Seven: C-rank Mission

In the forest near the village, Sakura dashed around the trees leaving blurry shadows behind her. Moving back and forth between them, each step was enough to push her more than a dozen meters ahead.

Chakra coursed through her leg and she adjusted the output slightly, reducing the distance of her movement by a meter.

Repeating this process again and again, she slowly refined her Chakra control.

Small adjustments were enough to completely change the outcome of every action.

Lifting her hand, she clenched it into a fist and struck the tree on her side.

The moment they made contact the whole bark exploded into splinters and flew into the air away from her.

By pouring chakra into her arms and hand in a well timed manner, she could strengthen the flesh in her arms, the toughness of her skin and even the density of the bones for a small frame of time. Continuous output could achieve a similar result, but her chakra reserves were nowhere near enough to withstand an extravagant consumption of energy.

This method she developed on her own reminded her a lot of Tsunade's technique. Although the power was incomparable, the applications in battle were many.

After all, how many people could continually use the body flicker technique coupled with Taijutsu to achieve such a devastating effect compared to getting hit with a C-rank technique?

Feeling a little happy about her power, she stopped for a moment and turned back to look at her sensei.

Looking up from his book, Kakashi stared at the blown up tree stump and nodded.

"You have made great progress in this technique."

Sticking out her tongue playfully, Sakura chuckled. "Hehe, isn't it all thanks to Kakashi-sensei? I didn't know we could apply the principles of the body flicker technique in such a way."

Shaking his head, Kakashi walked towards the broken tree and touched it with a look of nostalgia in his eyes. "You shouldn't downplay your achievements, Sakura. The only other person I ever saw who could do this was extremely talented..."

Looking back, Kakashi still remembered that day when he joined his Anbu team as his subordinate. Uchiha Itachi was one of those rare geniuses who could turn a weak C-rank ninjutsu into a deadly weapon with his superior thinking.

Even this method he taught Sakura was taught to him by Itachi casually. What took him a month to grasp, only took Sakura a few days...

Looking at this little monster acting cute in front of him, he felt a little ashamed. Maybe the younger generation can really surpass the older?

In the end he could only sigh, those techniques with a lot of emphasis on micromanagement of Chakra is not suitable for people like him who aren't especially talented in this area. This method of using the body flicker technique for example wasn't too complex, but the requirements in terms of Chakra control were quite high.

On the other side of the training ground, Naruto finished a set of six hand seals.

"Wind Release: Violent Whirlwind!" Taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth slightly letting out a powerful continuous stream of air. The pressure of the wind stream was such that you could even see as it hit a large rock pushing it back by six meters.

This was the C-rank technique that Naruto barely learned in those two months training and doing missions with Kakashi, it's the wind release version of the commonly used fire release: fireball technique.

Not far from him, Sasuke brought his hands together began weaving seals with astonishing speed, wheter it was Naruto or Sakura all they could see was a shadow as his hands moved. In less than two seconds, they came to a sudden stop.

"Fire release: Phoenix Fire Technique!"

His following actions were also blurry shadows in their eyes. Flames spilled from his mouth in various direction spreading in an arch at lightning speed, striking the tree on the other side and breaking through it almost as if it was made out of paper, it was only when it reached the stone wall at the back that it stopped, revealing five scorched Shurikens stuck deep inside the rock, almost halfway through.

What was even more astonishing came later. With just a single seal, Sasuke opened his mouth and spilled another wave of flames.

"Fire Release: Flame Bullet!"

The temperature and the size couldn't compare with his fireball technique that he used during Kakashi's test months ago, however, in terms of speed it's way better.

The fire bullet sped past the trees in the blink of an eye and stuck the stone wall, causing a bunch of gravel to fall on the ground. After the flames dissapeared, what appeared was a sizable hole as deep and as big as a basketball on the mountain. If someone got hit by something like that, they would definitely die.

Looking at this scene, Sakura couldn't help but bit her lips, although everyone made a lot of progress under her constant nagging to Kakashi, the disparity between her and Naruto with Sasuke was something very frustrating.

It's a pity that there isn't much she could do. First of all, her lack of training in her childhood lead her to not develop her chakra reserves as much as she should have. This lack of Chakra means that she is not yet suitable to use anything above D-rank techniques, it didn't matter that she could learn anything ten times faster and better than others, that's only her proficiency in something raising a lot.

As for Naruto, his chakra control was horrendous and he only managed to learn a single technique in all this time, if he had been training since a young age like Sasuke, things could have been different, but alas.

The children of the noble clans have too many advantages compared to people like them, orphans and civilians.

Even so, having watched all of this, Kakashi nodded with a glint of pride in his eyes. "I think congratulations are in order, you guys made a lot of progress in two months. If you were to fight with yourselves from two months ago, it would be a complete landslide in your favor."

"Hmph, stinky Kakashi-sensei, if I didn't pester you everyday, we would still be chasing cats on the street."

Faced with Sakura's comments, Kakashi turned his back towards her and coughed in denial. Let she think whatever she wants, all of this was definitely his own plan...

