Chapter 30 – Evil Monks

[You have slept in a makeshift bed, HP and CP fully recovered. All negative alignments and abnormal statuses have been restored.] 

[08:00] 

Raito glanced at the clock as he rose, silently congratulating himself for the brilliant idea. 'As I thought, it depends on me when to wake up.'

Before leaving the cave, Raito brought out a few baskets from his inventory, placed them opposite to the bed. Stretching, he brushed his teeth and washed his face. The untouched breeze of nature was as fresh as it could be, and the sun's warm light added to the comforting atmosphere. Raito was ready for the start of a fresh, new day. 

Raito strolled for a while and reached an area with plenty of rocks. There was no one watching him, or so he thought, and there was no one tell him what to do.

Activating the 'Earth Elemental Manipulation', Raito transformed the small rocks into something big and big rocks into something small. "I think I can do it."

Raito crafted a water tank capable of holding enough water for everyone's use. He meticulously fashioned a stand for it, ensuring it stood at a considerable height. . Numerous adjustments were made, each tweak guided by the help of '[Observe]'.

Next, he made another smaller water tank; just enough for a person's width, then took out a Fūinjutsu set and started working on the seal.

Both of his skills, 'Earth Elemental Manipulation' and 'Fūinjutsu' were activated, drawing on the knowledge from each. With the image clear in his mind, Raito easily completed the seal work.

Placing the scroll at the base of the smaller tank, he transferred the Fūinjutsu on the bottom of the tank.

Activating the sealwork, the bottom of the water tank opened many tiny holes. After sending another pulse of chakra, the holes disappeared, returning to what it was before.

[Earth Elemental Manipulation Lvl 19 (Active)] 

[Fūinjutsu Lvl 14 (Active)]

Raito stood in the bathing area of the bath, arranging water tanks. The smaller water tank with Fūinjutsu was attached to the cliff wall, roughly above a person's height, then linked with the bigger tank, which was also embedded on the cliff side, with pipes. The bigger water tank had a water pipe coming from all the way from the waterfall. Once the water level comes to a height the pipes will take the water to the river directly. 

"Shower complete but…" The only problem was that, how could he activate the seal from down. Every time he had to stretch his hand upward and pass chakra.

"I can help you with that." Kakashi walked in with a cup of hot chocolate, and drank with his mask on. "Make me something with those stones, like an extension."

"Like a switch?" Raito question but quickly started his work.

Kakashi took out a scroll and floated it in the air. There were hundreds of character seals on the scroll, which moved under manipulation of Kakashi's chakra. It connected the box to the seal, around the bottom of the tank, which looked like a line. "It's called a 'Link', when you have to cover a lot of area while being in one area, we use this."

Raito moved a couple of steps back. He could activate and deactivate the seals anytime he wanted but he wanted to make it easier for others. 

Raito equipped the washing area with some shampoo and other essentials then went to girls section then made the same.

"That's some high-level Fūinjutsu and your storage technique is also unique. That would have made your wildlife easy, but the question is why didn't you use it earlier?" Kakashi was sitting on the rocks, with his hand on his chin.

Raito gave Kakashi a brilliant smile then coughed lightly, seemingly preparing for a big announcement. Raito waved his hand and answered, "I don't wanna boast, but I wanted to try and do it without my storage. I think that if I used my storage technique than this survival exam will be as easy as breathing, which I did not want to. If a great genius like me depends on such a cheating technique then people might just go crazy." 

Kakashi felt ashamed hearing that, so he also coughed slightly. 'I never asked and I never heard that.'

"So what happened yesterday was a little too much. How do you feel?" Kakashi asked in his usual lazy style. 

Thinking for a long time, Raito answered, "… I don't know what to really feel, really. I mean we survived, and no one died or had any serious injury except the enemy." 

"I remember dad telling me stories of missions. Of course, he would skip the bad stuff and all, but coming home in bandages and scar marks says a bit too much, even when he does not want to." 

"I remember that one day he was back after a long mission. He had no wounds, and his clothes was also fine, but when we took bath together, I remember that there were new scars on his body. Scars happen because the injury heals in abnormal way." Raito exited the bath and looked at his destroyed garden.

"When it was time for me to enter the ninja academy, mom warned me – 'If you want to live long, don't enter the academy'. In the end, I was a whole week late because she didn't want me to enter the academy." Raito chucked, starting to remove the stones. 

"Well, I'm glad that you all weren't too affected by yesterday's incident." Kakashi sighed, looked at Raito with a glimmer in is his lone, lazy eye. 

