Naruto : Monsters

I let out a groan as I flipped onto my back, enjoying the cool breeze as it swept over my body. "And I'd much rather be a sadist thank you very much. Kind of like you, now that I think of it."

Kakashi nodded sagely, eyes never leaving the book, "Yes, it always pays to be more like me."

...

I was way too tired to bother with thinking up a comeback, so I just laid down and allowed myself to enjoy my well-earned rest. Slowly the burning in arms began to fade, replaced by an oddly satisfying ache, the type that followed a particularly strenuous workout.

The cool breeze and soft grass beneath me were lulling me into a false sleep, and instead of fighting it like I usually would I instead let myself be swept away by the sensation, enjoying a rare but well-earned break.

It was a nice, tranquil moment that I rarely got to experience.

Which was naturally ruined not a minute later by Naruto's excited yelling.

Moments like this made me appreciate what a blessing the Byakugan was because right then I didn't think I had it in me to lift a finger, let alone muster the energy needed to turn my head around. So while I laid on my back, my eyes still closed, I used my Byakugan to focus my sight on the opposite side of the training ground, where Naruto and Shikamaru were undergoing their own training.

"Boss, you have to attack, attack I say! The group at the top right is weak, hit him there. Offence is the best defence, so don't hesitate and charge!"

"No stupid, defence is the best defence. That's why they call it defence and not…something else. Boss, don't listen to her, your main group is too unstable. Build up your defences before you do anything reckless or else he'll tear you apart."

"Will you two idiots shut up!" Naruto reached up and shoved the faces of her two clones away, not even realizing the implications of what calling them idiots meant. "I'm trying to think here and you're not helping."

The two sullenly quieted down under the force of her glare. When Naruto was satisfied that they'll behave, for now, she turned back to the board game and scowled down at the pieces. After a few seconds of deliberating she reached into a bowl and pulled out a white playing stone, before hesitantly setting it down onto the wooden Go board.

Her two clones leaned forward, eager to see which move she chose to play. Their eager expressions however quickly melted away, replaced with confusion, then outrage as they both threw their arms in the air and yelled out in indignation.

"Oh come on Boss, I said attack the right side, the right, not the left. You know which side is right, don't you? It's the hand you hold your chopsticks with."

"Boss, why do you keep doing this to us?" The other clone moaned before crossing her arms and glaring at her true self. "If you're not going to listen to either one of us then why did you bother summoning us for in the first place?"

"Because I'm getting my butt kicked here, that's why." Naruto groused, never taking her eyes off the board. "I've heard that two heads are better than one, so three must be even better. Biggest mistake I ever made."

A clicking interrupted their brewing argument as Shikamaru placed a black stone onto the board. The lazy Nara barely spared a glance at the board after Naruto's move before making one of his own. Despite participating in one of the few activities I had ever seen him eager for, Shikamaru didn't appear to be enjoying the game.

Leaning back with a tried sigh, Shikamaru glanced up at Naruto, "I know I was the one who asked you for a game but it's kind of hard to take you seriously looking like that."

Naruto snorted and dropped her head into a palm, elbow propped up on the ground, "You think I want to be stuck like this? Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it feels having so much sand in my pants? It sucks."

She was sitting across from Shikamaru, a Go board set between them. Though 'sitting' probably wasn't the right word to use here seeing that Naruto wasn't actually sitting on the ground so much as she was buried in it. As in literally buried. Her entire body from her armpit downward was hidden in the earth, with only arms and head sticking out while the tips of her blonde locks pooled around her.

"Besides," Naruto quirked a brow at Shikamaru, "it's not like you can talk."

Shikamaru shot her a baleful look from where he too was buried in the ground across from her, "Troublesome." He groused and waved a tired hand over the board, "Just shut up and play."

This time Naruto was quick to respond, ignoring her clones' groans when they saw the move she played and turned back to look over her shoulder, "Hey Kakashi-Sensei. How much longer do we have to stay like this?"

