Return of The Whirlpool (NaruHina)

Chapter 4/ One Week

Chapter 4: One Week

Kakashi had brought his team out to the edge of a lake. Kakashi knew it was true…Zabuza was alive, and he would most likely be back. With the false death that the 'hunter nin' had put Zabuza in, Kakashi figured he had about a week to get his team ready for the inevitable rematch with Zabuza and whatever else he brought with him.

"Kakashi-sensei, so what are we doing?" asked Sakura.

"Easy, we are making you stronger" replied Kakashi. "I have the next chakra control exercise for the three of you, water walking."

"What? Water walking?" asked Sakura and Naruto in unison. Was that even possible? Apparently it was.

Kakashi demonstrated by gathering chakra in his feet and hobbling with his crutches out onto the water, remaining afloat on top of the surface, Naruto and Sakura looked on in amazement with Sasuke looking on with an indifferent expression.

"You are to expel chakra from the base of your feet at a constant rate, keeping you afloat on the surface" explained Kakashi. "You saw how I did it, now I want the three of you to try" he instructed.

Naruto was the first to try, gathering chakra into his feet and taking a step out onto the water, only to fall straight in, soaking himself. Sakura was next. Much to Kakashi's surprise, she had managed to stay afloat, even though she was bobbing like crazy, trying to get herself to stabilize. After a few minutes, she finally had the flow of chakra down and was standing on the surface just like Kakashi was.

"Wow Sakura, it's great that you can already do that!" shouted Naruto. Sakura turned around, giving a slight smile while scratching the side of her face. She had hoped to get a positive response from Sasuke, not Naruto.

Sasuke was last, confident that he would get it; he took a step onto the water. Like Naruto, he fell through the surface. Kakashi instructed the three of them to work on the exercise. Since Naruto and Sasuke hadn't gotten it done yet, they had to get the technique down first. Sakura on the other hand, had already managed to stand on the water after the first attempt. Kakashi attributed her success to her superior chakra control over the two boys.

For the next two days, Kakashi had all three of them working on the exercise. He had Sakura refining the technique by doing various physical exercises such as running, jumping, and skating on the surface of the water. Sasuke and Naruto were still struggling to get the water walking exercise, and much to Sakura's delight, had resorted to taking off all but their shorts so their clothes wouldn't become any more soaked than they already were. It wasn't so much Naruto she cared for, but a shirtless Sasuke was too much to pass up. This was the one time in the exercise where she completely lost her focus and ended up falling through the surface into the water.

At the end of the second day, Naruto and Sasuke were getting close. They were each able to hold the chakra flow for a few seconds before falling through. Like the tree climbing exercise, they had inadvertently turned this into some sort of competition, not wanting the other one to best them. Late at night, Sasuke managed to get the exercise down first but Naruto was only an attempt or two behind, showing Sasuke that the 'dobe' really wasn't that far behind after all.

Back at Tazuna's house Naruto and Sasuke showed up, finally. Kakashi was glad that the two had finally got the basics down. He gave the two boys one more day to refine their technique while he and Sakura would join Tazuna on the bridge for guard duty.

The following day, Naruto and Sasuke were back at the lake, working on the same thing that Sakura was doing the other day. Both boys were getting impatient by this as there was really no way for them to cmpete against one another. And then Sasuke made a suggestion.