Kakashi relaxed his shoulder and sighed. What would he not do to go back in time and enjoy this peaceful days. "I was already a ninja when I was your age, and these kinds of things happened frequently, but it has somewhat decreased in recent years." 

After everyone woke up, they found their personal baskets, which held everything they hoped for in the past few days a brush, toothpaste, bag of clothes and other necessary items. 

Ino was so happy that she cried while hugging the basket. Hinata was not different either, although the reaction was not much, she hugged her basket with a vice grip. 

Seeing the two, Shikamaru only gave a yawn and Naruto scratched his head. 

Chōji stepped outside and noticed the stone table was covered by a tablecloth, with various utensils, like pots and pans, along with essentials like oil, salt, and spices.

Shikamaru, in a rush, couldn't help but head straight for the table, grabbing a container with a green cover. After realizing his own actions, he gave a weak smile and muttered, "I never thought that I'd be so happy to see tea leaves." 

"T-That's RAMEN!" Naruto exclaimed, dashing to snatch the ramen container, tears streaming down his face. 

Ino walked out, grabbing a few things before looking around. "Where is that Raito?"

"Raito-san has gone east with Pakkun and he is wearing weights." Hinata quickly answered after scanning the area with Byakugan. 

Ino shrugged, then noticed some modification on the bath area then grabbed Hinata and rushed.

Not far away, Raito ran with weights, Pakkun trailing behind at a distance. Following Gai's method, Raito circled around the shelter for half an hour.

Sitting down, Raito pulled out a water bottle and chugged it down in one go. Watching his STR and VIT increase by one, Raito felt happy. 

As he stood up, before he could take another step, a low tearing sound echoed, and the weights strapped to him fell, hitting Raito's foot.

"Ouch," Raito plopped down, grabbing his foot, and shot a venomous look at the metal plates. "Bad Luck," 

'[Heal]'." Taking off his shoes, Raito looked at the wound and used the healing skill. 

[Extremely novice added weight] - (Common) 

Durability – 0/50 

Watching his creation turning into scraps, Raito felt sad. He sighed, stashed it in the inventory, and, after putting his shoes back on, he headed back to the shelter.

Returning, Raito spotted Naruto and Shikamaru doing physical exercise, while for Naruto, it was an everyday thing, but, for Shikamaru, to do it, and, even in the early morning, Raito felt it was pretty funny.

With another sweep, he found Ino doing tree walking and Hinata hitting the tree with her finger strikes, each strike making a small press into the tree. 

"I need some food in my system." Looking at the table, Raito found that the most of the items were untouched. 

THAP! 

A familiar loud sound reached Raito from across the river. Grabbing an apple for the walk, Raito power-walked towards the source.

There, he found Chōji carrying a boulder roughly double his size, jumping back and forth. In his training gear. Chōji was sweating heavily as his skin turned red and steam escaped from his skin.

Eyes widened and mouth wide open, Raito stared at Chōji, unable to find the right words. "Damn, that's Jōnin." 

Feeling the gaze, Chōji stopped his practice and threw down the stone, making a loud noise. The redness on his skin and steam coming out of his body stopped, and he began sweating. It took quite a while for Chōji to turn back to normal. 

Raito stared at Chōji in awe the whole time. It looked like some kind of rare and secret technique to train the body. 

Chōji let out a breath, then patted his stomach, which seemed to have gone down a few inches and said, "I am hungry again." 

"Training to point of steaming, if you did it regularly, then you surely would lose some weight." Raito joked and passed some meat bun to Chōji. 

Holding the small basket, Chōji glared at Raito and asked with an angry tone, "Raito, did you just call me fat?" 

"Chōji, why are you calling yourself fat?" Raito with his innocent, confused look, asked back. 

Ignoring Raito, Chōji looked at the meat bun in his hand and took a huge bite. Tears ran down his eyes as he quickly finished the small basket of meat bun, which held about a dozen. Looking at Raito, as pitifully as he could, Chōji said in a tearful voice and hugged him, "Raito, never leave me. I wanna be in a team with you." 

Hearing the shameful words, Raito quickly pushed Chōji and said, "Oi, oi, you are too sweaty." 

Raito went to the bath with Chōji by his side. He taught Chōji on how to use the shower, then started cleaning himself.

Raito took out a green pill, then crushed it. He mixed it in the bath and jumped in. The green pill was made by the concentrated herbs, so it had tons of benefits. 

Shikamaru and Naruto joined later.

