“So we are going to stay here, huh? Quite a nice pce for both safety and finding food. We could also keep check of our surroundings,” Kabuto said.

  “Especially with this bear here. This pce gives excellent cover,” Kaida replied.

  “Then it is decided. Kabuto, prepare a cave for us a little away from the bear's cave. Kaida, inscribe some cealment seals in the area. I will scout the surroundings for water and anything else I find,” Itachi instructed.

  “Okay, Captain,” both Kaida and Kabuto said, starting their tasks.

  “So, Kaida, I always wao ask: that famous bathhouse in the Uchiha district is yours, right?” Kabuto asked.

  “Yes, our family owns that bathhouse. Why did you want to ask, anyway?” Kaida responded.

  “Well, do you guys give a bulk dist? Due to its ret popurity, the young children in the orphanage are asking whether they could also use it, but the price is way over the budget of the orphanage,” Kabuto said with a sigh.

  “… Dist? I will book twe baths for your orphanage when we go back. You bring everyohen,” Kaida replied with a smile.

  “No, no! I don’t want you to take any loss; I will pay the price for those,” Kabuto said hastily.

  Pat, pat.

  “With the ine we are earning from that bathhouse, a single use of two normal baths will not even put a small dent in the profits, so don’t worry about that. As for money, I thought we were being friends—well, maybe only I thought that,” Kaida said dejectedly.

  “No… Okay, I uand. Then I will bring everyoo your bathhouse,” Kabuto said.

  “That’s more like it,” Kaida replied, then brought a big leaf from a tree and sshed his hand to drip some blood on the leaf.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Kabuto asked worriedly, stopping his work on the cave.

  “Getting ink to make the seal. Those people took everything I had prepared other than kunai,” Kaida said, fog oask at hand.

  “Isn’t there any other way than using your own blood?” Kabuto asked.

  “Apart from ninja’s blood and fuinjutsu ink, nothing else naturally has the capability to i with chakra in the enviro. In other words, it ’t work for seals… and done.” Kaida said as the leaf was now filled with enough blood to make the seal.

  After that, Kaida simply used Healing Palm Jutsu, and the cut on his palm closed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

  “Fine, I am going to foy task,” Kabuto said, giving a st look at Kaida's hand.

  ‘How the hell did this timid and upright boy bee the final vilin in the end?’ Kaida thought before starting to make many seals in the surrounding area. Most of them were cealment arrays, but some were also motioion seals that would send signals to Kaida upoing any movement.

  After surrounding the base with seals, Kaida went to the deer that the bear had hunted and pced it on top of a thick bran a nearby tree. He made some cuts on its ned other veins to drain the blood, st it for the bear as well.

  After two hours, Kabuto came out of the hole, all of his clothes dirty.

  “What the hell were you doing io get this dirty?” Kaida asked, looking toward him.

  “Enrging the cave, making three ses for each of us, and ing it a little,” Kabuto said.

  “Bro, we are not going to settle here. This is just a temporary base for three days; there was no need for you to do this much work,” Kaida said.

  “Yeah, but we have free time for the hree days. There is ra work anymore, so I got a little carried away,” Kabuto said, rubbing the back of his head.

  “Well, it’s good that you are done now. I was about to start cooking this one,” Kaida said, patting the deer, which was now without its skin. Kabuto could see a heap of chopped wood and the deer skin lying around.

  “You did this mu just two hours, along with making seals?” Kabuto asked.

  Kaida simply made some hand signs, and poof, a shadow e popped o him. “I had help,” he said, the ahead arranging the wood.

  “I really want to learn this jutsu. Among all the ones I know, this one is the most practical,” Kabuto said.

  “Well, you when we go back; you are the Hokage's disciple,” Kaida said.

  “Hahaha, I wish I was! It was just for this exam,” Kabuto replied.

  “Then start going toward the jungle.”

  “Where are you going?” Kaida asked.

  “I know about some wild spices. I will try my luck to see if I find any,” Kabuto said.

  “Okay, but be alert all the time,” Kaida warned.

  “Sure.”

  …

  After another half hour, Itachi came back.

  “Where is Kabuto?”

  “Wele back, Captain. Kabuto went into the juo find some spices for cooking; he should be ing bay moment now,” Kaida said.

  “I’m already here,” Kabuto said, ing back from the jungle.

  “You didn’t find anything?” Kaida asked, seeing the empty hands of both Kabuto and Itachi.

  Both of them passed chakra into their ste seals, and various items came out.

  “I found a water sourearby, this is rock salt from the mountain, and these are some berries,” Itachi said.

  “I found wild garlie herbs, this lemon-like fruit, and chilies,” Kabuto added.

  “Did you have to fight a bear for these things?” Itachi asked, notig Kabuto’s dirty state.

  “No, I got like this while making the cave,” Kabuto said.

  “Okay,” Itachi said, not asking further.

  “Hmm, now that we have so many ingredients, it would be a waste to eat this bnd, but only if I had honey… Wait a minute,” Kaida said, calling out to the bear.

  “Guah?” The bear tilted its head, seeing the deer like that.

  “Do you knoce where we could find honey?” Kaida asked.

  “?”

  “A yellow liquid that tastes sweet and is surrounded by small flying is,” Kaida expined.

  “Guah.” The bear s head and then ran toward the jungle. Kaida then made a shadow e, which used Transformation Jutsu to vert into a pan.

  “You are the only person in the world who would use a B-rank jutsu to make a pan,” Itachi said, shaking his head.

  “Well, chakra should have more use than just killing, right?” Kaida said, then began taking out some of the deer fat. But his words left his two teammates ihought.

  After ten mihe bear came back with a plete beehive in its hand. Some of the bees were still stig to its fur, but because of the coating of the fur, none of them mao get past that.

  “Good job!” Kaida said, taking the b from the bear and p the honey onto a leaf.

  He then started a small fire and pced the pan on it. O was heated, he added the deer fat to simmer. After it melted, he added honey, garlic, herbs, and a little bit of rock salt. After it simmered for half a minute, he added the ‘lemon’ to ba the fvor.

  ‘I hope we had soy sauce; well, it will be fihout it anyway.’

  “Do you want to eat that?” Kaida asked the bear, pointing toward the ans he had taken out while ing it. Normally, they would be thrown away.

  “Guah!” the bear jumped at that anyway.

  “Luckily, I had ed them,” Kaida said, already expeg something like that. He then made a rotating ptform to pce the deer on, with the help of his es—one for rotating, one for maintaining the fire, and the st one for applying the gze. Kaida pleted all of the preparations.

  “How long will it take?” Itachi asked, looking at the deer intensely.

  “Yes?” Kabuto asked.

  “We will have to wait for a very long time—at least five to six hours. But till then, we have the berries that Itachi brought back with him,” Kaida said, pointing toward them.

  “Nope, I will wait for this,” Kabuto said and sat o the fire.

  “Me too,” Itachi said as he also sat o them.

  “In that case, we drink some herbal tea while waiting for it to cook,” Kaida suggested, seeing the e he had sent into the jungle ing back with lots of herbs in its hands.

  “That’s a great idea!” Kabuto said.

  Kaida once again used Shadow e Jutsu and Transformation Jutsu to get a kettle from the jungle and pced it over the fire, filled with water and a mixture of herbs.

  Seeing all three of them sitting by the fire, the bear also joihem. After eating, it simply sat o Kaida, but its eyes were focused on the deer as well.