Run
First Watch
They make it less than a mile out from the ambush before they have to stop. Kakashi can barely walk with the added weight of Shisui and his leg wound, and Naruto is inches from collapsing just as Tenzo has. She cannot - will not - succumb. It would mean their death, at this point.
Her chakra is still desperately low, and cannot be allowed to dip lower.
Silently, she unrolls sleeping mats for Shisui and Tenzo. She lays Shisui face-up - normally, she always puts her teammates on their sides during recovery, but she doesn’t want to risk putting more pressure on his wound. She’ll have to monitor him closely during the night, to make sure he doesn’t choke. She lays blankets over them - it is early October, and the nights are getting cold.
Then, she rifles through Tenzo and Shisui’s packs for remaining supplies - food, water, medicine. They will have to slow to a civilian’s pace for the foreseeable future, until she can recover enough to heal them all. She lays out their stocks next to each other on the ground - the depleted med kits from their mission, the half-full canteens and half-finished boxes of rations. It won’t be enough.
Naruto sits back on her heels and presses her palms against her eyes until her vision goes bright red. She takes one breath, then another. On the third deep inhale she removes her hands. She will not waste her energy and her emotions on problems she can’t solve.
Among the med kits is - all together - forty doses of antibiotics, the generic kind all shinobi carry on missions. Neither her nor Tenzo is at great risk of infection (Naruto has never gotten an infection in all her years of living - she carries antibiotics anyway). That leaves twenty doses each for Kakashi and Shisui. In the woods, with deep wounds and no friendly civilization in sight, infection is almost a guarantee. It will be enough.
She wordlessly hands Kakashi - sitting on the ground, in a similar state of exhaustion and shock - a blister pack. She won’t risk forcing a pill down Shisui’s throat at this juncture. Then she thrusts a ration bar and a half-full canteen under his nose. He takes them without comment, but doesn’t move to eat or drink.
She turns away, gaze fixed on a bush across the clearing.
“I know you don’t want to eat,” she murmured. “God, even the thought makes me sick. But we’ve gotta.”
She rips the wrapper of her own ration bar for emphasis and resolutely takes a bite. She tries not to mentally count how many are left.
When she’s done, she turns back to Kakashi and signs - Fox - first - guard. He glares at her half-heartedly, but acquiesces. Naruto is in the best shape of any of them, it only makes sense that she should take first watch.
The pressing business of medicine and food taken care of, Naruto turns her attention to security. She set simple traps, taut ninja wire stretching in the trees around them, triggers for classic shuriken traps - easy to set up, easy to conceal. By the time she’s done, Kakashi’s asleep, on the far left side of their teammates.
She settles down on the right, their defenceless teammates in between them. It will be a long night, and cold. She pulls her blanket tightly around her soldiers and reaches out in the dark, finding nothing but the skittering of animals running through the brush and her own teammates, fast asleep.
Naruto doesn’t wake Kakashi for second watch.
Bear
Naruto left her apartment at 6. Under the mask, she felt different, unseen. She liked the feeling of a civilian’s eyes sliding off her: shinobi, the eyes said. Shinobi.
Fox slipped into the nearest entrance to the ANBU network - two streets over and concealed by a falsely dilapidated building. Naruto scrunched her face under the mask and recalled Hound’s careful instructions from the night prior - where to turn left, how to read the complicated signs that marked the tunnel walls, patterns of brick, or moss, or rocks on the floor signalling to the entirety of the Black Ops where to go.
Her pace was brisk, not quite running. She had hoped that this early in the morning, there wouldn’t be as many ANBU criss-crossing back and forth - but despite the hour, the tunnels were just as busy. Naruto was keenly aware of their staring, and shrank back against the wall when she was forced to pass groups of three-and-four masked ninja.
If there’s one thing Naruto’s learned in her short nine years of life, it’s that her luck always runs out. One three-man team spotted her and clearly fanned out to block off the tunnel.
She tried not to slow down, but she was forced to stop or run head-first into a burly ANBU with a bear mask.
Bear crossed his arms over his chest. “Hey, look,” he said, “Our newest member…”
Naruto could imagine - she didn’t need to see under the mask - the sneer twisting his face into something familiar, ugly. He leaned forward.
“... Kitsune,” he snarled. Naruto’s stomach twisted and she took a step back.
“Let me pass,” she said, trying to force her voice as low as it would go. Bear didn’t move.
