better left unsaid

Chapter 34: Growing Pains

A few miles outside of Konoha, on a day trip if you will, Naruto stood next to Jiraiya staring up at a very large cliff with a blank look on his face. Every so often he would blink, but other than that he did not move and he did not speak, seemingly stunned into silence by what Jiraiya was more or less telling him.

Eventually he turned his head to the side and Jiraiya stopped looking up the cliff as well to meet the diminutive chunin's gaze, "So you were joking about that new training exercise, right? You don't really expect me to do that."

"Not yet." Jiraiya admitted, "But eventually, and by eventually I mean within a year or so give or take a month or two, you will be pulling this off the way it was intended to be done. Ask me how I know." He knew, because he was going to make Naruto train his ass off to ensure that he could finish this exercise. He needed to get the brat ready to defend himself against tougher foes, even if he hadn't told Naruto what was to be coming yet, "It'll improve your strength and discipline. You have a good amount of one but you're sorely lacking in the other. Guess which."

Naruto gestured brazenly to the large cliff face, "You want me to climb this thing with one arm? What the hell do you think I'm made of Ero-sensei?"

"A lot of complaining bitch apparently..." Jiraiya muttered to himself before speaking up so that Naruto could clearly hear him, "I'm not saying that you have to do it now, but you're going to have to eventually, once per arm, so I'd find some way to practice safely until you get all of the scaredy-cat out of your system because I will be making you do this on this cliff eventually."

"Who can climb this thing with one arm?" Naruto asked in a skeptical manner, wanting to see the person that could do such a thing.

At that moment, Kakashi dropped down from the cliff into Jiraiya and Naruto's view nearby from where he had been climbing, dusting his pants off with a relieved sigh before freeing the arm that had been tied behind his back. He saw Naruto and Jiraiya and waved at them as he walked over, "Oh hello Naruto, Jiraiya-sama. What are you two doing this far out of Konoha? I thought I was the only one that trained here like this... except for when Gai catches me on the way out of the village of course."

Training with Gai on the cliff was a total pain in the ass for Kakashi. Talk about going above and beyond what's required...

Naruto pointed lamely at the masked jounin, "Uh, did you just climb that cliff?" Kakashi nodded in confirmation, "One handed?" Another nod from Kakashi, "Huh..." He turned to Jiraiya who had a victorious look on his face and sighed, "Fine... give me some time to train for it." How long did he have to practice to learn how to climb a huge cliff with one hand? How did he even prepare for something like that?

"No." Jiraiya said sarcastically with a dry look on his face, "I wasn't going to let you actually train for this to get ready. I was just going to tie a hand behind your back, shove you up the cliff as far as you could go and wish you the best of luck before you fell hundreds of feet to your death." He began walking back towards Konoha, only taking Naruto out there in the first place to show him the site of his next big challenge from his teacher, "Stupid brat... acting like I don't know what I'm doing." He turned back to make sure Naruto heard his next words, "I've trained a Hokage brat! A Hokage!"

Taking offense to that, Naruto balled his fists at Jiraiya before turning to glare at the cliff. Kakashi kneeled down closer to Naruto's level getting the attention of the blonde young man, "What's up Kakashi-sensei?" He asked, as Kakashi had always been very cool to him.

"How's life as a chunin?" Kakashi asked with an eye-smile, "Sasuke's just chomping at the bit to get a tougher mission these days, he's going a little stir crazy, but he's almost done healing so I've thought about getting another mission soon. How are you doing?"