Beyond Ambitions
by thephaw
Chapter 3: Team Seven
Sakura was tired. She just came back from a very boring B-rank escort mission. Not only did she have to escort an annoying perverted noble, she was forced to do the mission alone since both of her team-mates had over-trained and ended up in the hospital.
‘Damn Naruto and Lee, I’m gonna kill them when I find them,’ shouted her Inner Sakura. Sakura didn’t look like the girl she used to be 6 years ago. Now, her pink hair had grown and fell down to her waist. Her eyes were still green but they were brighter now and full of confidence. She no longer wore the red dress she used to wear when she was younger. Now she wore a black mesh jumpsuit underneath a red skirt with a slit cut in the side and red mini t-shirt that exposed her stomach. Many of the guys she meet would go out with her in a heartbeat but she currently wasn’t interested in going out with anybody. Her looks weren’t the only thing that changed, however, Sakura was no longer the helpless ninja she was before. She received private lessons on genjutsu from Kurenai-sensei and even Tsunade taught her basic medical jutsus. Although her taijutsu and ninjutsu are below average, her genjutsu is already past jounin level.
As she headed her way towards the training field, she spotted Tsunade coming out of the hospital and decided to say hi.
“Good morning, Tsunade-sama!” greeted Sakura.
“Good morning, Sakura, how did you mission go?” replied the hokage.
“Boring,” answered Sakura, “We didn’t encounter ANY threats at all. It was more like a D-rank mission than a B-rank. By the way, I left the mission report in your office.”
Tsunade cringed at the thought of more paperwork.
“Something wrong, Tsunade-sama?”
“Oh, its nothing, I just hate paperwork,” she said, smiling at Sakura, “and also, I need to meet with you and your team in my office later.”
“Another boring mission?” asked Sakura, looking disappointed.
“Haha, don’t look so down, it will be another mission but I doubt this one will be boring.”
“Really? What kind of mission will it be?”
“I’ll explain it to you later in my office.”
“Right, I’ll go tell Naruto and Lee right away,” said Sakura before she disappeared in a poof of smoke.
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At the training field, Naruto and Lee were training as usual. Lee, who has only ever trained in taijutsu, had grown tall and muscular. His eyebrows were still thick but he no longer sported the bowl cut that defined him for so long. Instead, his hair was spiky like Naruto when he was twelve. Lee still wore his green jumpsuit only now he wore the ninja vest overtop of it. Naruto on the other hand, had grown up to look a lot like the fourth. In fact, his hair was exactly like the fourth’s hair. Naruto still has the whisker markings on his face and his eyes sometimes flickered back and fourth from his normal blue eyes to the cat-like eyes he gets when he uses the kyubi’s chakra. Like Lee, Naruto had also become more muscular, not as much as Lee though.
“Still doing push-ups Lee?” asked Naruto
“7135, 7136, 7137, 7138…,” came Lee’s answer, “If I can’t do 10000 push-ups, I must punch log 15000 times.” Naruto sweat dropped. ‘Another impossible self-imposed rule’ thought Naruto. Lee’s self imposed rules have allowed him to become fast and strong. Lee was faster than even Gai-sensei now. With his intense physical training, Lee was now able to open seven of the eight inner gates of his chakra circulatory system. In fact, he had just opened the seventh gate, the wonder gate a couple of months ago and had to stay in the hospital for a month because of it.
Naruto also trained hard during the past six years. Naruto had an unprecedented amount of chakra, all thanks to Kyubi. In fact, Naruto almost never used the Kyubi chakra anymore. His chakra had already doubled the chakra of the nine-tails inside of him. The problem was that Naruto could only use about a quarter of his chakra at a time without burning himself. He had kept training himself so that he would be able to use more of his own chakra at once. Also, Naruto was now trying to perfect a projectile variation of a technique he learnt from Jiraiya, his perverted mentor. Naruto held up his right hand. Suddenly, a small orb of wind appeared floating above the palm of his hand. He then pointed his palm and the ball of wind directly at the ground. “This better work,” he said. The ball of wind, or Rasengan as most people called it suddenly blasted away from his hand and towards the ground. The rasengan hit the ground but dissipated upon impact.
“DAMMIT!” he yelled as he slammed his fist into the ground. Just as his fist touched the ground, the ground seemed to liquefy and rise up into a huge wave. The wave headed towards Naruto. “How the hell did that happen…!?” he yelled. ‘Wait a minute,’ he thought, ‘I’ve seen this before, its genjutsu.’ Naruto held up his hands in a tiger seal. “Kai!” he said, releasing the genjutsu on him. The big earth wave disappeared and in its place stood Sakura. “Sakura-chan?”
“Hmph…that was for leaving me to protect some dirty old man by myself while you and Lee-kun relaxed in the hospital,” she said while sticking her tongue out at him.
“But…Sakura-chan,” he stammered, “I didn’t even know I was in the hospital till I woke up.”
“That was the excuse you used last time, Naruto. Don’t think I’ll let you off easy thi…” she started before she was interrupted by Lee’s voice.
“Come to me ladies. Yes, that’s it, come closer to the beautiful azure beast of Konoha,” he said. Naruto looked over at Lee and noticed that he had a huge grin on his face and a partial nosebleed.
“Umm…Sakura-chan? What genjutsu did you use on Lee?” asked Naruto
“Remember the Harem no jutsu technique you keep telling me about?”
