serious.' He sighed and continued. "Hehe, well moving on from that comment, let's began on your water transformation. Even with your great chakra control, you won't be able to immediately perform water based jutsu. In order to be able to utilize it correctly, your going to have to be able to make your chakra act as if it's water." Sakura looked a little confused.

"Here I'll show you an example." Naruto stood back from Sakura and performed a couple handseals and wind began to form around his palm. "Observe this jutsu and tell me what's so special about that chakra having the wind transformation in it in comparison to it being just chakra."

"It seems to cut through the air more and rotate at a very fast rate." she said studying it.

"Correct, when I was improving my wind transformation, I had to train myself to be able to make my chakra sharp." he explained.

"So what do I do for my water transformation?"

"Think about how water behaves, how it can flow through almost any crevice and can go from being calm to rapid depending on the situation. Those define how your transformation behaves." lectured Naruto. "Now in order to train this, I want you use rocks and leaves and channel your chakra into while trying to make your chakra behave like water does." Sakura nodded, then found a rock and got to work.

Naruto observed her as she scrunched her face in focus. Moments later the rock exploded, and she growled in frustration. "What happened? Did I put too much chakra into it?"

Naruto chuckled before nodding his head, "You put way to much into it. Think about it, the more chakra you force into a tight space such as a crevice in a rock, the more pressure there is inside that rock. You need to moderate your chakra while being able to transform the chakra and make it flow through the rock."

Sakura nodded her head in understanding before going back to work with a renewed determination. 'I will do this, I need to get stronger.' she thought.

After four hours of continuous frustration and lecturing Sakura nearly had it. Naruto was observing also, as he has been doing. 'Her face is so cute when she is concentrating' he thought as he looked her again scrunched up face.

"I GOT IT!" she yelled breaking Naruto out of his thoughts and sending tumbling back in surprise at the random outburst. Sakura looked at Naruto in slight confusion, "Naruto, are you alright?" Naruto just nodded his head. "So am I already done with transformations?" Sakura asked with hope filled eyes.

"Unfortunately not." Naruto said, causing Sakura to sigh in annoyance. "Hey you should be happy you completed in the time you did. It took me nearly 3 weeks to do it on my own." At that Sakura smiled triumphantly. "I think that's all for today Sakura-chan. Let's head back to the middle of training ground and wait for Kakashi-sensei."

"Alright. Sooo Naruto, how exactly are you training if you were helping me the whole time?" Sakura asked as they began to walk back.

Naruto scratched the back of his while smiling, "Hehe, a shinobi never reveals his secrets." Naruto replied. Sakura just stuck her tongue out at him in return.

As they arrived at the middle of the training ground, they find that Kakashi and Sasuke had just arrived back as well. "Yo." Spoke Kakashi. "How did it go?" he asked while winking at Naruto with his head turned enough so Sakura couldn't see it... Or so he thought.

"PERVERTS!" screamed Sakura as she picked Naruto up like a club and proceeded to hit Kakashi over the head with him.

"SA-KU-RA-CHAN!" Naruto screamed in between hits. She stopped and dropped Naruto who then began to whine, "What did I do to deserve that? I probably suffered more than Kakashi!"

"I saw the slight smile you had right after he asked... You deserved it." she said crossing her arms.

Kakashi crawled up from his whac-a-mole hole in the ground and sighed. "Well with that let's call it a day. Meet in front of the Hokage Tower tomorrow morning at 8 for a new mission." he then body flickered away.

"Damn he keeps getting away before I can ask for us to all go get something to eat..." Naruto said. "I just really want to know whats underneath that mask, is that too much to ask for?" he asked with fake tears running down his cheeks. He turned around and saw that Sakura and Sasuke had walked away. Naruto sweatdropped, 'Fantastic team, I know who to go to if I'm ever in need of help...' he thought before heading home.

Naruto arrived in front of the Hokage Tower to find his teammates already there along with his sensei. He began to great them before quickly doing a double take at the fact there sensei was already there and none the less before him. "Wh-what's going on?" he questioned in disbelief.

Sakura broke out into a fit of laughter while Sasuke smirked as Kakashi face faulted at the fact that they had all reacted as such when they saw him. "I'm sorry I'm usually to kind to help the elderly and confused animals." he said.

Naruto sighed, "Really, we're back to these excuses again? Can we just get on with the mission."

Kakashi sweatdropped, 'What does he have against my excuses?! There just intended to lighten the mood...' Kakashi let the thought go and decided to get serious, "Alright, let's get another mission."

