Chapter 106 Psychological Tactics

"Wait? What strategy?" Naruto asked curiously, without any accusation in his tone.

"Psychological tactics." Shikamaru replied lazily, leaning against a boulder beside the spring deep inside Training Ground 27. "Let them worry themselves to death while they track us, while we rest and adjust our strategy. For example, treat Ya's wound."

"It's just a scrape," the Inuzuka growled, leaning against a fallen tree trunk and sitting on the forest floor with his legs crossed. He had taken off his leather jacket and pulled his mesh vest over his chest as Sakura tended to his wound. It was a pretty serious one, as it ran from just above his hip bone to his lower ribs in an irregular arc with the edges flared like saw teeth.

Shino looked down at the scene, his eyes fixed on Sakura's hands as she channeled energy back and forth, stitching tissue together and promoting healing with a focused stream of chakra.

"How interesting." He murmured. "Your chakra control is amazing. I was wondering if you'd be willing to teach me some of your medical ninjutsu techniques? I think keeping this idiot on his feet is going to be a full-time job."

"Go away," Ya muttered in a friendly manner.

Hinata stood nearby, twisting her hands nervously.

"Are you sure he's okay?"

Sakura laughed.

"He's fine. A stubborn idiot, but alive."

"Keep yelling?" Shino asked casually, and when Ya tried to pounce on him, he dodged away from him.

Sakura pressed Kiba's shoulders back against the tree.

"Is the word 'sit still' so hard to understand? Don't move."

Ya just smiled slightly.

"Yes, ma'am." He said sweetly, then turned to Akamaru. "Go ahead, kid."

Akamaru shouted in affirmation, jumping off Sakura's back and charging at Shino's chest with all his strength, knocking him to the ground with a grunt.

Kiba snickered, his smile growing wider when these actions elicited a smile and a giggle from Hinata.

"What an interesting group of people you have gathered." Kurama curled up in the depths of Naruto's consciousness with satisfaction, thinking.

Naruto hummed in agreement, his attention drawn to Sasuke as he emerged from the surrounding woods and sat down on his warm boulder that he had come to regard as his own.

"The trap is set," he gasped.

"How are your burns?"

Sasuke didn't answer, but raised his arm - the burns he'd sustained from his battle with Genma were almost healed, save for a few tiny red marks.

"Sakura's getting better at this," Naruto said thoughtfully and Sasuke narrowed his eyes.

"The Great Fireball Jutsu you were hit with was much more serious than mine."

Naruto shrugged.

"The Kyuubi worked. My burns disappeared in just a few minutes."

"That looks like cheating to me," Sasuke muttered.

"Isn't it cheating to have super clairvoyance that can almost predict the future?" Naruto teased in a friendly manner, and Sasuke bumped him with his shoulder.

It's that feeling again, that tacit understanding.

Naruto suddenly remembered Ino saying that their friendship was weird, but the truth was - it wasn't weird at all.

Sasuke fit into his life so easily, it was like there was a place in Naruto's soul just for Sasuke.

Of course, it wasn't always like this - in the beginning, there was a lot of emotional debris and shattered self-esteem between them, old wounds unhealed and festering, too much negativity and no room for anything else.

But once they cleaned things up, shone the light into the cracks of their darkness, and dealt with their inner demons, everything settled down.

Naruto sometimes wondered if, in those first few painful months of conflict and chaos, as they bumped into each other and rubbed against each other, they had accidentally exchanged parts of each other.

It would explain why boundaries and thoughts started to blur when they were just sitting together in silence, why their body language was so in sync when they were fighting or even just standing in silence, why he could tell what the other was thinking just by the wrinkles at the corners of Sasuke's eyes.

"Do you think this is weird?" he asked quietly.

Sasuke asked doubtfully, his eyes fixed on the scratches on his dagger with dissatisfaction.

Without hesitation, Naruto untied a scroll from his belt and unfolded it, running his fingers over the seal until he found what he was looking for.

With a quick snap of his fingers, he unlocked a whetstone with a pulse of chakra and handed it to Sasuke.

Sasuke took the tools, nodded slightly in thanks, and began to sharpen his sword.

"This," Naruto whispered, patting Sasuke's chest, referring to their interaction.

Sasuke looked up, confusion flashing in his eyes and his brows furrowed slightly, but when his eyes met Naruto's, he blinked a few times.

He snorted, a smile flickering across his lips, revealing his white teeth.

"I do not know."

Naruto smiled.

"I do not know either."

******************

"I'm going to rip Kakashi's intestines out and hang him from the Hokage Rock."

Anko looked up from where she was wringing out her vest at Genma's exaggerated words.

"Xuanjian, stop bragging."

"How on earth do they teach those genin?" Hayate asked, still hunched over and breathing shallowly, which couldn't be good for Aoba's blood pressure.

"Don't mention it." He growled. "What the hell did Kakashi feed those three little monsters? The pink-haired one hit me with a combined earth and water jutsu, which most chunins can't do. Not to mention the demon twins sneaked up on you when you weren't paying attention."

Aoba said the last words to Xuanjian, who frowned and bit the Senbon.

"I'll tell you what. I've seen a lot of duos in my life, and I've defeated a lot of decent teams; the really good ones." Genma carefully took the Senbon out of his mouth, like a cigarette, and pointed to the edge of the battlefield by the lake. "But I've never seen anything like this before."

The land around the lake looked like it had been through a natural disaster.

The ground was upturned, scorched, electrocuted, flooded, blown up, and pounded until it was nothing more than a broken, black mess with cracks and cracks reminiscent of a meteorite crater.

Aoba saw the first half of the fight, but missed the second half when the pink-haired she-demon really went for him.

It was surreal to see Genma, a battle-hardened elite jonin, a wanted criminal and cold-blooded assassin, struggling so hard to deal with a few teenagers.

Then again, aside from Kakashi himself, Aoba had never seen a teenager so powerful.

Two powerful kids fighting side by side like experienced old duos? Unheard of.

Genma muttered, rubbing the back of his neck in frustration. His left eyebrow would sometimes twitch after a long mission or too much time with Kai, his eyes frantically searching the woods for any sign of the nine ninja brats.

"I should be keeping an eye on Kakashi's kids instead of chasing them through the woods like they're a B-rank tracking mission."

"Relax, Genma," Hayate soothed, sitting down on a tumbled boulder. "Knowing Kakashi, he probably knew this would happen."

"They don't listen to me at all." Genma growled. "How does Kakashi usually tame these little guys?"

"Kakashi won't get stuck with these little brats," Anko cut in. "They probably just don't like you."

"Oh, they like us a lot," Hayate countered. "The Uchiha even let me teach him some swordplay during the battle. I just don't think they take us seriously."

"We are higher in level than them," Aoba lamented.

"Only in rank, apparently." Anko muttered as she took off one of her boots and dumped the dust out of it. "Why are they still genin?"