Return of The Whirlpool (NaruHina)

Chapter 8/ The Rivalry Booms

Chapter 8: The Rivalry Booms

Three days passed since Kakashi had given his genin their new jutsu. For Team 7, the daily schedule consisted of Naruto and Sasuke would usually arrive at the training ground sometime between 7-8, Haku would show up not too much longer after and Sakura would show up by 9, after she finished fixing her hair and everything else that she felt she had to do to get Sasuke's attention. Kakashi said he would show up around 8:30 to help them, which meant he would normally show up around 10-10:30. At 12:00, Team 7 would get a lunch break and then reconvene for a series of missions in the afternoon.

This morning, Kakashi was sitting underneath a tree reading a book. He had just given Naruto and Sasuke some advice on their jutsu and the two had gone straight to work figuring it out. "Silly genin" Kakashi said to himself. "It'll take weeks, maybe even months for them to get those jutsu down. But, that means a good amount of time without them complaining about missions."

"Yeah! I've got it!" shouted Naruto as Kakashi nearly choked on his words. Kakashi looked over at Naruto's training stump and saw two shuriken lodged in the post.

"Damn it" swore Sasuke to himself. "I won't let you get ahead of me, Naruto." While Naruto had just gotten his shuriken to duplicate, Sasuke had yet to turn his fireball into a flamethrower. That is until he did the jutsu again. Sasuke concentrated the chakra in his lungs, building up as much as he could. He made the necessary hand seals and took a deep breath, mixing the molten fire chakra with the air in his lungs. "Katon: Dragon Fire Breath Jutsu!"

Sasuke unleashed the fire in his lungs and a stream of flames were unleashed. This wasn't the previous fireball, this was a sustained stream of flames. Sasuke smirked at his progress, even if he didn't melt the ice.

Kakashi stared on in amazement. "They've already got the basics down?" he thought. "It should be atleast another two weeks until Naruto could even make a single shuriken clone or Sasuke could generate a constant stream of flames. Of course, Naruto only made one shuriken and Sasuke's fire wasn't strong enough, but still. Now all that's left is for them to figure out how to pump more power into the jutsu."

Sasuke was panting hard, having used up a lot of chakra with that last attempt and Naruto wasn't looking too much better.

"Alright, I think you all have deserved a break" said Kakashi, standing up. "You're all coming much farther than I initially expected. Why don't you grab lunch and I'll see you for missions later this afternoon."

"Sasuke, do you want to get lunch?" Sakura asked. Like every other day, she was hoping Sasuke would say yes.

"I'd rather not" responded Sasuke. "If you've got time to be bothering me, then you have time to be working on that jutsu Kakashi-sensei gave you."

Sasuke left a deflated Sakura behind to go do whatever he did for lunch. "Umm Sakura, if you want you could come get some ramen with me" Naruto asked, trying to cheer his crush up.

"And why would I want to do that?" growled Sakura. Like every other day, Naruto had been rejected as well.

Later that afternoon, Team 7 received their mission. It was a simple D-rank again. While they wanted to complain, Naruto and Sasuke kept their mouth shut. There would be plenty of time for complaining when they got their jutsus down. However, Naruto was steadily getting tired of the D-rank. After the mission in the waves he had been hoping for at least another C-rank, even if he felt he was ready for a B-rank or something more.

"Umm, Kakashi-sensei, I know we promised not to complain and everything, but I don't suppose we could do something different than a D-rank. I know we are ready for another one" asked Naruto after they had reported in.