Ojos Asi [[private -- nyrax]]

Sasuke sighed, looking over his shoulder at Kiba. "I told you that I couldn't use earth ninjutsu from the start. I told you that if you wanted to train it against lightning, then we could fight." He didn't know why Kiba insisted on tagging along whenever he and Shino trained. It was as if he was jealous that the two were actually friends and wanted to make sure that he didn't lose Shino's friendship to someone else. It was rather childish, in Sasuke's opinion. But, he didn't mind testing his jutsu against someone else.

He turned back to shino, seeing that his arrows were much straighter and his aim had drastically improved. "Hey, try firing another one with your eyes clothes." He said, wondering if he could feel where he was aiming. He was going to have to make moving targets for Shino to focus on as well. Naruto said he'd come by later, so they could use his shadow clones for that.

"I don't really have any intention to fight against you. Not anymore at least," Kiba remarked simply. He really thought that he and Sasuke had at least been walking towards a cold respect of one another, but it looked like that was never going to happen. Sasuke was always going to act like the guy that deserved the world in his hand. It was just the way he was, the way that he had always been.

Shino gained a tiny smile as Sasuke asked him to fire with his eyes closed. That was easy. He closed his eyes and focused for several moments. As he did this, one of his insects slowly moved out and flew right next to Shino's ear. Right when Shino was aiming in the right direction the bug made a very high pitched sound, letting his master know that he was at the right spot. Shino fired and struck the pillar easily.

Sasuke watched Kiba and was sure that he was using his insects. But, he wasn't going to fault him for what was happening. So he just let him use what tools he had at his advantage. He heard a loud sound and sighed, soon followed by Shai standing up and running into the trees. "Looks like Naruto's here." Sasuke mumbled, picking up a bottle of water and drinking from it.

Shai returned, holding Naruto's hand, looking happier than he had in a while. "Daddy! Daddy Look! Uncle Naruto is here! And he brought friends!" He exclaimed.

"Friends?" Sasuke asked, looking to his son and best friend.

Shino opened his eyes as he heard the news that Naruto was here. The training was going to at least be delayed until Naruto was caught up with what was going on. Shino had a feeling that Sasuke would do most of the intelligent talking in order to make sure that Naruto understood what was taking place here.

At the mention of friends Kiba took a moment to sniff the air before smiling. "Well, it looks like we're going to have quite the crew running with us today," Kiba said as he looked over to Naruto. "Neji and Shikamaru huh? What made them want to tag along?"

Sasuke sighed. "My guess would be Naruto's big mouth." He said, picking up his son, who looked happy to have Naruto here. However, Shai didn't seem to understand that having this many shinobi here meant that he couldn't watch them train unless Sakura was there to watch him. The Uchiha wouldn't risk his son injury because he was fighting and focused on that battle.

"Naruto invited us to train with you, considering you've been so kind in giving out free lessons." Neji answered swiftly. "Or, do you have a problem with us being here?" Neji also came quite close to death in the mission to recover Sasuke, and his wounds, figuratively speaking, had not yet healed.

"That sounds like him," Kiba admitted as he watched as Neji and Shikamaru showed up. Naruto was always opening his mouth to people that he shouldn't, that was part of the reason that he wasn't being included in the planning right now after all. Still, Kiba couldn't help but wonder why Shikamaru and Neji would want to be here. They had nearly died on the same mission that Kiba had gone on to retrieve Sasuke, it couldn't be easy for them to be around him either.

"Relax there Neji, no need to pick a fight," Shikamaru said as he glanced over at the Hyuuga. "A fight between the two of you would be pointless. We're all on the same side now," he said simply. Shikamaru didn't really want to participate in a real fight, because overall he knew that nothing would change. Sasuke had made mistakes, but he had changed and come back. That was just the way it was now, it was that simple.

There was no point fighting when people were trying to become better.

"The purpose of training is to fight." Neji added. While he was still bitter toward Sasuke, his interest in fighting him wasn't for revenge, but rather curiosity. Neji and Sasuke had graduated first in their class six months apart. While Sasuke had abandoned the village to train and brought himself to the point he could kill a Sannin, Neji had also grown quite strong. It was his own personal interest that made him curious as to which one of them was the strongest. Byakugan and Sharingan had once been the same ability, eons before, and Neji wanted to prove that that original was better than the crimson copycat. Still, he wouldn't needlessly pick a fight in order to test that ability. He simply would not pass up said fight if it was offered.