"That's right, you're really a miser, y'know, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto pointed at Kakashi with an angry look on his face. "But what I really want to know is... Can we do a higher rank mission now? I swear if I see another cat I will die of disgust!"

Although Sasuke was silent throughout all of this, even he nodded at this time. Those D-rank missions were a waste of time in his opinion, he wouldn't get stronger doing those useless missions.

Being stared at by the three brats behind him, Kakashi felt like someone was poking him with needles. Massaging his forehead with a headache, he could only relent. "Okay... I will try to convince the lord Hokage."

"Yaay!!!" Jumping on the spot Naruto waved his hand in excitement!

"Finally!" Sakura only sighed with relief.

Sasuke on the other hand merely scoffed, but internally he was also happy with this development.

----

"Sigh... Alright, let me see if there's a suitable mission." Hiruzen sighed in distress as he lowered his head.

"What?! No! They have just graduated from the academy, they aren't ready for a higher ranking mission!"

Iruka sensei stood up with a frown.

"Iruka-sensei, there's no way I'm going to continue fetching cats for old ladies! I, Uzumaki Naruto, will become the Hokage, so I must complete harder missions!" Naruto angrily replied as he crossed his hand and turned around with a sulking expression on his face.

"This..." Faced with Naruto's words, Iruka felt troubled and didn't know how to reply.

"Iruka-sensei, what Naruto means is that we are definitely ready to tackle harder missions. Don't get me wrong, I know you're worried, but we have done more than a hundred D-rank missions in two months and we trained a lot with Kakashi as well. It's safe to say that our current selves are more than twice as strong compared to when we graduated."

Noticing how troubled he felt, Sakura stepped forward to explain their case. After such a long time developing themselves and doing so many missions, they felt that D-rank missions were beneath them, after all...

With this, Iruka lifted his hands in surrender and sat back down on his chair.

Taking a puff out of his pipe, the third Hokage, Hiruzen observed all of this with a hint of amusement in his eyes.

"Alright, I think we have a suitable mission for you."

Having said this, he pulled out a C-rank mission scroll and delivered it to Kakashi.

"The target of your mission this time is in the Kurogawa province."

Hearing this, Naruto's eyes lit up as he turned back to face the Hokage. "Oh! Really?! What's the mission? Protecting a princess? Scouting an important noble? Finding a treasure??"

The more Naruto spoke, the more outrageous his imagination became, at some point he even asked if they were going there to save the world.

Messaging his forehead, Hiruzen could only cut hin in the middle and explain.

"Enough, Naruto. Your mission this time is an extermination one. Kakashi will debrief you on the details."

"Okay, thank you, Lord Hokage." Before Naruto could continue pestering the people there, Kakashi intervened and led everyone outside.

"Kakashi-sensei, what are the details of our mission this time." The one who asked first was Sasuke.

There's no way, even him the King of Curs- cough, Edginess, is anxious to know the details at this time. With his clear goals, going from a D-rank to a C-rank mission really felt like he had finally made some progress.

Seeing him like this, Sakura had to hold back the desire to laugh with both her hands.

Sasuke looks very cute when he's excited for something because he usually doesn't show much reaction for anything.

"Hehe, Sasuke-kun, are you happy that we will be going on a C-rank mission?"

Seeing Sakura approaching him with a teasing look on her face, Sasuke blushed slightly when he realized that his reaction was abnormal. Angry, he scoffed and ignored her.

"Pfft, haha!" At the end, Sakura couldn't help herself, even Naruto was shaking trying to contain his laughter.

No way, if he really laughed, Sasuke would definitely beat him up!

"Okay, stop joking around, everyone. Go and get enough supplies for three days, and don't forget to replenish your weapons, C-rank missions means that there's high chance we will have to fight against civilians, and an extermination one usually means that this chance turned into certainty. We will gather at the main gate in thirty minutes."

Nodding seriously, the trio dispersed in orderly manner.

Arriving at home, Sakura began packing her things. There were some rations a first aid kit, storage scrolls with Kunais and Shurikens and also some other tools that could be useful depending on the situation.

Looking at her room, she couldn't help but reminisce the last few months.

Knowing that she was now going through a mission that never happened in the original, she could say with confidence that they had deviated from the future she knew, and besides some people's actions, things would become very hard to predict.

"Well, not everything is bad. With my intervention, everyone's strength developed a lot."

Indeed, be it Sasuke, Naruto or even herself, they were much stronger compared to their original counterparts.

Sighing, she wore her backpack and left after warning her parents that she would leave the village for a period of time.

With their blessings, she headed straight to the main gate of the village.

The majestic sight of the Gate that was dozens of meters tall made her feel breathless. Although its usefulness was questionable, it was still quite an interesting sight.

Not long after she arrived, Naruto and Sasuke appeared.

It was only Kakashi that took exactly thirty minutes to arrive, leaving them waiting with anger in their eyes.

"Yo-"

"You're late!" x3.

Before he could even greet them, the three scolded him on top of their lungs.