Naruto wouldn’t ever be able to articulate what she thought would have happened next - Bear loomed over her, his hand twitched towards - something - and Naruto reacted.
She couldn’t go around, or duck under their arms, or break through - she knew enough about shinobi etiquette to know that landing the first blow on these three would be very bad for her indeed. So she went up, springing over their heads and half turning in the air, pushing off the ceiling with all four limbs and landing on her feet behind them. It was not graceful, her feet slammed harshly against the ground, sending shockwaves up her legs. But she didn’t stumble, either.
There was a flurry of movement, but Naruto had already twisted away and took off, as fast as she could possibly run, down the narrow corridor.
Team Ro
“So… we should get to know each other. Name, likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams for the future… that sort of thing,” Hound shoved his hands in his pockets and tilted his face skywards. Naruto thought he looked as if he would rather be doing anything else.
Naruto and her two new compatriots shuffled uncomfortably. Naruto fixed her eyes on Hound’s feet.
“No takers? What an enthusiastic bunch of underlings you are. Alright, I’ll go first. My name’s Hound. Likes and dislikes… I like a lot of things. I dislike others. I have a lot of hobbies. And my dreams for the future - I’ve never really thought about it.”
Naruto smothered a giggle.
“C’mon, Hound-senpai, take this seriously!” her new teammate exclaimed indignantly. “It’s good to meet you, Fox. I’m Crow - I like dango, and studying history. I dislike suiton jutsus and vague captains. My hobby right now is calligraphy, but I like to change it up. My dream for the future is to be able to provide for my family and protect my clan.”
Naruto inclined her head towards him - not quite a bow, but close. “It’s good to meet you, too,” she replied, feeling inexplicably shy.
Her third and final teammate cleared his throat. “I’m Cat. I like architecture and horror movies, and I dislike unprofessional behaviour -” a pointed look at Hound, “- my hobby is woodworking, and my dream is to be the best shinobi I can be for Konoha.”
It was Naruto’s turn, then. “My name is Fox. I like ramen, and when jiji buys me ramen. I dislike -” she wasn’t sure how to explain what she disliked. Coming home to an empty apartment. The way Bear had said kitsune. Not knowing why she was here. “I dislike rude people. My hobby is gardening, and my dream for the future is to be a respected kunoichi!”
Limits
The next few hours were some of the most deeply humiliating of Naruto’s life.
It began with taijutsu.
Her opponent was Hound, and he kicked her ass. After the fourth time eating dirt, Naruto had never felt more inept.
“You’re not taking this seriously enough,” Hound said as Naruto hauled herself to her feet, grinding her teeth in frustration. “If you don’t come at this with the intent to kill me, you’ll never even land a hit.”
The words were cocky, overconfident - and entirely true. She came up to Hound’s elbow, if he slouched, and he must be at least twice her weight.
Still, Naruto moved into the familiar stance her Academy senseis had drilled into her, and tried again. She moves to the offensive - once he got her on defence, the past four times, she hadn’t been able to move back - and feints a punch at his head. He dodges easily, but she was ready for this, landing back on her feet and launching a spinning kick. They danced back and forth for a few moments, Hound easily dodging her blows.
Naruto pushed herself harder, harder - her whole body felt weightless, like she was floating, the way she felt when she ran. Her next blow was so close she could feel Hound’s hair ruffle her knuckles. Under the mask, his grey eye widened slightly.
He jumped high over her head, landing behind her before she could turn to face him. Naruto had time to think not good before he was restraining her, arm around her torso, pinning her arms down.
His next move, Naruto knew, would be to bring his other hand to her neck and announce that he could have snapped it, and she’d lost the spar - it had happened twice, already. His words from earlier came back to her, unbidden.
If he were about to kill me, she thought, what would I do?
Naruto’s range of motion was limited, but, in the split second she had before he declared her fifth humiliating loss of the morning, she flipped her mask up and sank her teeth into his forearm as hard as she could.
Hound yelped and aimed a harsh blow at her head. Ears ringing, she held on tight, not sure if the blood filling her mouth was from Hound, or if she had bitten her own tongue.
The next blow forced her to let go. Black spots dancing in front of her eyes, she crashed to the ground and gasped in pain.
And then a kunai was at her throat and Hound was holding her arms behind her back, knee pressing her into the ground.
“You did tell her to come at you with the intent to kill, Hound-senpai,” said Crow. “Not sure you mentioned anything about intent to eat!”