Sasuke, on the otherhand picked up Shai and walked toward the path. "Go back to the house and wait with your mother." he instructed.

"But, I want to stay and--"

"I said go back to your mother." Sasuke's voice took on a tone that he was sure none of the others, not even Shino or Naruto had heard from him before. Shino may have heard it from his father at one point or another, however, it was a tone of power laced with fear. Sasuke was making Shai leave because he feared for his safety.

The child, tears in his eyes, nodded and walked back to the main house. Sasuke released a snake summon to follow his son back to the house before turning back to the others. "I didn't plan on training with this many people." He added, the previous tone in his voice having been replaced by one he used more regularly.

"Training is to become stronger, fighting is just a narrow part of it," Shikamaru added. He wasn't going to press any deeper though, if everyone else wanted to keep their thick heads on than he certainly wasn't going to stop and get in the middle of it. They could tear each other apart for all he cared. All Shikamaru was interested in was the group as a whole and how they were going to work together and get along. There were several strong shinobi and future clan heads here after all, they would all have positions of power in the future. If they couldn't get along now, old grudges might stop them in the future.

"Well, now that this many are here what do you plan on doing?" Kiba asked curiously. "Shouldn't send them away after they came this far," he added with his usual smile. Sasuke of course put on his usual calm demeanor. He wasn't worried that almost the entire team that once tried to save him had been reassembled at his own home.

Sasuke glared at Kiba. "I don't recall mentioning sending them away, not did I?" Something about Kiba just had the ability to rub Sasuke the wrong way every time a condescending word came out of his mouth. But, he supposed he should be used to it. "Kinda depends on what Naruto had in mind." He said, giving an irritated glare toward the blonde. "I want Shino to work on his aim at moving targets. Using lightning on something that moves makes controlling it considerably more challenging." He added.

Then, Sasuke glanced toward Shikamaru. "Your the genius between us, surely you have to have an idea that would best utilize our skills." He was sure that any plan he came up with himself would be shot down.

"Well I just figured that we'd all have a bit of a spar to test our skills against each other," Naruto explained as he smiled towards everyone. It was clearly obvious that he couldn't quite sense the tension that was forming between everyone. Clearly he hadn't seen what happened since Sasuke had returned.

"I'm not genius, I just do what I can, that's all," Shikamru remarked as he glanced towards Sasuke. "However, if you're looking for a suggestion than the only thing that I can say is that we should try to match abilities against one another. We're all masters in our own technique but training against moves we aren't extremely familiar with might help us to expand our own abilities," he explained. "For example, Neji might benefit from fighting against me. I doubt he's used his Byakugan against my shadow manipulation before."

Sasuke glanced toward Naruto. "I don't think we should fight. It'll rapidly change from training to us destroying the village." It was the truth of the matter too. the two of them were the strongest shinobi between them, at least when it came to physical power and skill. Naruto was an idiot, but he was a powerful fighter. A battle between the two of them would be near useless, since they fought opposing one another so often, especially in the past.

Neji nodded. "While that is true, Shikamaru, I think it might be better if we tried a different tactic. There are six of us here, so if we broke into two teams of three, then we could have a two person battle, one person on each team. We could switch between our teammates so everyone gets a turn, and, ideally, we would all fight against one another at some point."

Naruto let out a quick laugh as he recalled many of the other times that he and Sasuke had trained together. They had almost never ended well for the surrounding area, he could only imagine how it would affect the area now that they had gotten so much stronger. "Well hey, maybe that'll be a good way to test ourselves," Naruto declared as if it was the greatest idea that any one ever had. "Show how much more control we have. If we break anything......well I'm sure we have someone that can fix it."

Shikamaru rolled his eyes at Naruto's comment. The guy was strong but he could be a real idiot sometimes. It only took one moment for Naruto to pour his chakra in to one attack, if he went too far they'd all be paying for it. "Hey I just threw out my suggestion, feel free to do anything you guys want. This isn't my party after all," the Naru said as he looked towards Neji. "Your idea might be more productive anyway."

"I don't really want to fight this close to the house when Sakura's in it." It went without saying that Sakura would kill them both. Although this was the Uchiha Estate, it was Sakura's house and she claimed full ownership, as was her right as Sasuke's wife. It was ironic that she ran the estate well, better than Sasuke could ever do alone. "And I don't want to fix my house after burning it down. If we're going to fight full scale, we're doing it outside the village, Naruto."