They then entered the building and entered the Hokage's office when told to do so. As Naruto looked around the office, he noticed Iruka at a separate desk with missions. "Hey Iruka-sensei!"

"Naruto, normally I'd chat with you but your interrupting the Hokage from his paper work." spoke Iruka.

The hokage grunted, 'I hate paper work. Any distraction from it is a good distraction.' He then decided to speak up, "So are you here for another mission Kakashi?" He got a nod for confirmation. "Alright then, Iruka what D-Ranks do we have today?"

Before Iruka could even begin looking Naruto intervened, "Hokage-sama, with all due respect I think we are more than capable of handling a C-Ranked mission and would like to request one instead of a D-Rank." Everyone looked at Naruto as if he had a third head. While it happened every once and while, Naruto would behave himself and not be the usually obnoxious and loud ninja he is.

The Hokage looked at Kakashi for confirmation that he agreed to it. Kakashi eye smiled, "I think they are more than prepared to take on a C-Rank mission." At this Naruto smiled triumphantly, while Sakura nervously smirked. Sasuke on the other hand remained neutral in appearance but his thoughts were different. 'I finally get to put my skills to the test.'

Instead of resisting to the idea like he normally would have, Iruka handed the Hokage a C-Rank as he was still in a slight amount of shock. The Hokage looked over the C-Rank before approving of it and gave the folder to Kakashi. "You're dismissed." he spoke and they left.

"So what's our mission Kakashi-sensei?" asked Sakura once she got outside.

"I'll inform you on our way, for now go and grab any supplies you need. There's the possibility that we may be away for a week or two. Meet at the front gates in an hour." he said before leaving in his usual puff of smoke.

"Seems like sensei is back to normal." said Naruto as he stood there with his two teammates. Sakura sighed in agreement while Sasuke grunted once more.

They waited for thirty more minutes before their sensei finally showed up. He began to open his mouth to make an excuse but noticed the glare Naruto was sending him and decided against it. "Well let's get going." he said and they exited Konoha.

After they were a good distance away from Konoha, Naruto spoke up this time, "So can we know what that mission is now Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi nodded and spoke, "We are heading to the prominent farming village, Hitotsubu, which is within the Land of Fire, to investigate the burning of many farms and buildings. The vandals are suspected to be bandits due to the large amount of bandit activity that has been reported around the village. I'd say if this is just bandits as they've mentioned then there are going to be at least a couple hundred of them divided up into several camps in order to cover the entire radius of the village's farm area. We are expected to be there in no later than two days."

"Hn, this will be over in no time." said Sasuke.

Sakura on the other hand wasn't so confident and Naruto noticed. "Well just in case the threat is worst than we think let's be prepared. We should formulate a good strategy to anticipate most possible situations we could face while we're there. If we do that, I know our chances of success will increase drastically." He then looked at Sakura and gave her a reassuring smile. She couldn't help but smile back at him.

Kakashi noticed this exchange along with Sakura's initial reaction and decided to state his opinion as well, "I think that is an excellent idea Naruto. We'll get to that when we make camp this evening."

'Thank you... Naruto.' thought Sakura with a large feeling of relief.

(6 Hours Later - Midday)

"So... Kakashi-sensei, what is this village like?" asked Naruto who had finally had enough of the somewhat awkward silence.

"It's a large village that is the center of trade of agricultural goods in the northern sector of the Land of Fire. It's never been a large target for any sort of operations before but that is probably also the reason it's in its current situation. They've never needed a significant military presence before, therefore with their lack of such it has finally led to a large increase in crime." Kakashi stated in hopes that Naruto truly understood the gravity of the situation going on there.

'So not only is it important to defend due to it being trade node for important products, there's more than likely a significant amount more of bandits then we've been informed of. Hell there are probably even shinobi here. Unfortunately if this is the case then we are doing at least a low A-ranked mission but until we know this is true we can't request backup.' Naruto pondered.

He then looked up and saw a odd gleam in the tree and immediately grew suspicious. Though his expression didn't change, he looked over to Kakashi and made eye contact confirming that he had saw it too. He then discreetly took in his surroundings and prepared for what was to come. Unfortunately Sasuke had other things in mind.

"I know your there, come out and stop cowering in the shadows!" yelled Sasuke. Kakashi just shook his head while Naruto cursed silently before getting beside Sakura.