Raito looked at Shikamaru, who was by his side with a frown. Raito waited, but Shikamaru didn't say anything. Sighing, Raito could only ask, "Hey, what's bothering you?" 

Shikamaru opened his eyes and looked at Raito. "Raito…." 

"Yeah?" 

Shikamaru swatted the water and asked, "What if the help hadn't come?" 

"…"

"What would have happened if the ANBU didn't show up? What would… Tokiji have done to Sakura or us?" Shikamaru shouted, making Raito flinch.

"Hey, nothing happened-" Raito tried to blow this topic but Naruto stood up and turned towards Raito. "Don't you dare say that." 

"O-Okay." what's bothering you. 

Chōji pulled Naruto and signaled him to sit down. Naruto obeyed but his eyes were still glaring at Raito. "You should have used that jutsu."

"…"

Shikamaru agreed, "You should have."

Raito looked uncomfortable, as he looked sideways.

"If you had used that jutsu, then we wouldn't have to fight those two, and Sakura-chan wouldn't have gone through that." Naruto let out everything he was angry about and Raito heard every word.

Raito had considered using '[ID Create]' and taking all of them to the dungeon. They wouldn't even noticed the transition, just like the last time. But reality hit, and they had to face the attack of two guys, who were just too powerful for them to handle.

Raito remained silent. From his side, he thought that he had done a great job. Leading everyone to fight in a real life battle and gaining experience. However, he just didn't factor Sakura's actions and never expected that she would side slam at every point. Coughing, running, getting captured, even though they were taught these things in classes, and even that Genjutsu.

"Pakkun was watching us using camouflage technique." Hinata's raised her voice, shocking everyone.

Naruto turned his head left and right then asked. "Pakkun?" 

"Not just Pakkun, but all of Kakashi-sensei's summons were there." Hinata added.

Ino leaned into Hinata and said, "Kakashi-sensei left us alone, and Pakkun and others acted as surveillance." 

Shikamaru was still irritated at Raito, but still said, "They were probably giving us chance."

He looked at Naruto then added. "A real life battle is a great opportunity for academy students like us."

Raito sneaked in, hoping for a chance. "Like they say 'Real warriors are made, not born',' and a good chance to be made is a situation like this."

Naruto sat in silence, arms crossed and a pout in his face. "I still don't like this."

"Sakura," Ino sighed. "If she just didn't run off…"

Naruto frowned and his gaze deepened. "It's not about Sakura, it's-"

"Of course it's about Sakura." Ino rolled her eyes and stroked Hinata's head. "If it wasn't for Sakura, then we wouldn't have to change our plan, escape from the cave or even focus on rescuing her."

"Ino," Shikamaru quickly intervened to this escalating situation. "Since they knew we had Hinata, who could use Byakugan to find things out, the ANBU should have controlled his speed."

"It was a well calculated plan." Shikamaru looked around him then looked up to the sky. "We could've been severely injured." 

"Raito's healing technique saved us from that." Ino looked at her hands. A green glow appeared then disappeared. "One person should know about healing technique is a must in a team."

Shikamaru closed his heavy eyes, exhausted from all the thinking, and said, "I should take that healer role since-"

"That's my role." Ino shouted, throwing water across the bamboo wall.

Shikamaru jerked up, shouted 'Cold' then dipped into the water. The thermal seal was the best.

"We need stronger jutsus and more training to get stronger," Naruto shouted. "If we were stronger we could've kicked their ass anytime, and that type of thing would never happen." 

"We need to train more." Chōji supported the idea. 

Shikamaru surfaced and said, "Yeah, we need that but what we need more is 'Teamwork',"

There was a brief pause as everyone gave him side glance.

"Konoha is famous for teamwork, never leave a friend behind," Naruto remembered a part for the book he was reading. It told about how teammates would work together and solve the problems. 

"Ino-Shika-Cho group has it good, with all heritage of fighting together." Raito came back, breaking his silence with a fact.

"Ino-Shika-Cho is a star team of Konoha but there are other teams with no history of group fighting that still show great results." 

"I don't know any." Raito refused to listen, but Shikamaru continued. 

"The Sannin. They went into countless battles and fought enemies of higher ranks." 

"The fight with Hanzō, the salamander?" Raito said his one eye staring at Shikamaru. "They are not like the trio clan."

Shaking his head, Shikamaru continued and Chōji and Naruto got closer. 

"You know the Nara clan has all the battle records made into a library. One of the fights the Sannin had was with 'The Five Evils'." 