Neji nodded, knowing that he was right. "It would be the most productive. It teachers battling against various fighting styles, but also teamwork. The way that I always do it is that if you're either tired, bored, or will lose to a particular attack, you can call out a member of your team's name, and they're supposed to either deflect the attack or stop it. And, I think Sasuke and Naruto should be on opposite teams."

Sasuke shrugged. "I'm fine with that, but I want Shino on my team."

"Well we can't really fight full scale, but I'm not gonna hold back by much Sasuke!" Naruto challenged as he just smiled at his rival. This was going to be fun, so many of the guys from their class just getting together and fighting to see who was strong. It was going to be great. Of course, Naruto hardly sensed the levels of anger that existed between some of the people here.

"It's like we're back in class," Shino said before moving over to stand next to Sasuke. They might as well at least differentiate who was on what team. He looked forward to working with Sasuke though, it'd be interesting to watch how the fight progressed.

"In that case I'm taking Kiba on to my team!" Naruto shouted. The Inuzuka was quick to walk over before giving the blonde a high five. After the chunin exams Naruto and Kiba had gotten along fairly well. Naruto had fought well and wasn't a complete asshole, Kiba respected that. Plus they both joked around a lot, and Kiba had always noticed Hinata's attraction to the guy....even if he was too dumb himself to notice.

Sasuke knew that Naruto wasn't one to hold back, but what he didn't seem to understand is that the two of them had a rather high probability of killing the four other shinobi with them without much effort. It went without saying that, in their age group, the two of them were the most powerful. Sasuke was a close combat fighter, Shino was a distance fighter.

Kiba and Naruto had the same fighting type: close range, so Naruto had not yet learned to diversify his strategy. It was ironic, really. Shikamaru was more of a midrange fighter, and Neji was a close combat fighter, much like the others. Shikamaru's intelligence was offset by his laziness, but his strategy was one of the many things that set him apart from others. Sasuke knew that in a real battle, Shikamaru was perhaps the last Shinobi he wanted to face, just in terms of raw skill when motivated.

Still, he had the feeling that Shikamaru's skill was not effective against opponents like Naruto or Kiba. Or, from what he had seen, he thought that anyway. Sasuke's eyes wandered the area, taking into consideration the shadows and Shikamaru's assumed improvement in manipulating those shadows. They were in a wooded area, which of course gave Shikamaru the upper hand, and, considering Neji would be the smartest one on the opposing team, it would give Sasuke's team a definite advantage.

Sasuke knew Naruto's fighting style, and vise versa, and Shino knew Kiba's. All in all, it wasn't a bad combination. "I choose Shikamaru." he said, smirking. Also ironic that all the members of his team had "S" as the first letter of their name.

"We should get this battle started then, shouldn't we?"

"It's more training than battling." Neji corrected, and then smiled. "Because the team that causes the most injuries at the end loses, since their lack of control has dealt injury to a comrade."

Shikamaru glanced up in almost surprise as he was picked. This surprise wasn't that obvious on his face, only apparent in the raised eyebrow that he gave. "Alright than," he said as he stood up and walked over to stand next to Shino. This was going to be interesting, the match ups weren't quite that even in his opinion. However, he knew that those three weren't going to go down without a fight. If anything, they had pride in their abilities.

"So I guess the question remains as who gets to go first for each team?" Kiba asked as he glanced at both of his teammates. Any of them could go first, the only question was who wanted to. Of course, it didn't take very long for this question to get answered. An orange flash moved out and stood at attention.

"Naruto Uzamaki representing his team first!" Naruto shouted with that huge grin that he always had on his face. He was clearly looking more forward to this than anyone else was.

Shino glanced over towards Sasuke. It was obvious that Shikamaru wasn't going to volunteer to go first anytime soon, so that left it down between the Uchiha and the Aburame. "Do you want me to go first or you?" Shino asked in a calm tone. Obviously he wasn't afraid to walk up and take on Naruto, but if Sasuke wanted to take the lead he wasn't going to stand in the way.

