A/N: Please read The Nine-Tail Fox's Son I have posted up until Naruto leaves with Jiriaya for the three year training trip if you haven't. I don't own any of the Naruto series, including the Special Manga chapter that inspired The Nine-Tail Fox's Son or it's characters. If you don't like the filler episodes of the Naruto animated series, I don't blame you for skipping this story.

Fillers of the Nine-Tail Fox's Son

S-Rank Mission to the Sound

…Normal POV…

On a bridge over a river, Sakura been thinking over what been going on since she tried to stop Sasuke from leaving. Most of her friends had left to try and get Sasuke back, including Naruto, but the mission was a failure as they came back empty handed. It didn't help some of them came back worse off than when they left. It didn't help that the fact that failing a mission, especially when it involves saving a comrade/friend tend to hit the morale of those involved.

"You're pathetic, Sakura. This is all because of you," Sakura thought. "All I could do was cry and beg as my friends risk to do what I couldn't."

Then it dawn to her that she still could do something. She headed home and started packing her backpack.

Now it's time I finally did something for Sasuke. Sakura thought. Time to put my life on the line.

…Naruto's POV…

Despite Pervy Sage telling me it would take months to prepare for the trip, I actually healed enough to get out of the hospital in days thanks to my healing abilities. But since most of my friends were still recuperating from their battles (understandable) and the leaf's strength still haven't recovered to it's fullest since the Sand/Sound's attack on the Leaf, Lord Hokage has send me on at least C-Rank missions until I can start my journey with the old pervert.

One night I just got back home from another escort mission and was calling it for the night when I looked out the window and saw Sakura heading to the main gate.

"Why is Sakura out this late?" I thought to myself until I noticed she had her backpack she uses for missions on her. Then it dawns to me. I knew Sakura been upset about the results of the mission, as we failed to bring Sasuke back, but it didn't occur to me that Sakura was planning on going after Sasuke.

"I got to do something," I said as I quickly grabbed my backpack and all my ninja tools needed and headed out to meet up with her.

…Normal's POV…

Naruto wasn't the only one concern about Sakura. The blonde spiky hair man wearing the cloak of the Hokage name Minato was looking out the window of the Hokage Tower thinking of this morning.

…Flashback…

"Sakura hasn't showed up for her medical training?" Minato responded when Tsunade gave him the update on the medical ninja training program.

Tsunade nodded. "I think it's just her way of getting over her shock of what happened with Sasuke, but I'm still concern there's more to this. I'm hoping you might appoint Naruto to keep an eye on her since Shizune cleared him."

"You might need to do more than that," a new voice said.

They turned to see Jiriaya-sensei.

"What do you mean by that sensei?" Minato asked.

"I mean, only assigning Naruto to Sakura will only prolong the issue," Jiriaya said. "Eventually they both will want to go after Sasuke the first chance they get."

"What do you suggest then?" Tsunade said.

"We send them on mission to scout out the Sound for information," Jiriaya said.

"Scout the Sound?" Tsunade responded.

"I get it, help them with their goal by giving them something to work on," Minato said. "Only problem is that kind of mission would be rank S. Sakura is still a Genin, and although Naruto is a Chuunin, he's not experience enough to lead this kind of mission on his own."

"That's why I'm leading the mission instead of him," Jiriaya said.

"Very well," Minato said. "Naruto will be back from a C-rank mission this evening. You can take it from there."

"Are you serious?" Tsunade responded.

"We don't have a choice," Minato said. "If you're right and we don't do something now, worse case scenario is we ended up with two or three missing ninjas instead of just one."

…End of Flashback…

I just hope I made the right call sending them on this mission, Minato thought.

…Naruto's POV…

I rushed through the park that had the path I saw Sakura took, following her scent as well, hoping I can catch her on time. I had my chuunin vest in my backpack and ninja headband in my pouch and wore my old pair of goggles, thinking if Sakura and I are going after Sasuke, we'll have to go into Orochimaru's territory, and wearing anything that indicate I was a ninja might cause trouble before we get anywhere.

I got to say, it felt weird wearing my old goggles instead of my ninja headband after so long, but I just remind myself that this was only temporary.

Finally I saw her still at the park path to the gate and by the looks of the plain headband over her hair where her pink hair where her ninja headband should be, she was hiding the fact she was a ninja too.

"Sakura!" I called out as I landed.

Sakura turned to me shock. "What are you doing here?" Sakura asked.

"Apparently the same thing as you," I responded. "Going after Sasuke in the Village Hidden in the Sound right?"

"How—"

"I saw you preparing to leave earlier," I responded. "You know, as a higher ranking ninja I can just order you to stay in the village, but we both know that won't get us anywhere. I can also tell Lord Hokage of this too," Naruto responded.

"So what's stopping you?" Sakura asked.

"Just one thing," I responded. "You have to let me go with you on this mission."

Sakura smiled. "Seems fair."

"There really should be three or four ninjas for a mission though," I responded. "A mission like this is too high of risk. The Sound Five maybe out of commissioned, but we don't know what kind of ninjas Orochimaru has serving him, putting us at even greater danger due to being short handed."

"Well then it's a good thing I'm here!" a new voice shouted out.

Sakura and I turned to see Pervy Sage showing up behind the trees.

Great.

"Pervy Sage, what are you talking about?" I asked.

"Why I'm here to recruit you two on a mission with me, and judging from what I just heard it's not so different from what you two are up to," said the old pervert.

"Seriously?" I responded.

"Yep, and from Lord Hokage himself. It's rumored that the Sound Ninja might be holding Sasuke in the Land of Rice Patties, and we are to go there and investigate. And since I'm the highest ranking ninja here, you two will be serving under me," Jiriaya said. "Any problem with that?"

I can tell Sakura seemed pleased with the idea, and I won't disagree that Pervy sage is powerful, but I know better to trust him around women. Either way though, if there's a chance we run into Orochimaru trying to find Sasuke, then I rather have another Sanin on my team.

"Fine by me," I responded. "Never hurt to have another Sanin on our team incase we run into Orochimaru."

"That's the spirit," Jiriaya responded.

With that, the three of us headed off on our official mission. By dawn we were already at the boarder of the Land of Rice Patties—which looked like hills full of rice farms.

A/N: So last month the last of my living grandfathers died, and this one was special as he mostly helped raised me for the first 15-16 years of my life, and cause of it, I just haven't had the mood to work on any of my old stories. So instead, to try and break out of my mood, I decided: Hey why not try something new? Especially since my last few latest stories been going so well.

And since The Nine-Tail Fox's Son won last month's poll of which story I should work on every month, I decided to back tracked a bit on it and decide to do a The Nine-Tail Fox's Son version of the Filler episodes before Naruto went on his three year training trip. '

And who knows, I might include the flashback episodes of the Naruto Shippuden series that flashes back from time before Naruto and Jiriaya left as well.

If you don't like the filler episodes of the anime series and don't want to continue reading this story, I wouldn't blame you. I just need this slight change of pace.

Thank you