“What about it?”
“Well, this is pretty much the same thing, only its genjutsu.”
“WHAAAAAT?” complained Naruto, “How come he gets to see naked girls while I’m stuck with that weird ground wave thing? How are you supposed to get back at him by showing him naked ladies?”
“You’ll see,” she replied with an evil grin on her face. Naruto glanced over at Lee again but this time, Lee had a look of sheer horror on his face.
“AHHHH! Get away from me. I was just kidding about before!” yelled Lee.
“What did you do?” asked Naruto, confused.
“Hehehe, in my genjutsu, all the young pretty naked ladies turn into really ugly old ones” answered Sakura who still wore her evil grin.
‘Jeez,’ thought Naruto, ‘Lee got it worse than me… WAY worse. That probably scarred him for life.’ “Well, you better go save him, you know Lee is no good at ninjutsu or genjutsu.”
Satisfied with her revenge, Sakura put her hands up into a tiger seal and said “Kai” before touching Lee on the shoulder to dispel the genjutsu. Lee just sat there still shivering at the after images of Sakura’s genjutsu.
“I didn’t think it would be THAT bad. Naruto, you better go cheer him up,” Sakura said to Naruto.
“Why me? You’re the one who put the genjutsu on him,” complained Naruto.
“Just do it,” Sakura demanded.
“Fine, I’ll do it,” said Naruto. He was thinking about ways to cheer Lee up when a truly evil idea popped up into his mind. ‘Sakura-chan is gonna kill me for this but, hehehe.’ “Hey Lee, look at this” he called out. Lee turned his head towards Naruto. “HENGE!” said Naruto as he turned into a naked girl. But it wasn’t ANY naked girl, it was the naked form of a certain pink haired Kunoichi. Lee’s eyes widened in surprise and his nose started bleeding again. Naruto turned back into himself, laughing his ass off. Sakura on the other hand…
“NAAA…RUUU…TOOOO!!!” she said in an ominous voice as she slowly crept up on the laughing blond shinobi and punched him in the face, sending him flying. “PERVERT!!,” she yelled as she punched him. Finally calmed down, Sakura remembered about the meeting. “Hey guys, we have to go meet the hokage.”
“A mission?” asked Lee, slightly blushing when he looked at her.
“Ya, Tsunade-sama said she’ll explain the mission when we meet in her office.” Answered Sakura.
“Uhh…lets go then,” said Naruto, his head still aching from Sakura’s punch.
“You better not try that again, Naruto,” yelled Sakura. Naruto just grinned and nodded as team seven headed to Tsunade’s office.
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The three chuunin entered the hokage's office.
“Ah yes, please have a seat,” said Tsunade, “As
you probably have heard, an Uchiha was rumoured to have been seen somewhere
in the wave country.”
“Itachi?” asked Naruto
“No… its Sasuke” Tsunade declared as all three chuunin’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Sasuke…is alive?” exclaimed Naruto still not believing it.
“Yes. Five days ago, I sent a squad of ANBU to confirm that Sasuke was alive. The ANBU ran into him and only one came back alive. It doesn’t seem as though Sasuke is under Orochimaru’s control. It doesn’t look like he is part of the Akatsuki either even though they are on the move.
‘Sasuke-kun, I knew it,’ thought Sakura, recalling the day she was in Sasuke’s house six years ago.
“So…what exactly are we doing?” asked Naruto.
“You three are to find Sasuke and keep an eye on him to find out if he truly is working alone. Also, I want you to try and bring Sasuke back to the village. Avoid any hostilities, since it seems he was able to take out three ANBU with relative ease. This is an S-class mission, usually I would do this sort of mission but I’m occupied with the Akatsuki right now.”
“WHAT!?” yelled Naruto, “WHY US!? Can’t you send Neji or Shino? They’re already Jounins while we’re only chuunins.”
“Umm…about that. You three have actually already achieved Jounin level a few years ago. I just held you back so I could have more people doing these C and B rank missions that appear everywhere. I’m sorry I had to do that but…please don’t be angry, these are tough times for Konoha.”
“You…held us back…for THAT!?” yelled Naruto.
“I understand how you feel Naruto but as of today, you three are Jounins.”
“But Tsunade-sama,” said Lee, “Gai-sensei said I wouldn’t be ready to be a Jounin for another few years.”
“Gai-sensei was just trying to protect you Lee. Don’t worry, I know your skills in taijutsu very well, you are the best in Konoha in straight hand-to-hand combat. Actually, all three of you have surpassed Jounin level already in certain areas. Sakura, I’ve heard your genjutsu skills have surpassed Kurenai’s. And Naruto, you have more chakra than any of the other Jounin, and even me, by far. I don’t know how Sasuke will react to you three, but if anyone can bring him back, it's you guys.”
All three just-turned-jounins blushed a bit at the compliments given to them.
“As soon as your finished gathering supplies, I wish the three of you to leave immediately. The ANBU encountered Sasuke in a field about three miles east of the Big Naruto Bridge. You can start looking there. Remember, we don’t know what Sasuke’s goals are right now and we don’t know if he’s alone or not so keep your guard up when you find him. I can’t afford to lose anymore shinobi so please come back alive,” finished Tsunade.
“Don’t worry,” said Naruto with a grin, “we’re the best remember?”
“Right…good luck you three.” And with that, the three jounins headed out to their next mission.