Takuma dumped his backpack onto the ground beside his foot as he looked at the large board tied up on the metallic chain-link fence with barbed wire weaved not only the top but also through the chain-link that made up the fence's body.

—> Training Ground: No. 42 <—

The board also had warnings about the area being a restricted property... only for shinobi use... stay out... danger... and many other notices all pointing to turn away, all written in bright red— not the feel-good Coca-Cola red, but the kind that screamed hazard.

Seeing the trees with trunks as thick as houses stretched over multiple stories tall with canopies so dense with green that not a single ray of light trickled down to the ground, Takuma was completely fine obeying the warnings and returning home. Alas, orders were orders and needed to be obeyed.

"Takuma!"

Hearing his name, Takuma turned away from the grim-looking forest to look at the trio of Nenro, Ai, and Masaaki walking towards him with Masaaki waving his hand above his head like an excited child.

"Mornin'," he said. Even though it was still dark, with sunrise a couple hours away.

"You sure packed light," Ai said, looking at Takuma's backpack.

Takuma glanced at the trio's backpacks on their shoulders and saw that their packs were larger than his and packed to the stitches. To him, it looked like they had overpacked.

"I travel light," said Takuma. He had been taught to pack light, carry only essentials, and be resourceful for anything else needed at the moment.

"So, this is it, huh," Nenro gazed at Training Ground No. 42. "What can you tell us about it?"

Takuma stared at the roots of the trees to see if he could spot some mushrooms. He had researched the area when packing his supplies as he was taught. But then Takuma noticed that the trio was looking at him.

"Huh, who me?"

"Who else... none of us are from here."

Takuma blinked. It was true. To everyone else, 'Takuma' had always been a Leaf village resident and even he had been living in the Leaf village for over a year.

"I... don't know much," said Takuma. "Never got to explore the restricted parts of the village, wasn't allowed, you know," he glanced at the looming forest, "but from the looks of it, the training ground is a forest-type terrain to maybe emulate deep forest for practice. From what I read, some risky flora and fauna roam there, creating a somewhat dangerous ecosystem for outsiders. So, not your average forest. An abundance of poisonous fruits and mushrooms, a special species of blood-sucking leeches, spiders that can blend with the environment— invisible to predators but attractive to prey... so yeah, there's a lot of interesting—"

Takuma looked back. Ai looked pale and blue.

"O-Oh, should I have not said something?" he asked.

"She hates leeches," Nenro wrapped his arm around Ai and rubbed her shoulder. "We once slept at a dairy farm, and in the morning, she woke up to find six leeches stuck to her, sucking blood."

Takuma wrinkled his nose. That sounded horrifying to wake up to. And it looked like it left behind a trauma on Ai.

"Well, there's something we can do to keep them away," he said to Ai.

"Really?" Ai removed her face from Nenro's shoulder and looked hopefully at Takuma, who nodded.

There were herbs that could be mulched into a paste that worked like repellents to keep the leeches away.

"Crying first thing in the morning, you guys sure are lively," said Taro upon arrival and lazily waved his hand to them with a light bag on his back. "Why's she crying?" he asked.

"Ai doesn't like leeches," said Masaaki.

"Then this is going to be terrible for her," Taro chortled shortly.

Nenro glared at him as he pulled Ai closer.

Takuma shook his head. The reason why they all had gathered away from their usual training grounds was that three days ago, Yoshio had announced that they would be doing an outdoor expedition to make the genin experience how to camp outside when they were outside the village for missions and couldn't find a town to lodge before sundown.

It was quite a basic skill to have, which was why Maruboshi had Takuma go through outdoor camping training. Which was why he was excited to hear they would camp outside. He felt an affinity for the great outdoors— the scenery was beautiful, the air was clean, and despite his not-so-stellar experience with his first trip, Takuma had some great times on the subsequent trips— something about camping under the trees, away from the city noise and light felt great.

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But as he looked at Training Ground No. 42, the dark forest, which he had read about in the archives, didn't look too appealing. But he was hopeful nevertheless.

One by one, more and more of Yoshio's group began to arrive at the training ground, all with bags on their backs, looking worriedly at the forest.

"Isn't that the instructor?" Masaaki said, pointing towards the forest.

Takuma turned towards the forest and saw Yoshio appearing out of the woods, accompanied by several shinobi. He walked through the gate in the fence and faced them.

"Looks like everyone is here," Yoshio said after peering at them. "Welcome to Training Ground No. 42. As you can see, it's a forest, and you all will spend the next few days exploring it. Do some fun activities. Have a great time together in the great outdoors."

"I don't like this. He's going to screw us over. I can feel it," Taro muttered loud enough for the team to hear.

