A ninja must see underneath the underneath

Chapter 17 - Meddlesome furry fox

Both shinobi traveled onwards to the north through The Land Of Earth, still acting as inconspicuously as possible. Their chakra levels and heads were kept low.

On the seventeenth day of their travels, they could see the high mountains surrounding Iwagakure, Hidden Stone Village, or 'Iwa' as it was called by most people. Both shinobi knew they wouldn't be welcome there. Their goal was to penetrate deeper into the Land Of Earth. The country's natural mountains and rocky terrain made it an ideal hiding place that would allow training without the risk of being seen. Once they had found a nice place to create a base camp, close to a river and a large cave, they settled in.

Both shinobi soon found a natural daily rhythm. They slept together, ate together, occasionally bathed together in the river, and they trained together. Kakashi had to make sure to improve Naruto's techniques and weak points. He needed them both to be ready when the time came to fight the Akatsuki.

Occasionally, Kakashi would travel towards a small town which existed out of a few streets with houses, one house that was re-purposed to be used as a school, a small store, a simple restaurant, a farm with local vegetables and some livestock, and a shabby-looking building that served as post-office, law-enforcement office, town hall and community center. The township was a full day's travel away from their camping spot, but when Kakashi made the travel, he always made sure to send word to Konoha about their progress and to bring back some supplied. As time passed on, he became a regular known face to the town's villagers, who knew him as Kaishou.

He had received intel from the Fifth Hokage Tsunade about Konoha's recent progress involving the search for Sasuke. She also kept him updated about Sakura's progress, who was now being trained by her personally to become a skilled medical ninja. Kakashi had been relieved when he heard about her career change. He thought highly of the pink-haired girl, but he knew she didn't have the heart to kill people on a regular basis. He didn't doubt that she would be a great healer though.

Tsunade informed him that the Akatsuki had been successful in capturing (and killing) even more junchūrikis. They suspected only three were still safe, Naruto being one of them. The other two were kept under high protection in their respective villages. Upon receiving that information, Kakashi became determined to be more cautious. He had to make sure that he and Naruto didn't become too reckless when it came to remaining undiscovered. It was easy to become more and more thoughtless as time passed on in their little hiding place without the presence or sense of danger. It made them too self-assured, too trusting of their environment. He made a mental note to check the traps and barriers more often. They should be ready to fight at any given time. But were they? He wasn't so sure of that anymore.

Soon, two months had passed, and both shinobi had become stronger than ever. Kakashi's chakra reserves had grown exponentially from fighting with Naruto all the time. He also had become even more fast, and therefore more dangerous. His muscles had grown stronger from sparring and practicing his taijutsu techniques daily against the blond for hours on end. Even the nights proved to be exhausting, as they both couldn't keep their hands off each other. Their bodies and relationship had both grown stronger than ever.

Naruto had made a lot of progress as well. He now had complete chakra control, improved weapons, and taijutsu skills, he had become incredibly fast, and he had full control of the Rasengan and a new technique that he called The Wind Release Rasengan. Which was a Rasengan orb infused with wind nature. Currently, he was working on changing the shape of The Wind Release Rasengan even further. He wanted to form it into a giant shuriken, very much the same as the giant shuriken Sasuke had used a few times in the past. He had also started tinkering a bit with water nature techniques.

Kakashi knew they had made progress far quicker than he, Tsunade, or Jiraiya had thought. If Naruto kept up this rate of learning and gaining skills, he would be ready for the real fight in one year, instead of two. Partly because Naruto often used Shadow Clones while training himself. Kakashi was pleased.