After the Rain

Chapter 11: Juggling Life

Chapter eleven – Juggling Life

"Fine art is something wonderful that's left long into the future... eternal beauty." - Sasori

It was nightfall, but no one inside the base would know the difference. Within the cave it was always dark, the only light they had was from torches giving off a red tinted glow, stationed around the base.

After Minato followed them to the food area, Naruto had met with the rest of her team. Greeting Anko with relief and happiness, but was only met with a grunt and a nod. She made it obvious for everyone that opinion hadn't changed while they were apart. So Naruto guessed they still weren't on friendly terms.

Minato had instructed them where they could go get food and where the sleeping headquarters was located before he went back to whatever he'd been doing before. Disappearing into the continually busy crowd in the direction of the medic station.

After a short recap of their mission so far, where Naruto's miraculously healed shin was focused on a little too long for the blonde's liking, Orochimaru started telling them about the next stage of their mission.

From the maps on the table Naruto quickly found out that she was currently in what in the future would be known as Otogakure. Feeling a sense of irony Naruto had snorted and peeked up at her sensei, but Orochimaru had pretended not to notice the girl's reaction.

From here they would go a little further north, up to the sea, and then walk east towards the land of hot water. That land was dangerous in these days, and Naruto wasn't looking forwards to this stage of the mission. But once they got through the land they would get to the land of Frost and here they would find Shimogakure, their destination. The main task of the mission was to deliver a scroll to someone in Shimo which Orochimaru was keeping safe for the duration of the mission.

What it entailed was all hush, hush, and when Naruto had asked she'd received a biting reply.

If everything went as planned, this would simply be a tracking mission, but because of the many risks two teams had been assigned to go. This hadn't been about reaching the front line base at all, but about getting to Shimo.

The Hokage probably loaded them with supplies to be useful since they were heading in that direction. At least that's what Naruto had concluded. Hiding a yawn behind her hand Naruto listened on while Orochimaru went through the finer details. They wouldn't split up as they had done before, but they would walk in two groups, one before the other with about half an hour space in between them.

Orochimaru and Choza knew how to contact one another on short notice in case backup was needed. Naruto guessed it would involve snake summons.

After the details of the mission were clarified, and that they wouldn't be leaving the base for a few more days, everyone started eating dinner with renewed vigor. Though Naruto had barely returned to the table with a bowl of rice before Orochimaru spoke up again.

"I have a new exercise for you Naruto." Said Orochimaru from his corner of the table. Naruto was situated in the middle and she looked blankly back at her sensei. What was it this time?

He threw two round things at her, and on instinct she caught them both before they could drill holes in her head. The palms of her hands stung and she looked at the objects she'd caught with curiosity.

Two white balls.

She looked confused back up at Orochimaru. Not able to guess what the hell this meant.

"You're going to learn how to juggle. Once you can manage those two, I'll give you a third. Then a fourth. You need to train your mind to multi task and juggling is an art in controlling patterns. Controlling patterns in time and space. An exercise you are pitiful at. So eat up and go learn how to juggle." Orochimaru told her in a bored voice before grabbing at his chopstick and continued with his meal.