A week had gone by and Izu was trying to improve his ninja skills as quickly as possible. He kept himself from getting too hurt and focused on increases his chakra reserves and developing his jutsu more. He also took mental notes of his spar with Hayashi and tried to figure what would be better for his offensive strategies. Keeping his distance worked out pretty well when he fought the Uchiha, but close range combat would cost less chakra in the long run depending on how used his Earth Spear technique. Speed was the key to outdoing an Uchiha at close ranged combat and he would have to work on that. They were still not the well oiled machine that they were suppose to be, but as long as nothing too difficult went up against them then they would be fine.

It was then that Izu heard Akio voice in his head and he realized that the leaf shinobi was using a mind body technique to speak with them telepathically. He listened to his words and he cursed to himself, they were going after Orochimaru. He may have been a mist ninja, but he knew the tales of the rogue leaf shinobi and his horrible crimes. The man was monster, but Izu wasn't afraid him, it was his teammates that he was worried about. In terms of teamwork they were not ready for such an enemy, together they had possibly had the power to take down, but if they didn't work together properly then it would be much harder of a battle.

[i]"I've never felt this way before... I know it's wrong, but for some reason I'm excited..."[/i] Izu heard Arashi say out loud and turned to look at him an 'are you serious?' look on his face.

"I think you're in the minority Uchiha, this is not the kind of first mission that I would want with a new team like this. We'll be lucky if any of us make it out of this alive" he replied to Arashi with a slightly annoyed tone to his voice. He was irritated because while he wasn't afraid to die, his new teammates weren't trained the same way he was and probably wouldn't be as willing to accept death as he did and that would be a big factor in whether they would live or all die.