He spoke to her in a whisper. "Sakura. I'll take any offenders on, I need you to provide support in any means you can, alright?" She nodded in understanding. Eight figures then dashed out from different directions in attempt to put pressure on them. "Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Naruto yelled, creating five clones. Three stayed with Naruto and Sakura while the other two split off towards Sasuke and Kakashi. Naruto then engaged the approaching aggressor by throwing three kunai in a spread formation. The man was thrown off by having to avoid the attack and Naruto was quickly on top of him throwing multiple punches and kicks putting the man on the defensive.

Meanwhile the other three clones had engaged the other three who had tried to attack Naruto and Sakura. Being that they were clones Sakura knew that they'd only be able to hold out for so long. Formulating a plan in her head she threw a kunai with an explosive tag behind the opponent one of the clones was facing causing the man to move in order to avoid the impending explosion. While both the man and clone were recovering she then went through a few handseals. "Water Release: Pressurized Current!" she then spit a relatively large amount of water out of her mouth that shot towards the man, throwing him off his feet and tumbling to the ground where the clone then knocked him out and tied him up, 'One down' thought Sakura.

The now free clone then went and got behind another opponent fighting a clone, catching him off guard and swept his feet from beneath him before putting a kunai to his throat and making him surrender.

Kakashi was currently fighting the toughest of the bunch, a large burly man wielding a battleaxe. The man was keeping him on his feet with his brute swings at a impressively fast speed. But seeing that his genin were beginning to finish up their fights he decided to end the annoyance of constantly dodging and jumped high into the air while performing several handseals. "Wind Release: Disorientation" before clapping his hand together to create a high velocity wind current that through the mans senses off. As he descended towards the ground he then delivered a hard kick to the mans face sending the man to a painful collapse on the ground.

As he finished tying up his opponent he noticed the others had just finished as well. Sasuke looked to be fatigued but that quickly be explained by the scorch marks around where he had fought and also the burn that were on his opponents.

Meanwhile in a tree overlooking the scene a shadowy figure chuckles to himself. 'This will make things interesting indeed. You've grown up little Hatake, I can't wait for whats to come.' he thought with an devious smirk before jumping away in the opposite direction.

'Ugh, my head... What happened?' the man thought as his eyes slowly opened to reveal a blonde with a less than satisfied expression on his face. The man growled lowly before remembering the previous events and realized his situation.

"For the sake of your life you better be reasonable." said the blonde in a cold tone. He only received a glare back at the man. "Oh well, I guess that's how it's going to be." he paused before his expression switched to a maniacal grin. "Now I get to enjoy torturing you." He then pulled out a blank explosive tag and crouched next to the man, focused a red chakra into the tag and placed it on to the man. "Have fun. Oh and when you decide you want to participate, just holler. After all, with all the screaming I bet you'll be doing, everyone will hear you." he said darkly before he began walking away.

The man was then pulled into his mind and began to immediately feel an extremely malicious presence before hearing deep, murderous laugh that resonated through his mind. "Sooo... The brat finally allows me a tool for my amusement." A large fox with nine tails then revealed itself from the shadows and looked straight into the man with his red, slitted and bloodshot eyes. The man had never felt such fear in his life and all who heard his screams couldn't even begin to imagine what torture he had to endure.

After what seemed to be an eternity of torture the man was finally brought back to the real world with the same blonde standing in front of him again. "PLEEEEASSEE! DON'T MAKE ME GO BACK! I'LL TELL YOU ANYTHING YOU WISH TO KNOW! Just don't send me back there..." he said as he began to cry in fear.

After finally gaining information from the terrified man, the team called for a group to come pickup the bandits before heading to the location that the man told them about. They arrived to find a large, bustling camp filled with around a hundred armed bandits. "This must be one of the camps they were talking about." said Naruto. "I say we formulate a plan and take out this camp before we go to the village or find the other camps they told us about."

Kakashi pondered on the idea for a second before looking at the others for their opinions. Sasuke had a slight cocky look to him and nodded while Sakura nodded with a slight hesitance. Kakashi sighed, "I guess that'll work. But we need to make quick work, we have a limited amount of time to get to the village and we'll have to hurry to get there if we go through with this. Do you guys understand?" they all nodded.

End of Chapter 5

It's extremely late as I publish this and I'll add in the jutsu statistics and anything else that I see needs to be added. Again sorry for the EXTREMELY late update and hopefully I can get the next chapter out soon!

Until then!