Hound released her, moving to stand. “Good job, Fox-chan,” he said. “In the future, please try to avoid taking chunks out of your superior officers.”
Naruto spat a mouthful of blood out on the dirt and struggled to her feet. Her head still spun and her teeth ached. She flipped her mask back down over her face.
“Crow, you test her on ninjutsu,” said Hound.
“No way! I’m not up to date on my rabies shots.”
Hound sighed. “Cat, you do it, then. I need to wrap this up,” he gestured to blood dripping down his arm. Naruto bared her teeth under her mask, then flushed when she realised how futile a gesture it was.
“Right,” Cat stepped forwards. “I assume you know the Academy jutsu?”
Naruto’s stomach clenched and she prepared herself for more humiliation. Still - if she took it seriously, acted as if her life depended on it, maybe she would be able to pull it off. “Yes,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t tremble.
“Show me, then.”
Naruto started with the henge - by far her best jutsu. Transformations were difficult to get right, and easy to make unbalanced. It was little things - the texture of skin, little hairs on the arms, creases in fabric - that tripped most students up. But it had always come easy to Naruto, and she focused on her memories of one of her neighbours, thinking of his short brown hair and the mole on his arm and the patch on his trousers.
Cat seemed pleased by the transformation, and Naruto managed to hold it through another short - and embarrassing - spar. Cat kept well clear of her teeth. Field-ready, he pronounced it. Same with her kawarimi. Which just left -
Naruto focused and poured everything she could into her bunshin no jutsu. She imagined, for a moment, that her life depended on this moment, that she'd die if she failed to make a perfect clone.
The world exploded in a flash of white.
Naruto barely had time to raise a hand to cover her eyes before she was thrown backwards, landing on her butt in the dirt once again. Her ears rang and her vision slowly returned to normal - all three men had both leapt away in time, and were now hurrying back towards her.
Tears pricking her eyes, Naruto sprang to her feet and bowed.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do -” she gestured at the smoking crater, “- that.”
“I should hope not,” said Hound, voice dry.
Naruto shook her head vigorously, trying to restore her sense of balance. Belatedly, she realised that Cat had been addressing her.
“Sorry,” she said, pointing to her ears. “I didn’t catch that.”
“I said, has that ever happened before?”
Naruto thought for a moment. “No.” Not in this exact scenario, although she’d received her fair share of chakra burns practising this technique. Cat circled around the crater uneasily, as if there was about to be another explosion.
“Right,” said Hound. “We just won’t ever ask you to do that jutsu again.”
Naruto got the distinct impression that he was joking. In tandem, Hound and Cat turn to look at Crow.
“No! Absolutely not. She’ll explode me to pieces - or - or - bite my head off!”
“Well you’ll just have to manage not to die to this fresh-out-the Academy genin, won’t you?” and with that, Crow lost the argument, grumbling as he turned to address Naruto.
“I’m guessing you haven’t been taught any genjutsu, right?”
Naruto shook her head.
“Then we’ll just see if you can break it.” Crow’s dark eyes warped - red -
Something inside Naruto’s gut moved, and an emotion not her own bubbled up inside her, her vision going completely red for a precious second. By the time she had blinked the red haze clear from her eyes, she took a step back, startled.
She was alone in the training ground, now, none of her teammates in sight. Her head buzzed uncomfortably. Something was wrong with this picture -
She didn’t have time to , because suddenly she wasn’t alone anymore. One by one, dark figures slinked out of the woods around her. Naruto counted up to six before the first one was on her.
She jumped backwards to avoid his kunai - and then cried out in pain and shock. She was sure she had moved out of the way in time, but her whole shoulder burned, hot and wet blood pulsing under her hand.
She barely had time to throw herself to the ground to avoid a deadly swipe at her neck. She rolled to the side and sprang to her feet, drawing one of her new kunai. One of the men’s hands flashed in a series of hand signs - Naruto’s eyes widened with sudden understanding.
The pain of the wind jutsu hitting her felt very, very real. She could have sworn she heard her ribs crunch and break, and she felt the sharp jabs of pain radiate throughout her whole torso. But she hadn’t felt the usual surge of motion and feeling that usually preceded a jutsu. In fact, although she could feel the whole world glittering around her, blanketed in a haze, she couldn’t feel any of the six men supposedly right in front of her.
