Disclaimer: Naruto's not mine

Summary: The three graduating genin teams are assigned a mission to try and solve the disappearance of an entire village. Naruto has been having horrible nightmares for a long time. When his nightmares start to reflect actual events what will the outcome of the mission be?

Talking

Thinking

Kyuubi Talking

Kyuubi Thinking

All the graduated genin from Naruto's class had been assigned the mission of finding the cause of an entire village's disappearance. Two months ago every single person in the Village of the Moon had gone missing. A month later those who had reported the disappearances were gone as well.

The group had been sent by the Hokage, mainly as an exercise in teamwork. Out of all the teams that had graduated only Kurenai's team worked together effectively, the rest all had problems with their teammates.

On Kakashi's team Sasuke and Sakura hated Naruto, while Naruto hated working with Sasuke. Sasuke also couldn't stand Sakura's fangirl attitude and didn't wish to work with either of his teammates.

On Asuma's team, while Shikamaru was too lazy to argue with Ino, he really hated working with her and often times just slept during practice rather than deal with her. Asuma could see why he did so though, Ino often insulted both boys, calling Shikamaru a lazy ass, and Chouji fat and good for nothing.

The mission was only classified as C-ranked because after searches made by several other teams there was no evidence to suggest what had happened to the villagers. The Hokage had decided that if they took this mission they wouldn't be placed in a great deal of danger because whatever had happened didn't seem likely to happen again with the lack of any evidence around the village.

Kakashi had been designated the leader for the entire group and was in the lead with his team walking alongside him. Team Eight was next, followed by Team Ten.

"We'll have all the teams, except Naruto, scout the village perimeter on the first day and then we'll venture into the village after that if we find nothing" Kakashi explained as they neared the village.

"But Kakashi-sensei why not Naruto?" Sakura asked in confusion, asking the question some of the others had.

"Have you looked at him?" Kakashi asked in response. Sakura turned to her normally shouting teammate who was walking along tiredly, barely awake and nearly running into things as he walked. He had dark rings under his eyes.

"Naruto" Sakura called to him. He blinked sleepily and looked at her, giving a wide grin.

"What Sakura…" he asked, yawned widely, and added "chan?"

"You idiot, you shouldn't be so tired on a mission. You're going to get us all killed" she shouted at him. Naruto frowned and shook his head, "I'm just fine Sakura-chan. I'm only a little tired, don't worry" he told her.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "So you're just trying to get out of watch then and make me and Sasuke-kun do all the work" she concluded, ignoring Kakashi's slightly irritated expression. He would be taking watch as well after all.

Naruto shook his head again, "No, I'm going to do watch with you" he insisted. "Sakura, focus on our surroundings and don't shout" Kakashi warned. She moved her attention off Naruto with a roll of her eyes, muttering something about good for nothing teammates.

The rest of the group was watching Naruto now in confusion, one because he hadn't defended himself, and two because they could see he was definitely more than just a little tired. When they looked away after a while Naruto allowed his features to reflect his tired state. Though being on a mission normally would make him excited this one would probably be one of his worst experiences with how tired he was.

They stopped for a rest break a little while later. Naruto sat down and waited for the group to start out again, not allowing himself to sleep.

When he'd told Sakura he was tired he'd meant exhausted. He'd gotten no sleep for a while, more than a few days and wouldn't allow himself to, especially on a mission. For the past two months Naruto had been plagued with nightmares.

It had been ever since the Wave mission, though Naruto didn't know why they had started and was unsure if it was just stress from his first higher ranked mission or not.

He didn't want the others to see him as weak so he ate soldier pills to get enough energy to fool them after he'd gone three nights without sleep when the nightmares had first begun. It seemed to him that they weren't working very well anymore.

He was aware of his female teammate arguing with Ino over Sasuke while Shikamaru was staring at the sky and Chouji was eating chips. Sasuke was sitting coolly on a rock. Kiba was annoying all the sensei while Akamaru gave half-hearted reprimands to his partner, and Shino was sitting there quietly, watching everyone. Hinata was nervously watching Naruto, a worried look instead of the usual blush that she had around her crush.

The road they were traveling was completely empty, and usually didn't have any foot traffic besides salesman from the Village of the Blood Moon and once in a while a ninja or two from another village on rare occasions. The road there was more of a path worn into the grass as people walked it, though not enough to completely forge a walkway.