Takuma couldn't agree more. There was nothing fun or great about how Yoshio had said those words. What did he mean by fun activities?

"The objective of this excursion is for all of you to get used to operating outdoors during missions or simple traveling. It was for that reason Training Ground No. 42 was chosen— but that's only part of the reason why we are doing this," Yoshio continued as a smile appeared on his chiseled face. "I previously said that you'll be traveling with your teams... I lied. Everyone will start separately from each other, so if you prepared your supplies jointly... too bad."

Takuma saw that the trio looked aghast. It seemed they had done precisely what Yoshio mentioned. Team-5 hadn't planned for joint preparation, but it seemed the trio had done so themselves.

"Every one of you will get one of these five tokens," Yoshio raised his hand to show five tokens, each in a different shape. "All of you will start separately at different points of the fence, with the control tower somewhere in the forest as the goal. Five tokens, each of a unique shape, are needed to enter the tower. The first two sets of five tokens will be granted entry and rewarded, while the remaining fifteen will be declared failures and have to shovel shit in a stable for a week."

They were made to queue and given a token each.

"What did all of you get?" Masaaki asked as he returned from the line. "I got the circle token."

"Square," Nenro raised his triangular wooden chip.

"Triangle," said Ai.

"Diamond," Taro showed his rhombus-shaped tile.

Takuma walked to the group and saw his teammate's tokens before showing them his pentagon token. "We need to make a plan to converge somewhere in the forest so we can then travel together to the tower," he said.

"Probably the right thing to do, but we don't know anything about the forest. How should we decide the meeting point?" Nenro said.

Takuma slung his backpack off his shoulder and took out a scroll. He unfurled it to show a map. "So, as you can see, a river—"

"You brought a map with you?" Taro stared between the map and Takuma.

"Huh, yeah. The day after he told us where we were going, I searched to see if I could find something. I asked the archive manager, and she straight up handed me a map," Takuma said— libraries were awesome. "So, as I was saying. You see this river..."

The fences around Training Ground No. 42 made a circular perimeter around the forest. A river entered from the north and then split soon after entering the forest. The stream that headed southwest exited the forest in one piece, but the second stream that headed southeast branched one more time at two places. The tower that Yoshio mentioned was situated right in the middle of the forest.

"We don't know where we will enter, so I say we head toward the water," Takuma ran his finger over the river on the map placed on the ground. "We meet at this split and then head to the tower together," he pointed at the first split in the southeast stream, which was right next to the central tower. "So, wherever you enter the forest, head towards the water, follow the stream and make your way to this split— don't try to tread the woods, it's dangerous. Yoshio told us we are going to be in here for two days. You need water for those two days, which is really easy to get if you're near a bunch of it. I will repeat, try to get to the water as soon as possible and then use it as a guide."

Rivers were overpowered. They provided water and food, and as such, they were a great place to camp. And in the real world, civilization settled near water, which was why if you followed water, people could eventually get to towns or villages.

"It will be difficult if we enter from the wrong position," Taro pointed out how the river streams were further from some places than others.

"Cover as much ground as you can during the mornings," said Takuma. "Wake up at first light and utilize most of your time to cover as much distance. I hope all of you have brought some food?" All of them nodded. "Good, ration it out, so you don't have to waste time hunting for food— but don't let yourself get dehydrated. When you make camp, drink as much water as possible and boil enough for the journey. Don't drink standing water. Don't eat anything you don't absolutely know you can eat..."

He rattled off everything he learned from his excursions and made sure they made it to the point well and in one piece.

"You sure know a lot about camping."

Takuma slung his backpack over his shoulder as one of the shinobi that came along with Yoshio called his name. "I do. I was trained for it. Alright, see you guys soon," he said before jogging to the shinobi.

Ai turned to Taro. She asked, "Do they teach this in the academy here?"

"The basics, sure. We even went out a couple times, camped near a forest... but what all he said, they didn't teach any of that," Taro shook his head. "... where did he learn it?"

Takuma ran to the shinobi, who handed him a red flare rod.

"If you're unable to continue for any reason, shoot this towards the sky and stay there, we will come and get you," said the shinobi and then asked if Takuma understood, who nodded.

The same shinobi then led Takuma and four other genin, and they traveled for one and a half hours before they stopped. He walked to a gate locked with multiple locks, and after unlocking every one of them, he turned to Takuma.

"You enter from here," he said.

Takuma walked inside, and the shinobi then locked the gate behind him before taking the rest of the group with him. Takuma watched them until they were out of view, after which he turned towards the forest.

He looked at the sky; the sun was about to come up— meaning it was time to start covering ground.