Naruto took a deep breath, ignoring the pain it caused, and closed her eyes. She reached out as far as she could, beyond the glimmering fog all around her - there!
Crow was to her left. She hoped the kunai she had drawn was real as she threw herself in his direction. He darted backwards, and she pursued.
She tried to ignore what she could see, what she could hear. She focused only on what she knew couldn’t be fooled, as she slashed her kunai where she could feel Crow standing.
And then Naruto was in the dirt again, hands twisted behind her back, forced to let go of the kunai.
“Fox,” said Crow, “how did you do that?”
“Do what?” Naruto wheezed, as she scraped herself up off the ground for the eighth time that day. She palmed her shoulder - it ached, as did her whole body, but there were no real wounds anywhere.
“You didn’t break the genjutsu,” Crow glanced at Hound, as if to confirm, “but you knew where I was. You followed me when I retreated. How? Could you see me?”
“I just - I could tell where you were.”
“You could tell,” Cat said flatly. “You’re going to have to explain it a bit better than that.”
Hound intervened, then. “You said that yesterday, too - that you could just tell when those chunin were approaching you.”
Naruto shrugged.
“Try to describe it,” Hound continued. “What can you tell, right now?”
Naruto closed her eyes, and concentrated. She had never described this to anyone, not knowing where to begin. She felt keenly stupid as she began to describe it.
“Mostly, I just feel the forest. All old wood’s the same, y’know? Like in the old parts of Konoha. It’s like - something’s beeping, or buzzing, and you can’t stop paying attention to it. Then there’s the smaller stuff - it’s hard to follow, and they move all the time. Usually it’s animals and birds and things. There’s a group of ‘em over that-a-way, for example -” she pointed, “- I think it’s a nest of birds or something. And then there’s you guys.”
Naruto squirmed uncomfortably at the ensuing silence.
“Can you distinguish between the three of us?”
“Of course,” Naruto squinted, wondering where Hound was going with this, “Everybody’s different.”
Hound sighed, a drawn, long-suffering sound. “I think we’ve established that we don’t have a good idea of what you mean with this - extra sensory ability. You’ll have to go a bit more in-depth than that. Explain it like we’re stupid.”
“Like I said,” Naruto said slowly. “Everybody’s different. Like - civilians are barely different from animals, they’re easy to ignore.” She paused, struggling to put it into words, “But shinobi are louder, and they’re more unique, like - like you, Hound, it’s so distracting. You know how when there’s about to be thunder, all your hair stands up? Crow and Cat aren’t as intense, but it’s still - it’s hard to miss.”
“It would appear, Fox-chan, that you’re quite the gifted sensor,” said Hound.
Naruto blinked. “Oh. What’s that?”
Three pairs of eyes stared disbelievingly back at her.
To Name a Colour
“I don’t understand how you didn’t know,” Cat groused.
Naruto shrugged. “I guess I thought everybody could do it.”
“What are they even teaching at the Academy these days?”
“It’s not so hard to understand. Nobody had ever explained what chakra-sensing is to her - imagine trying to describe colours without knowing the words for blue, or red,” Hound interjected. He made direct eye contact with Naruto, and she tried not to look away. His expression was inscrutable. “This will come in very useful, Fox-chan.”
Run
“One final test,” said Hound, “Ostensibly, you were recruited because of your skills in stealth and evasion. Let’s see how good you really are - outrunning off-duty chunin is one thing, but I want to see if you can outrun us. Don’t leave the training ground. You have a ten-minute head start.”
Naruto wasted no time, leaping into action. First, she needed to put distance between them. As she ran, she began to plan - with three of them, and a few square kilometres of forest, it wouldn’t take them long to search the whole thing. She could just try to avoid each one as they got close, but with the spatial limits, it would be simple to herd her this way and that.
Run, hide, fight. The Academy mantra came back to her suddenly - the golden rule of how to deal with opponents that outclassed you. Running wasn’t going to cut it, and fighting was supposed to be a last resort. Naruto needed to hide, then.
She paused, five minutes into her head start and half a kilometre away from the border of the training ground. She took stock - Crow, Hound, and Cat had yet to move, their presences - their chakra signatures, she mentally amended - still stationary in the centre.
On Konoha’s eastern edge, the Naka river flowed. She could hear the water rushing nearby, and hoped that it would help mask the sound of her movements. She made a bee-line for the river, which flowed east-west, towards the village.