Ino and Sakura had been complaining the entire trip about how the grasses were irritating their legs as they walked. Naruto would have joined in, but he was too focused on staying awake and putting one foot in front of the other to even pay attention to the small annoyance.

"Time to continue" Kakashi called a little while later when he felt they'd rested long enough and they set off again, reaching the village by nightfall.

The village was like a ghost town. There was no sound coming from the village, save for the wind blowing over the houses. The houses that lined the streets, from what everyone could tell from their vantage point outside the gate, were pretty shabby.

There were probably one hundred houses in the entire village, though the area was large. Initially the thought had been that it had been attacked by ninja trying to expand their village but when nobody claimed it as their own the theory was dismissed.

In addition the land was in a bad location for a village, three days travel from the closest village. It had taken the Konoha group two weeks to arrive at their destination, though granted had the genin not come it would have taken the jounin much less time.

The group looked around their future camp site for signs of anything dangerous before starting to set up their camp.

"We'll be camping here for tonight and I'll keep first watch with Sasuke and Sakura, if all goes well we'll find somewhere inside the village to sleep for the duration of the mission" Kakashi told everyone present as they worked. "Wait, I can keep watch too sensei" Naruto argued, holding back a yawn. Kakashi shook his head, "No you can't Naruto, you're way too tired, get some rest. If you're more rested later then I'll let you take watch with another team" Kakashi told him sternly.

Naruto glanced at his two teammates for support, getting an irritated look and a shrug from Sakura and a smirk from Sasuke, mocking him.

Naruto sighed and set up his sleeping bag for the night before making his way to the fire that Asuma's team had made. Kiba and Shino had gone to do some hunting with Kurenai supervising them. The rest of them sat, most of them talking or joking while they waited for the food.

The campsite was a little off of the pathway leading into the village and was bordered on one side by very tall trees but they still had enough room to set up all their sleeping bags and the campfire.

Kiba and Shino soon returned to the group with several rabbits which were cooked and eaten quickly. "Alright, get some rest everyone, we'll switch in a few hours, Asuma's team first" Kakashi said, sending everyone to get some sleep.

Everyone who wasn't taking watch climbed into their sleeping bags to get some rest, all except for Naruto. He was in his sleeping bag, but feigning sleep and pinching himself every couple minutes to stay awake, not wanting to reach for his soldier pills and get caught by his team. He didn't want to keep being left out and Kakashi would probably get angry at him and not allow him to take watch at all for the rest of the mission.

Naruto tensed when Kakashi passed by his 'sleeping' form, thinking he'd been caught. He relaxed a bit when the man shook Asuma awake for his team's turn on watch.

The next group had been on watch for less than an hour before Shikamaru started speaking. "You know, even if you look like you're sleeping, if you're still exhausted tomorrow you won't get to take watch" Shikamaru pointed out, loud enough for Naruto to hear but quiet enough that none of the genin woke up.

Ino and Chouji looked at their teammate in confusion for a second before Naruto threw off the top of his sleeping bag which he'd been covering his head with to hide the fact that he was faking.

He glared at the lazy nin, "Mind your own business, I'm (yawn) fine, I'll take watch tomorrow definitely" Naruto hissed quietly at Shikamaru in irritation, not wanting to wake the rest of the group either and be pestered more. Shikamaru shook his head, "No, not if you can barely function" Shikamaru argued back reasonably.

"Naruto," Kakashi said quietly from his sleeping bag, sitting up very quietly. Naruto turned and looked at his sensei, half-glaring because he knew he'd be getting lectured. "You need to rest, you'll get yourself hurt on the mission work tomorrow if you don't get some sleep" he told the blonde boy sternly.

Naruto nodded but had no intention of following the orders, lying back down and trying to ignore everyone who was awake and annoying him.

Kakashi shook his head in resignation and lay down to get more sleep. The night was fairly uneventful with the exception of Naruto receiving no sleep and Asuma's team switching with Kurenai's a couple hours later.

Naruto had found a very uncomfortable position to lay in which kept him awake, though he was still so tired he had to keep pinching himself to help his wakefulness.

This is the rewrite, I realized that I had all the characters in it but barely gave them any parts, which kind of made their presence pointless. I completely cut Gai's team, mainly because I can't really work Gai and Lee into something without making them seem too serious for their characters.

Sorry it's taken so long, but I haven't been able to get on the computer a lot.

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