It was dark...So very, very dark.

The people travelling during this time of the night it was not easy to see where they were going. The group was moving carefully though, silently, trying to find a place to set up camp.

Their feet were hurting from all the walking they had done. Really, even if they were ninja, even if they were treated like adults , they were still children. Pre-teens at most. There were no complaints though. Only happiness. Finally, a higher ranked mission had come into their grasp. With it being a C rank it shouldn't be a difficult task to complete it. It was just a simple escort mission after all.

Or so they had thought.

Somewhere this past noon they had been attacked by some rogue nin. It had been a downright ambush. Most of the genin had not noticed and it was thanks to the teacher that no one had gotten seriously hurt. The blonde had gotten a cut from a poisoned metal gauntlet but thankfully he was able to remove the poison. By the end of the whole incident he had been left with quite the shock though. His team mate had gotten ahead of him yet again. a glare making it's way onto his face as he realised it.
The rest of the team existed out of a pink haired girl and a raven haired boy, the blonde's rival. Their teacher and guardian for the moment was a famous silver haired ninja who always wore a mask. Making him quite the mysterious looking man.
And then , you had the last companion , an old man...Or rather said a grouch. The one they were supposed to escort. He was the first to start complaining about tired feet. Sure, he was an old man. But you'd expect a bridge builder to have more stamina than this. They already had taken multiple breaks before for his welfare too. The last one had been just before sunset.

"Oi , can't we just set up camp or something? I'm damn tired."

With a groan he just sat himself down on the ground. Crossing his arms and legs to make clear that he would not be moving another inch. The ninjas just obliged to his wishes. He was the client after all, and they couldn't really have the client die on them due to exhaustion, could they?

After the camp was set up they just sat there quietly for now. Eating dinner silently. The drunkard tried to make some small talk. Which was mainly responded to by the pinkette and the blonde. They were too loud though. In this situation loudness could equal the death of all of them. They had to be silent, careful, since they did not know who was after their hide. Not until they had questioned the client that is.

"So, Tazuna...Did you have any idea that there were people after you? We did not receive any information that you were targeted by ninjas."

The grouch nodded. Taking another sip from his sake.

"Your request was to protect you from armed groups like gangs and robbers. This is a mission that's above a B-rank. Our job was to support and guard you until completed the bridge. You may have had your reasons but it'll only inconvenience us if you lie about the job details."

It wasn't really much of an interrogation but the teacher decided to leave it at that for now. After all, he could see how tired his subordinates were. Questioning the grouch any further would only keep up the kids longer, instead of them getting the sleep they needed to have. It was not like he could question Tazuna while the kids were asleep either. Their lives were on the line so they'd have to hear the information first hand. They could not take a risk with the teacher informing them later. As some parts of the situation could've been forgotten and left out by then.

"Ah well, for now just go to sleep. Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, we'll take turns for guarding the camp. I will start and will wake up one of you in a couple of hours."

The night progressed peacefully until it was Naruto's turn to take watch. Still half asleep and wearing his silly looking night hat he walked towards the spot where he was supposed to keep watch. Deciding that he might as well take a leak while he was at it. It couldn't hurt right? But just as he was messing with his zipper he could hear the rustling of leaves not too far away of him. His curiosity taking over he moved to take a look, a crow suddenly shooting out of the bushes, carrying a shiny item in it's beak.
Where could that bird have gotten that, he wondered.
Before he even knew it he was already making his way through the bushes, tripping over something and falling hard to the ground.

Did the thing he had tripped over just groan?

With a quite scared expression he looked over his shoulder. His heart was racing, droplets of sweat ran over his forehead as he feared the worst. He could see the darker colour on the leaves of the bushes...Blood. Had he awakened a ghost seeking revenge? The blonde forced his body to turn around, still sitting on hands and knees as he started to move away the leaves. First he saw a pair of shoes, feet still in it.
Feeling brave for once he grabbed the ankles and pulled the body from under the safe cover of the leaves.

His face paled as he looked at what he had just discovered.

"Holy -"


Disclaimers:
I do not own Naruto or any of it's characters, those are owned by their creator; Masashi Kishimoto

Neither do I own the second line Kakashi speaks. That was taken from the anime in order to keep at at least a bit authentic. I even went to re watch the episode in order to remember what had happened back then. Perhaps I should reread the manga from the beginning as well. Just to get my facts straight and to prevent the characters from going too OOC.

Author notes

My characters are of course my own. Though they still have to be properly introduced.
I will also try to draw out a character sheet or at least a full body of said characters once they are introduced in the story.

Spell check has been used on the entire file and it has been beta read by a friend of mine who has taken up a literature course in the past. But if you manage to find any grammatical mistakes, spelling mistakes or sentences that just sound off to you. Please do not hesitate to tell me. I might not take all the advices I get/ change it immediately to a persons liking but that does not mean that I won't keep them in mind for future writing.

Also; just a little thing of which I am currently very fearful:

In my previous attempts at starting up a fanfiction in 2007 on my previous account I got a certain review saying that I should try to make the chapter longer. Afterwards I felt so pressured to live up to those expectations that I never ended up publishing the chapters that I wrote after that. Because I thought they were not good enough and eventually no longer liked writing on them until I decided to finally give one of them a chance again. : 5 years later.

So please do not give reviews that basically come down to "Make your chapters longer.

Considering the rules of . (before anyone goes complaining.):
I might say that this is a renewed version later on the authors notes. But before you go flaming off about the
"Multiple entries of the same material. There can only be one copy of any unique story on the entire site. No exceptions. "
The only one that these stories have in common is that they hold the same characters. My OC is no longer from a different world.(this is a tiny spoiler but ah well...I'm going to go with the 'there is only one dimension where humans live' in my story.) She has gone through an entire character change. Both design-wise and personality-wise. Heck , I don't even remember what my original plan for the story of 2007 was. So...I don't think I'm breaking this rule. If an admin finds my opinion on this matter to be wrong he or she would be allowed to ask me to remove the story.

-Thank you for your attention and reading (and hopefully enjoying) this first chapter of the renewed version of A kunai, A katana and a mp3. (though...Shouldn't I change it to ipod now...Since mp3s are getting a wee bit outdated...Hmm...Then again I still have one so , not that outdated. That or I'm just old school XD ) -