If Naruto were smart, she would stay as far away from them as possible. All three of them had already proved faster and stronger than she was - she would expect any slower opponent to try to make use of the head-start by increasing the distance between them, which was exactly why Naruto slipped into the river and waded downstream, back in the direction she had come. She hoped that the quick-moving water would erase her tracks as she went.
Three minutes remaining, Naruto took a few precious seconds to set a simple trap, a flash-bang of her own design (she’d had great results hiding it in her classmates’ bags), under a simple pressure-trigger. She rigged her secondary trap with the same trigger - hopefully, the delay between them would convince her pursuers that that danger had passed - and bolted downstream.
Here, the river undercut the roots of the old trees, carving out precarious gaps underneath. Naruto went flat on her belly, wriggling underneath. For good measure, she rolled around in the muck of the shallows, dirtying her grey flak jacket. She made sure to smear dirt across her white mask and in her hair - the flashes of unnatural white and red would be sure to give her away, even at a distance. It was a tactic that had always served her well, running from senseis at the Academy. They never expected little kunoichis-to-be to wallow in the mud like pigs.
Thirty seconds.
Naruto held her breath, flattened her hands over her hair, and waited.
Crow, Hound, and Cat separated almost the instant the ten minutes were up. Two of them disappeared, further than she could reach with her newly-named sixth sense. They must have divided the training ground into thirds, Naruto reasoned.
Hound was now the only one she could sense. Which was bad, considering how thoroughly Hound had beaten her - just using taijutsu - earlier in the day. Doubly bad was how he hurtled past her hiding place before doubling back on his tracks, exactly as Naruto had done.
Naruto focused on keeping absolutely still and silent. She didn’t tense, or twitch, and kept her breathing soft and regular.
Hound had stopped moving. Naruto thought he must have stopped where she entered the river, which meant the first half of her strategy had worked. He had only two directions to pick, upstream or downstream, east or west.
Hound began to move downstream. Naruto cursed mentally - he was better than most people she hid from. She hoped that her trap would have its intended effect -
A loud bang! rang out, followed by an exclamation of surprise and the sound of metal colliding with metal. Naruto crawled forward on her belly, freeing herself, and then bolted towards the centre of the training ground. She fell into the familiar rhythm, almost floating as she jumped from tree to tree, surefooted as a cat.
Run.
Once she was in the centre, she reasoned, she would be far away from all three, as they would have no doubt assumed she would put as much distance as possible between them. If she stayed in the centre, however briefly, it would not take long for all three to converge on her - not a scenario she wanted to play out. She would need to find another hiding place, and quickly.
She felt Hound - Hound’s chakra - take off behind her. She swore under her breath - she would have less time to execute a strategy than she would like. And - Hound had traced her steps so quickly. He clearly wasn’t a chakra sensor, like her, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t track her with some other means. It couldn’t have been by sight, and she wasn’t making the slightest bit of noise - that just left scent. Waterways would be her best bet, then, to erase her trail - she would need to make her way back to the Naka river.
Bursting into the central clearing of the training ground, Naruto noted with some pleasure that both Cat and Crow were still far away. With Hound behind her, Crow ahead, and Cat to the left, there was only one direction left for Naruto to run.
Swerving, she began to sprint north. Naruto knew she was fast, faster than any Academy student had any right to be. It was the only thing she was really, truly skilled at - her aim was mediocre, her taijutsu pathetic, and her ninjutsu shaky at best. But she could run circles around her classmates and even most of her teachers. Naruto was fast.
Hound, she had come to realise, was faster.
He was gaining on her, and quickly. She couldn’t outrun him - as hard as she pushed herself, he would catch up.
Naruto skidded to a halt and whirled to face him. As Hound lunged to catch her, Naruto called up her chakra exactly as she had before and brought her hands together in a familiar sign.
Both of them were thrown backwards by the force of her failed bunshin, and Naruto’s fall was broken by a tree. It hurt, but Naruto had braced herself for it, expected it. Hound clearly hadn’t. Taking advantage of the split-second it would take him to recover, she sprinted back in the opposite direction - back to the Naka river. She took care to follow her exact path back - it wouldn’t do to make a new scent-trail, after all.
It took a few moments for her to realise that Hound wasn’t pursuing her anymore, not right away, at least. She could feel herself beginning to tire, limbs burning with effort, and knew she wouldn’t be able to keep up this pace for long.
