The Journey — (Naruto x Solo Leveling Fanfiction)

I don't own solo leveling or Naruto

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"Haiyah!"

Cha Hae-In screamed out as the slash of her blade easily sheared through the flesh and bones of the Green Orc before her. It retaliated with a wild swing that she swiftly avoided and bonked in the back of the head by the hilt of her sword. Rotating her body with practised grace the Orc's head went flying off in a spewing of purple blood, joining its fallen brethren.

Wiping some sweat that built up on her brow from the tedious exercise of clearing this dungeon. She was wearing her usual red-themed armour with long black boots.

"You become more impressive the more I see you fight, Ms. Hae-in," Choi whistled as he emerged from the tree line next to her. Noticing the trail of high-level B-rank monster corpses left in her wake. "Thank you, Master Choi, it's nothing really," she answered modestly, not quite used to getting praised for her actions. It's one of the reasons why she hasn't held a press conference of her own. She believed that she would get easily flustered and end up saying something that she'll later regret.

It was best to leave the talking to Master Choi.

"I noticed you told your troops to double back to my unit. Why?" the redhead queried with a lit cigarette already in his mouth. "The boss room wasn't in this direction and we were soon ambushed by a squad of Green Orcs. I ordered my unit to retreat to your unit for backup while I dealt with the enemy. Was I wrong?" she asked after recalling the previous events perfectly, in her mind she did the best thing for her team to keep casualties to a minimum.

Choi just breathed a puff of smoke," Well, you weren't wrong in your decision-making. I imagine your goal was to minimise casualties by drawing all the monsters' attention to yourself, but what if your squad had run into another ambush before encountering my unit. They are competent hunters no doubt, however, this is an A-rank dungeon after all. Even people like us could get killed here if we're not careful."

"I, uh, I'm sorry, sir. I didn't consider that possibility," the blonde apologised with her head down but Choi just waved away her remorse. "Don't be. All I want you to remember is that keeping your allies close to you is the best move when in the dungeons. This is always unfamiliar territory for us hunters, no matter how powerful we are," Choi explained, not wanting to beat down on her intentions.

"Yes, sir!" she nodded her head firmly. Choi looked up at the clouds that blanketed the beautiful blue skies of this dungeon thinking that this would be a good vacation spot if it wasn't overrun with monsters, but alas not everything could go his way.

"We've located the boss room and all the monsters have been slain. It's time to call in the mining and collection teams, there's nothing more we can do here until they've finished collecting the resources from this dungeon," Choi informed Hae-In of the status of the raid and how close they were to completing it.

"I see, sir. However, may I make one request?" she asked.

"Oh, and what would that be?" Choi was slightly surprised because she rarely ever requested anything and usually went along with most of what he said.

"I would like to keep watch over our mining and collection teams as they dig through the dungeon for resources."

Choi Jong-In paused for a moment wondering why she would want to do such a thing when he had other people delegated for the task, but then it clicked.

"Sure... I have no issues with the request," he smiled. It's not what he expected to happen but she definitely had her heart in the right place, that's more than what he could say for most.

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"Hey, uh Sasuke! Where are you off to today?" Lee asked out of breath as he had to run to catch up with the Uchiha when he disappeared after Mr. Jang had dismissed the class for the day.

Sasuke didn't miss a beat and continued walking off, not even acknowledging Lee's presence. This ticked the brown haired highschooler off judging from the twitching of his left eye.

'Why did I even want to talk to this guy again?!' he thought, frustrated at his classmates' closed off attitude. "Hey, man, wait up! I wanted to talk to you about something!" He grabbed Sasuke by the shoulder to stop him from going on any further.

"What is it? I've got more important things to do than to dither around this school," he chided in a biting tone causing his classmate to flinch. "Uh, well, it's a good thing that what I'm talking about has nothing to do with school," Lee replied, but the raven's glare only increased.

"You see, my oldest cousin is kind of a higher up in the Hunters Association and he said something a little interesting yesterday at dinner… You got a hunter's licence man, that's so cool!" Lee gushed childishly after reminding Sasuke of what he did three days ago.

"Ah, that." was all he said. "That's it?" Lee said, baffled at the raven's aloof attitude. "Come on, dude! This is a big deal, you've gotta be the first person my age to have a hunter licence. It's literally unheard of!" Lee went on and on excitedly, with the Uchiha watching on impassively. After calming down Lee decided to ask something that has been nagging at him for a while, "Why'd you become a hunter? I mean you're still in school, so are you planning to drop out or something?"

"Or something," Sasuke said simply and not a second later walked off leaving Lee in the dust. However, before he could pass through the school gates the very air seemed folded and tear open right before his very eyes.

Alarmed, he jumped back and watched as the tear in space got bigger and bigger until it was a full blown portal with massive amounts of magical energy pouring from it.