"Until you can dig yourself out of course," Kakashi replied, still engrossed in his book. 'Icha Icha – Harem Wars in a world filled with only girls' must have been a particularly good addition to the series because this was the fifth time Kakashi has gone through it since it's official release a week ago.

"And I told you, I already can." As if to demonstrate her point, Naruto effortlessly plunged her fingers into the hard ground and gouged out a fist full of earth.

"Without using your hands," Kakashi replied, not bothering to look up. "You're supposed to use chakra to dig yourself out, not brute strength. Release your chakra at a steady stream at the right frequency to soften the ground around you by turning it into fine sand, then you should be able to slither your way out. This is training, so make sure to do it properly."

"But it's not fair." Naruto pouted petulantly and pointed at me, "Why do we get the hard training while Hikaru gets off easy?"

By this point, I had been able to regain enough of my energy to raise my head up and glare at her, "Are you blind woman?" I shot back, trying to ignore the stinging of my eyes as sweat dripped into them. "What part of this looks like I'm getting off easy?"

"It's just push-ups, what's so hard about that? I can do a few thousand of them without breaking a sweat. Stop being a baby about just a few hundred Hikaru." Naruto retorted, completely serious, unable to understand the absurdity of what she had just said. "I don't see what you're complaining about when you have it so easy.

"Not every one of us can be stamina freaks like you," I retorted, dropping my head back down on the ground. "To the rest of us, doing endless push-ups is hard work."

When we had first gotten to know each other as children, Naruto never seemed to understand why I'd get tired out after only a couple of hours playing. I could still remember how baffled she appeared the first time I told her I needed a break as if she couldn't comprehend what I was trying to say. It took me a long while to figure out why.

Naruto never got tired. Ever.

Mentally sure, but physical? It was all but impossible, her body simply would not give out. The more you pushed her, the more energy she seemed to draw out from somewhere. It was as if there was literally no end to her stamina.

When Naruto said that she could do a few thousands push-ups easily, she actually meant it. In her mind, there was no difference between a single push-up or a thousand except the time it took to complete them. Overworked muscles weren't a problem for her, her healing factor would kick in and fix it up as soon as her muscles were damaged. So she could literally keep going and going like some kind of living embodiment of the energizer bunny.

Which was why she never seemed to understand what it meant to get tired.

How do you explain exhaustion to someone who has never felt it before? How do you help a child understand that bodies had limits when hers simply didn't. Fatigue and exhaustion were completely foreign concepts to Naruto that she had trouble understanding them till this day.

"At least what you're doing is better than this," She waved her hand to where she was buried in the ground, before sending Kakashi a pleading look, "Hey Kakashi-Sensei, can't I switch places with Hikaru? Please?"

"No," was Kakashi's instant reply. "Now enough complaining my little duckling and get back to training."

"But I don't understand. How is any of this supposed to be training?"

With my Byakugan, which I never turned off during training, I could see Kakashi as he lowered his book to give Naruto a tired look, "Like I've already explained, this training is meant to increase your earth affinity."

"And I understand why he needs to learn it," she nodded towards Shikamaru, "He has a natural earth affinity, but I'm wind. So why – HEY!" Naruto pointed towards one of her clones, "I saw that. Now put it back."

The clone in question had the same look on her face that Naruto wore whenever she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar, which wasn't too far from the truth as she was caught stealing one of Naruto's playing stones and was about to place it on the board. "But Boss-"

"I said," Naruto narrowed her eyes, cutting her off, "put it back."

"Oh, fine!" The clone huffed out, dropping the piece back into the bowl before crossing her arms and turning away. "Go ahead and lose, see if I care."

"Like I was saying," Naruto continued, giving her clone a long gaze and looking away only after she was certain they'd behave, "Why do I have to bother with training my earth affinity?"

"So I can start teaching you an earth jutsu. The Doton – Moguragakure no jutsu to be precise."

...

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