Chapter 40: On the way to Sunagakure

"Naruto, what you just did was very reckless and dangerous, tapping into the Kyuubi's chakra is a very dangerous thing that requires attention from me-" the Hokage was cut off before he could say anything else.

"Don't worry too much Hokage-Jiji, I simply made a deal with the overgrown fox to use 10% of his chakra, I just wasn't expecting it to leak out so I didn't set up any seals that would contain it in my house." Naruto waved his hand without worry, his hand on which his nails resembled claws.

The Hokage took a big sigh and shook his head "Naruto, I can see that you are capable of controlling yourself, even with the Kyuubi's chakra running through you, so I will let it slide, but the next time that you do something like this please inform me before going ahead and doing it." the Hokage said to Naruto.

Naruto smiled sheepishly and promised to inform the Hokage before doing something that involves the Kyuubi.

Since it was still quite early in the day Naruto decide to spend the remainder of his day pumping chakra into Samehada, he already had most of his belongings in his inventory so there was no need for him to pack anything, all that was left was the time he needed to wait before leaving for Suna.

Time passed quickly as he spent day and night pumping chakra into Samehada, he would meet up with his team at the main gate of Konoha.

He arrived there at the time he was given and saw that both Sasuke, Shino, and Guy were already there, they were the only team participating in the Chunin exams this time, usually, there'd be multiple teams participating for each village but most genin teams were not experienced enough, and those that were had already passed earlier that year.

"Yo, you guys ready?" Naruto greeted his team.

Sasuke scoffed, "Of course we are, this is just the Chunin exams, nothing special."

Shino simply nodded while Guy started shouting about youth.

They quickly set out, it would take a day and a half at least to get there at Chunin speeds, and it was better to arrive there a bit earlier since it would allow the team to prepare themselves.

The team started heading southwest towards the land of rivers where they would stay at an inn close to the Land of Wind's border, they would then set out the next day and arrive in Sunagakure in around a day's time, traveling through the desert was quite hard after all.

Their journey through the Land of Fire was a peaceful one, they met some merchants but didn't approach them, luckily they didn't meet a ferocious S-rank ninja that was trying to kill them so the traveling was calm.

But it didn't remain that way for long.

They met a group of bandits, most bandits would try to run away the second they saw that someone had a village headband but it seemed that these bandits were not that smart, safe to say they were swiftly taken care of.

Sasuke used a fire jutsu, Shino used his insects and Naruto simply tore through them with Taijutsu, Guy expected a more severe reaction from Sasuke and Shino but after seeing a person like Kisame and fighting through his killing intent, killing a few bandits seemed almost insignificant to what they felt that day.

They continued their journey with no problems and arrived in a small village where they booked an inn just as the sun began to set, they had a light meal and went to sleep for the night, since each of them had their own rooms Naruto decided to seal his room off and started pumping chakra into Samehada again, he made some progress and it soon became 6 in the morning as he heard knocks on his door, it was Guy waking the three of them up.

They had a light breakfast and headed out, the further southwest they went to more sandy their surroundings became, water grew scarce and fertile land started to slowly disappear, they had officially crossed into the Land of Wind.

Now they would have a long trek through the sandy desert before they arrived in Sunagakure.

Sunagakure was quite a poor village, its main form of trading was in gold, and different kinds of metals, but that was it, they sold a few puppets and had a small number of tourists, the village was economically quite far behind the other villages, even Kirigakure a village in the middle of a civil war had more money than them.

Team 9 traveled faster than they expected as weather conditions were quite good and arrived 3 hours before the sun would set.

They arrived at the massive walls that surrounded Sunagakure and were stopped by a team of Chunin, since they were allies there was no problem with them entering especially when they were told that they were participating in the Chunin exams, they were escorted to a hotel that was dedicated to host the teams of Konohagakure since there was only one team participating they were actually made fun of by some of the ninjas that saw them, not that it mattered much.

The hotel wasn't that great compared to even the Inn they stayed at but it was better than most other hotels in Suna, Naruto could see why Suna was called the weakest of the five major hidden villages.

The team would now have plenty of time to rest before the exams officially started so Naruto decided to visit Sunagakure's street market.

The street was filled with people as they were all riled up because of the Chunin exams, some even asked Naruto if he was participating, one thing that was disappointing about Sunagakure was the number of thieves, just entering the market Naruto counted three people that were stealing things, 1 even tried to pickpocket him, safe to say they wouldn't try it again.

The market was nothing special, most things he could find in Konoha, the only actually interesting thing he found was the food vendor which sold extra spicy curry, while it was good it didn't even begin to compare to Ichiraku Ramen so Naruto was quite disappointed by Suna, not that he would say it out loud.

All he had to do now was wait for the exams to start.

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