"Woah..." Sasuke couldn't help but utter, as he witnessed the gate swirling with energy before him.

"Is that a gate!?" He heard Lee shout out behind him. His body laid out on the floor, like a few other students around, from the sheer force of space ripping and tearing to produce this strange miracle before their very eyes.

"W-What was that just now?"

"I-Is that a gate?"

"Why is there a gate appearing at school?"

The surprised gasps and shouts of other students still on campus at this time went right over Sasuke's head as he walked up to the gate.

'It's massive...' he thought, gazing at the giant tear in space-time. He went up to touch the portal, but flinched back when a harmless spark flew off the gate.

He had gotten familiar with the hunter ranking system thanks to Kil Nari, and he found that with his sharingan he could discern the differences in power between each rank. However, it was still a little difficult for higher ranks. He was listed as a B-rank hunter and judging from the energy levels of this gate it was arguably a C-rank, if his estimations were correct.

"H-Hey Sasuke, man, I don't think you should be so close, the authorities say gates are dangerous..." Lee warned him, nervously from a distance.

"Weren't you the one talking about how cool it was being a hunter, earlier?" Sasuke questioned.

"Y-Yeah," he answered meekly.

"Well, a hunter shouldn't be scared of being this close, even a wannabe like yourself," Sasuke replied with a hint of mirth in his voice. He dropped the school bag around his shoulders and moved through the portal and onto the other side with no further words.

"Uh, w-what are you?"

Lee was taken aback by the raven's actions and he wasn't the only one.

"Is that first-year crazy?!"

"Did that first-year really walk into a gate like that?"

"He's gonna die. Shouldn't someone have stopped him?"

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A few minutes ago

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Kil Nari sat inside the driver's seat of her car just a few cars away from the school's main entrance, abiding to the teens' request to draw less attention to himself. She had been waiting since past 2 'o'clock to pick up a notoriously troublesome Uchiha.

As she hummed happily to the music playing from the radio, she couldn't help but take a glance at her watch wondering what was taking the raven-haired teen so long.

'Usually, he isn't so tardy, maybe he's got sport and didn't tell me about it?' she wondered but then dismissed the notion as soon as it surfaced, because she remembered just how opposed he was to spending time at school.

Suddenly, she heard a loud scream coming from the main gate and was even alarmed when she picked up on a sudden burst of magical energy.

'What's going on? Is it Sasuke?' she wondered rushing out the car, towards the school gates.

She was shortly greeted by a congregation of students gathering around a massive, shimmering blue portal, a Gate.

'This must have been the burst of mana! A gate appears at random, but it's a good thing it appeared out in the open like this,' she surmised, scanning the crowd to spot Sasuke somewhere amongst the heads of students ahead of her.

She needed to alert the Association about the gate's appearance so that they could close off the whole area, but at the same time needed to secure the rights to raid this dungeon for the Hunters Guild, before anyone else could. Pulling out her phone she did just that, being the assistant of an S-rank hunter granted her a direct line to higher ups of the Korean Hunter's Association.

She informed them of the situation and that the gate had just recently surfaced and wasn't in danger of breaking. After ending the call, she went to address the still mesmerised students.

"My name is Kil Nari, a C-rank hunter of the Hunters Guild. I need all you students to back away from the gate now! This area has become restricted due to a sudden gate appearance. The authorities have been altered so make sure all your fellow schoolmates have been accounted for!" she ordered, her experience as Choi Jong-In's most trusted assistant kicking in as the students scrambled away at her orders.

"Make sure to stand behind me, all of you! I implore you to wait for your teachers to arrive and make sure you are all accounted for," she continued to give the students further instructions.

As the students moved away she was approached by a tall lanky student with a resting scowl on his face. She nodded acknowledging him.

"I don't know about anyone else, but some crazy first-year kid just got up and walked into the gate," he explained much to her extreme alarm.

"What?! Are you sure?" she shouted. The student just sarcastically responded,"I wouldn't be saying any of this if I wasn't."

"Tch! Do you happen to know this student's name?" she asked, but the student shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno, but I heard he's pretty popular with the first and second year girls. Couldn't care less, honestly."

"Sasuke. Sasuke Uchiha," she looked behind her to see a rather disturbed look on Lee's face.

'Damn that kid! Did he learn nothing from our lessons?' She cursed the Uchiha's brash nature, wondering why he thought going into a dungeon alone was a good idea. 'I can't just leave these students here until there is a teacher to watch over and even then would it be wise for me to enter without any real idea of what rank this gate is? I swear this kid is gonna start giving me grey hairs and I'm only 31!'

She pulled out her cell phone and dialled up her boss's number hoping and praying he wasn't out of reach.

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AN: Also posting on Fanfiction. Net