Reaching the bank of the Naka river, at last, she waded right in to the deepest part, dunking under the water and reaching out once more. Cat and Crow were converging on where she had left Hound, no doubt alerted by the sound of her failed (or successful - for once, it had turned out exactly as she had wanted) bunshin.
Naruto let the current carry her downstream. If she didn’t swim, or make noise, or leave the river, they would have few avenues to track her down. She kept her focus on her three teammates, trying to predict their next moves. The three had stopped in place - no doubt discussing what to do next.
If she was lucky, it would take Hound a little while to realise she had doubled back completely - if she wasn’t, he would realise the lack of a fresh, diverging trail right away.
In either case, the smartest thing to do would be to let the water carry her away from where she entered the river, so that any new trail would be difficult to find except by chance.
Besides, she was exhausted - she needed to catch her breath.
Naruto, as it turned out, was lucky.
Evidently, her teammates had decided that the divide-and-conquer strategy was not going to pan out, because they didn’t split up a second time. She felt them criss-cross back and forth, thankfully fading further and further away. Near the border of the training ground, and with her teammates out of range of her sensing, she dragged herself out of the river and up on the bank. The river had washed the mud out of her hair and off her uniform, so she wrinkled her nose and dirtied herself again.
Naruto estimated that it would take them maybe fifteen minutes to catch up - enough time to lay a few traps. She let out a huff - she was hopelessly outmatched. She would need an advantage.
Hide.
In the end, it was simple. There was no better advantage than the high ground, and this was an old-growth forest.
In the distance, she felt her teammates go back and forth, no doubt searching for her in a grid pattern in the absence of a trail to follow. All Naruto needed to do now was wait, ninja-wire clutched in her hand.
Fight.
A Ninja Like You
It took them twenty-five minutes to catch up to her. More than enough time for Naruto to triple and double-check her traps, to make sure that everything was arranged according to plan.
Soon enough, the three closed in on her location - and ran right underneath her without stopping. Naruto inwardly cheered - her flak jacket, wedged down a crevice in between two large boulders had evidently served its purpose, confusing her hiding place. Predictably, Hound was the first to reach it, as the other two were following his lead.
Naruto giggled silently to herself, imagining his face slack with shock under the mask. As he reached the top of the first boulder, he hesitated, perhaps sensing something not right with this picture. It was too late, in any case, as Naruto released the first of the wires she held taught in her hands.
As Naruto’s special, home-made flashbangs exploded under Hound’s feet, a flurry of shuriken were released into the resulting smoke. Cat and Crow scrambled away, but she couldn’t see Hound, obscured by smoke.
“Very clever, Fox-chan,” a voice murmured behind her. “But not quite clever enough.”
Hound.
Naruto let her last wire go. It wasn’t perfect. The aim would be off. But if she was lucky - yes!
Cat was partially entangled in a makeshift net - it would have to be enough. If she could jump down, outrun Hound, punch through Crow’s defences -
Naruto leapt down to the ground. She could not, as it turned out, outrun Hound, or get past Crow.
Naruto ground her teeth in anger and humiliation as she was tackled to the ground once again. A moment later, Crow released her, climbing to his feet and offering her a hand. Naruto took it, not wanting to seem a sore loser.
“Good job today, everyone!” said Hound cheerfully. “Cat, Crow - tomorrow you’ll join the regular rotations. Fox - same time, same place. We’ll whip you into shape in no time.”
And with that, Cat and Hound were gone. Naruto lingered to retrieve her flak jacket and her weapons. Frustrated, she flipped up her mask and furiously wiped her eyes.
“Fox? …Are you alright?” It was Crow, uncharacteristically hesitant.
“I got my ass handed to me,” she bit out, in lieu of a direct response.
“Don’t take it so hard,” Crow said firmly. “Everyone here has boatloads of advantages on you - experience, training, size. You’ll catch up.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better or something? How can I catch up when you’re all - all so much stronger!”
Crow was silent for a moment.
“Strength… isn’t the only thing that makes a good ninja. Today, I watched you get up and try again, over and over. You’re resilient, you’re impossible to sneak up on, or trick with genjutsu, and hell, you figured out how to counter Hound-senpai’s nose in about five seconds.” He ruffled her filthy hair, and Naruto froze, surprised.
“You’re exactly the sort of ninja I’d want to watch my back,” Crow flipped up his mask and grinned. “And when we’re off duty, call me Shisui.”
Naruto removed her mask and smiled back.