"Five Evils? I have never heard of them." Naruto said and Raito shook his head. 

"They are the five evil monks from a temple known to have come from 'Land of the Earth'," Chōji explained. 

"These monks were a group of master and disciple. One master and four disciples, although they did not practice discipline, they practiced martial arts. They were talented and around their thirties. They had learned everything they could from the temple, even their master was already above the level of the head of the temple. It is said that the group of five one day had descended the mountain, ate meat and drink alcohol. The head of the temple didn't do anything at that time.

From then on, with every descent, their courage grew. One day, they killed men and raped the women. Their acts grew larger and the head of the temple heard about the matter. When the time came to confront, the five killed everyone in the temple then razed the temple to the ground. Wherever they went, their actions followed, bringing fear and destruction. 

The Tsuchikage did not look at the matter at first, but they killed some of his shinobi at the end. Furious, the Tsuchikage sent his ninja to kill them, but because they were in the middle of the war, Tsuchikage only sent a couple at a time. The five evils also found that their action had drawn the attention of the Tsuchikage, so they fled the country and entered the 'Land of Fire'. They decided to be more cautious this time and keep away from the Konoha and the Fire Country and enter the 'Tea country'. But before it could go that way, the evils had done it once again, killing and raping. At that time the nearest squad present were the Sannin." 

Pausing, Shikamaru looked at the three and saw the interest in their eyes. 

'He is not making this up.' Raito analyzed Shikamaru and waited for notification but it never came. 

"Then, then, the Sannin beat them," Naruto said in an excited voice. 

Shikamaru had a 'hard-to-digest' type smile at his face. "No, Naruto they didn't win…." 

"No way, not even the Sannin?" 

"Not the first time anyway. It was Jiraiya-sama alone, it was said that using special arts, he reached the place where the five evils were staying, leaving his teammates behind, thinking that the enemies were weaker than him. 

That was true, the four evil disciples were weaker than him but in group they were stronger than him. The four of the evils played with him and were going to kill him when Orochimaru and Tsunade-sama came in just the right time to save him." 

"That was stupid," Raito said. 

"Even the Sannin." 

"After letting her summon heal Jiraiya-sama, Tsunade-sama and Orochimaru went to confront them but this time the result was just a little better than last. The master of the evil monks had intervened and this time Orochimaru had been injured. Tsunade-sama took Orochimaru and met up with Jiraiya. 

After that, the three took a couple of days to heal. On the other side, the evil monks also had to rest for a few days to recover themselves. Finally, the three Sannin decided to attack together with their summons, ambushing them at the 'Valley of Star Gazing' which is now known 'Fall of Evil Star'." 

"But what about that master? Easily capable of saving his disciples, he should be strong enough?" Raito questioned. 

"With all of them working together surely they should have won, right?" Naruto also asked it seemed like the story had affected him deeply. 

"Yeah, they won but don't you want to know how they won?" Shikamaru asked. 

"How?" Naruto and Raito asked. 

"It was like this. First, only Jiraiya-sama and Tsunade-sama went attacking the four monk disciples and at the same time, Orochimaru and attacked the monk master with the summons." 

"Divide and conquer," Raito commented. 

"Yeah, after the monk master was busy with summons, Orochimaru joined Tsunade-sama and Jiraiya-sama to kill the four evils, which was far easier without the monk master intervening all the time. Later, the monk master went into a frenzy, making killing moves. The three Sannin worked together with their summons and after fighting for quite a while was able to defeat the monk master and capture him." 

"The Sannin and their summons." Naruto's eye shined with intense light. 

"To go against one monk master, three Sannin and their summons. The monk master was on quite a high level." Raito muttered. 

"Yeah whole level higher than the Sannin back then. They say that the Evil monk master used some kind of chakra like power, he was no weaker than the Hanzō." Shikamaru said and looked at Raito secretly. 

"So working in a team to fight stronger enemies?" Naruto questioned. 

Raito stared at Shikamaru and Chōji, and said, "Naruto is like Jiraiya-sama, abandoning the tactics. Tactics and teamwork, probably save him but now, they are working solo…" 

"Didn't we all work together to keep ourselves alive?" Shikamaru didn't answer but replied with a question. 

Raito stood up and dried himself, and just as he was about to go out Raito said, "I somewhat understand, Shika." 

"Food, food, food." Smiling happily, Chōji also went out to prepare food. 

Shikamaru and Naruto were still inside the bath. They both looked at each other, smiled and did a high five.