Ch 12: First Encounter

"Naruto, you're not supposed to do that. Someone will notice!"

"That's the point Sakura. It's like putting up a billboard saying 'Beware! Insanely powerful shinobi are in the area.' this way no bandit in their right mind would ever think to attack us." Sakura looked at Naruto, exasperated.

"It's still way more firewood than we need."

"I have a special trick for that." Naruto pulled out a storage scroll, and from the look of it, it was homemade.

"You never told me you knew sealing jutsu."

"A wise ninja is careful when he reveals his secrets. You never know who might be listening." Sakura socked him on the shoulder.

"Cut that out dork!"

"What? It's true Sakura-chan."

"That 'ninja sage' baloney is beneath you. Now, help me start the fire."

XxXxXx

The booming sound of splintering wood shook the forest. Soujima awoke with a gasp.

"Brother, did you hear that?"

"You have any idea what that was big bro?" A sly grin grew on Soujima's face.

"Judging from the sound of it, a ninja destroyed a massive tree. They must be tuckered out from their super tree felling technique. Sousuke, I think we just hit our lucky break."

Soujima and Souske are from a small missing ninja colony. They live with a rowdy bunch of guys that were exiled from their respective villages because of heinous crimes. For a living, they assail merchants whenever they need something. Recently, the group has been running out of ninja tools, so the brothers have been lurking near the trade routes to Konoha in hope that some ninja supplies could be obtained.

Kakashi sighed. "Naruto, what the hell was that."

"I was just getting some wood Kakashi-sensei."

"You do realize that everything within a ten mile radius must have heard that. Right?"

"Well yeah, why should we care? All of us are super strong."

"If you don't change that prideful way of thinking, You will fail your missions and die before your time." Kakshi took a deep breath to gather his thoughts."Naruto, what are the three ways a ninja wins a fight?"

"Hmm. Well the first one is incapacitating the opponent. The second is... running away. I don't know the third one." Kakashi shook his head in disbelief.

"Sasuke would you like to tell Naruto about the third one?"

"The third method is avoiding the fight altogether. Why the heck don't you know that idiot?"

"And Naruto, my adorable little genin, as they should have impressed upon you in the academy, the third option is best when transporting precious cargo or a VIP." Kakashi said slowly. Sakura piped up.

"They covered that in advanced evasion theory. Naruto kept getting kicked out of that one."

"Oh yeah, I figured that since I was already so awesome at evasion, I did some... creative things to get kicked out."

"Creative!? You almost suffocated Sasuke with a plunger." Naruto sighed fondly.

"Now that one was absolutely beautiful. Took an entire week to plan it."

"You sociopathic bastard! I nearly died." While Sasuke was busy strangling Naruto, and Kakashi was watching with amusement, Sakura figured her talents would be best used setting up camp.

Soujima and Sousuke crept up to the clearing, cloaked by genjutsu. Soujima thought to himself."Good thing they are distracted they won't notice us stealing their supplies." Sousuke stepped on a twig. "Dammit Sousuke!"

Sakura's eyes narrowed

"Come out. We know you're there." Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi quit their antics immediately. There were enemies present.

Silence reigned in the clearing.

"We have to get out of here." Sousuke pled with Soujima. Soujima smacked his brother.

"Only thanks to your screw up! Now you retreat, there may be some way for me to salvage this." Soujima slowly and stealthily made his way to the civilian the ninja were protecting. Maybe he could use the civilian as leverage to get supplies.

Soujima crept closer and closer to the civilian. Very quietly, so as not to alert the shinobi that were looking for him.

"Hey Naruto! Can't you use the air to sense him?" The pink one asked.

"Since we're outside of Konoha, no. Not unless he's decently close. Besides, he could have run away already after he saw what awesome ninja we were." The blonde said.

"So, I shouldn't get too close to blondie. Hmm. This is going to be tricky." Soujima readied the last of his ninja wire in hope that this would be enough.

Using his most advanced ninja wire technique, he cloaked his wire in a localized invisibility genjutsu, and manipulated it into position. Soon, the ninja's backs were all turned away from the target, searching for him.

"My chance." Soujima fiercely tugged on the ninja wire, and had the civilian captured and gagged before he could scream. He then fled from the ninja escort, leaving a clone behind as bait.

Kakashi was the first one to notice that something was wrong.

"The client has been captured." Kakashi barked. "Pursuit formation."

"But how to we know where the-" Sakura's question was cut short by Kakashi.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu" A small dog appeared in a cloud of smoke.

"What do you need Kakashi?" The dog said.

"Pakkun, I need you to find our client." Kakashi grabbed the clients' pack, and put it in front of Pakkun. After Pakkun sniffed the bag, he started running.

"This way!" shouted the ninja dog. Team 7 followed Pakkun for about ten meters when they happened upon a strange ninja with a crossed out waterfall headband.

"That's a basic clone. It's just an illusion. The real one is about 400 meters out, heading towards several others with a decent amount of chakra." said Pakkun. Kakashi dispelled the clone with a hand sign.

"Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura retreat now. This is too much for you to handle. Clean up camp. Hopefully I'll be back with the client in an hour or so." Naruto was the first to speak up."

"We can take those guys. C'mon Kakashi-sensei. Let us go."

"Yeah, sensei we've been training for this for the last seven years. We can handle combat." Sakura asserted.

Kakashi made a shadow clone to follow with Pakkun, and gave the rest of the team a signal to stop.

"Alright. If you think you're ready for ninja combat, please, go on and follow my clone." The three genin readied themselves to jump past Kakashi when their legs started trembling. Too scared to speak, think or even breathe, Sakura and Sasuke fell to their knees covered in sweat. The normally rambunctious Naruto didn't even dare move a muscle.

"There is more to battle than chakra reserves and flashy jutsu. When you learn that, maybe, just maybe, you won't die on the battlefield. Now go and clean up camp like I ordered you to do in the first place." With that Kakashi jumped away and the genin could move again.

"What was that?" Sakura questioned "My strength just left my body."

"That was terrifying." Sasuke said. Naruto was silent for a long moment, then he found the strength to speak.

"So that's the power of a jonin." Naruto whispered. Gathering his wits he stood up straight. "Let's go guys. We only have an hour or so to clean up."