But Sasuke smiled. He knew that Naruto was that rash. He had wanted Shino to train with Naruto in teh first place. Someone as impulsive as Naruto would be easy for someone as intelligent as Shino to fight. He leaned to tell Shino. "Aim for his clothes. If the purpose of this training mission is not to hurt one another, then hit his clones in the heart and cut up the real one's clothes. Naruto wears a necklace given to him by Tsunade around his neck. His clones don't have that necklace. So that's what you need to have your insects search for." He made sure that no one else, except maybe Shikamaru could hear this, before stepping back to give Shino the lead.

Shino just stood still, not saying anything as Sasuke spoke. He appreciated the help, but part of him couldn't help but wonder if Sasuke only pointed it out because he thought that Shino wouldn't notice it. Still, he knew to give Sasuke the benefit of the doubt. While Shino wasn't as powerful as Sasuke he knew that Sasuke at least respected Shino's power. That was enough for him. Shino just gave a nod before stepping forward, thankfully his bow and arrows were already out.

Naruto meanwhile made his classic hand sign, immediately forming three shadow clones. "I look forward to fight-" but he was immediately cut off as one of the clones was immediately stuck down by an arrow. This caused Naruto to blink in surprise, since when did Shino use a weapon!? And how was he so good with it!? Naruto of course hadn't even moved his position, so it was easy for Shino to strike down one of the clones.

"This should be interesting," Kiba remarked from his spot on the sidelines.

---

The fight raged on between the two of them for some time. It seemed like Naruto was trying to stick to his most basic strategy of just overloading the enemy with clones, but it wasn't working on Shino. While he had only managed to get two cuts on Naruto's clothes he had been able to hold the clones back through use of his ninjutsu, lightning was particularly effective in clearing groups of enemies at once time. Naruto wasn't even able to ambush because Shino's insects were detecting the chakra and notifying him before an attack was struck.

However, eventually Naruto's massive amount of charka and clones were starting to overwhelm Shino. He could fight on, but he also knew that he couldn't use all of his energy now or he'd be out for the whole thing. Time to switch things up. This was the perfect time to do so as Naruto actually managed to sneak in close to Neji, already preparing a rasengan as he did so. The blonde juggernaut of chakra was charging right for him, and there were too many clones for a clear line of escape.

"Sasuke switch!"

"Chidori!" Sasuke fired the attack seconds after Shino called his name. The lightning spread out almost like a spider's web, destroying all but three of Naruto's clones. Unlike Naruto, who had his chakra sealed, Sasuke was able to expand massive attacks and chakra in little time with minimal effort. But the Uchiha was also smart enough not to waste his chakra. On team 7, he and Sakura had the best chakra control. Naruto was better than before, but he still wasted it on clones that did very little for him in battle, especially since Sharingan could easily pick out the clones from the real thing.

Rasengan was a wind based attack, so it was stronger than lightning. But Sasuke would let Naruto believe he had the upper hand. At least, at first. He ran forward, charging chidori a second time, blue chakra dancing and licking at his skin. He moved his arm forward as Naruto brought rasengan forward.

However, as Chidori left Sasuke's hand, it exploded, and deevolved into a blue fire. Fire was stronger than wind. Rasengan causes the fire attack Sasuke created to blaze all around them, and, for someone like Neji, although Naruto's chakra was the fuel, Sasuke's chakra was the dominant part of the chakra. Sasuke spun the fire into a circle and moved it up into the air, where it dispersed. He smirked. This battle wasn't about inflicting injury, in his mind, it was more about a display of skill. They wanted to know one another's techniques, and that was one he'd been working on for a while, but had never practiced. A way to stop Naruto's rasengan.

Shino was quick to leap out of the way as soon as some of Naruto's clones had been destroyed by the chidori. Sasuke had provided an opening and Shino wasn't going to wait for any sort of invitation to take it. After all, if that rasengan had connected Shino might have been completely out of the fight. He had seen men being struck by that move only to never rise from it again. It was a powerful technique.

Naruto just stared in stunned silence for a moment as his ransengan was completely wiped out from Sasuke's lightning and fire technique. Sure, a few people had protected themselves from the attack before but Naruto had never seen someone just ultimately counter it like that before. Now he was going to have to switch strategies. He quickly leapt backwards before pulling out a shuriken from his pocket. He quickly threw it before making the hand sign for shadow clones. Within moments the one shuriken had turned in to nearly two hundred and they were all moving straight towards the Uchiha.

Sasuke watched as the clones appeared around him. Oh... lovely. He sighed, taking a more defensive strategy. Why did he always get stuck with this. While it was true that Naruto was good at overwhelming his targets, it was still not the best strategy for someone like Sasuke, who could tell which one the real one was and which were the clones. He also knew Naruto's fighting style too well. He pulled his sword and started to gather chidori around it. He fired one blast, destroying about fifty clones, before using his chidori grabbed sword to deal various other blows to the others.

All the while, he was clearing himself a path toward the real one, wanting to get a shot at him, rather than the clones, which were essentially worthless in the Uchiha's blood colored eyes.

Some time later....

"God, they're all so strong," Kiba muttered to himself as he sat at the edge with his teammate Neji. This had turned in to one fairly serious fight, while no one had sustained any permanent damage it was still evident that they weren't holding back any punches either. He had seen most of these guys fight before but it had been years, he had no idea that they had grown to such strong levels. "Come on Naruto, you got this!" he shouted.

"AHHHHH!" Naruto shouted before sprinting forward at a great speed towards Sasuke. They had fought earlier, but towards the end it seemed like they were the only two that had any real juice left in them. The teams had done the best that they could, but everyone was too tired at this point. Naruto needed to win this for his team! He let out another yell before trying to use his clones from the side to pin Sasuke to the tree that was behind him before launching a rasengan straight at him.

Sasuke had used a shadow clone with a section of a tree. Of course, that didn't save the tree that exploded when rasengan made contact with it. The Uchiha slid back, on his feet. He let out a sigh, landing behind Naruto and slamming him into a tree. He held his teammate's neck, smiling. He drew his sword and slammed it beside Naruto's head. "Let's call this a--"

"Sasuke Uchiha!" Birds scattered at the pitch of Sakura's voice, and Sasuke was sure Kiba might have gone deaf.

The pink haired woman tore threw the trees, pulled her two former teammates apart and punched them both. Although the last time she had been out, she had been lean and looked thin, her stomach was starting to stick out. She didn't look heavy, but her stomach was rounder, and it was clear she had put on at least some weight. "I deal with your training because you're stubborn! But that doesn't mean you can do it at two o'clock. What happens at two o'clock, Sasuke?"

Sasuke rubbed his red cheek. "They don't make clocks that plug into tree's Sakura. I didn't know it was passed two."

She grabbed his collar and pulled him over to her. "Sasuke, I swear, one of these days--" He bent down suddenly and kissed her. Her grip on his shirt loosened and she closed her eyes, kissing him back.

When they broke apart, she punched him in the stomach. "You need to shower." She mumbled, storming off.

Naruto quickly turned as he saw that Sasuke had managed to use his own shadow clone to dodge his attack. Naruto always forgot that he wasn't the only one that used that technique, even if he was the one that performed it the best. Naruto began to make another hand sign before a rather loud and familiar voice reached his ears. A small smile came to his face, but at the same time he knew that something wasn't right.

"My.....my ears," Kiba muttered as he placed his hands to them. "I can barely hear anything," he mumbled to himself as he waited for the ringing to go away.

"Hey Sakura, man you should have been out here we are really-" but Naruto was immediately cut off as Sakura delivered one of her trademark punches right in to Naruto's gut and silenced him instantly. Yeah, she had been able to do that since they were kids. Much like everyone else here, Sakura had also gotten stronger over time. Naruto just laid there in pain as Sakura and Saskue had their conversation until she eventually left.

Silence filled the area for a minute as the pregnant woman left. "So....what's at two?" Shino finally asked in order to break the silence.

"I'm guessing we woke up Shai." Sasuke said, fixing his clothes. "Shai usually naps from about two until three thirty." He shrugged his shoulders. "But as long as no one picks him up, he'll fall back to sleep." Sasuke had woken him up before, and as long as Sakura didn't open his door or talk to him, the toddler would fall right back to sleep. Shai was predictable when it came to his sleep schedule, so the Uchiha wasn't all that concerned.

All the same, he knew that Sakura wouldn't be in the best mood now. He didn't know why she was already like this. She was in her second trimester before she was punching and yelling at him when she was pregnant with Shai. And she was still in her first trimester now. "Come on. We should get out of here before she freaks out again. I doubt she's going to make us lunch now."

Neji had the strange feeling they were all going out for ramen.