Chapter 2 Strange Turn of Events
"Yamatte!" Sasuke told his older brother to wait for a moment one morning. It was early dawn, so the sun had barely risen yet.
"Sasuke, your sensei told me that your team had an important mission today," Itachi greeted kindly, taking of his ANBU mask. "Go back to bed."
"Are you leaving for another mission, Nii-san?" Sasuke inquired, looking a little grouchy. "We were supposed to train this morning together!"
Itachi jumped a bit. He had forgotten. "Another time, I'm sorry," he apologized sincerely. "It was on an urgent notice, which can't be avoided. Can you ask Father today? I promise I'll practice with you and Takumi tomorrow night."
The shorter boy huffed annoyedly. "I don't see why Takumi needs the same kind of training as me. I'll never get stronger this way."
"It's physical training, which is still an individual exercise," Itachi said with a quizzical glance.
"No thanks, Itachi. I'll ask Kakashi-sensei instead." Sasuke coolly turned on his heel and went back into his room.
Casting a raised eyebrow at his brother's retreating back, Itachi was baffled at his behaviour. He'd been acting moodier as of late. Itachi made a mental note to check upon this matter and then headed out.
When he met up with two of his ANBU teammates, Itachi was quickly filled in on the details. "Last night, we found the body of a Konoha citizen atop of the Hokage Monument. This person wasn't a shinobi, nor did they have any business being in this part of the village. His name was Rika Komatsu."
"So we're investigating a murder?" Itachi narrowed his eyes. "Were the village borders breached during the night?"
"No, it seems like this was done by someone within the village."
"Or they were skilled enough to get into Konoha undetected."
When Itachi inspected the body in the examination room, what he saw alarmed him tremendously. The body of Komatsu, a middle aged worker, was skinned nearly to the bone. He instantly knew that it had to be the work of a shinobi.
"This is why the Hokage's asked us to investigate," Itachi said to himself. "Because one of the Leaf village ninjas is responsible for this. We have to deal with this before it gets out of hand."
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"Today, we'll be learning how to patrol Konoha borders," Kakashi informed his three students. They sat on a wooden fence and stared apprehensively at their sensei. "We will only be doing the chunin-ranked patrolling, but will follow the exact protocols as they do. At the end of the mission, you're expected to give a report like every other shinobi."
Sakura brightened up. "What's the difference between the type of patrol that jonin and ANBU shinobi do?"
"They're usually hidden from site and go out further from the village. The three of you will just walk around the edge of the village along the path. It shouldn't be stressful." Kakashi was hoping for a nice, quiet day, and maybe he could relax later.
"Let's go!" Naruto exclaimed, running ahead of the group. "We're going to protect Konoha and kill all the bad guys."
"The bad guys wouldn't be able to make it that close to the village," Sasuke commented.
"We're supposed to learn what we have to do in case of an attack or emergency," Sakura added, rolling her eyes at Naruto.
He made a face, but his spirit was not dampened. "Well you never know if there's a really skilled evil ninja who's able to sneak past the jonin. Then we'll HAVE to fight him and protect the village."
"You idiot," Sakura snapped, annoyed, "If they're good enough to get past ninjas like Kaka-sensei, then there's no way we'd stand a chance."
"What do you expect from someone who was nearly held back by the Academy?" Sasuke told Sakura. This triggered a cascade of outbursts from their teammate.
Kakashi sighed. He never expected to be placed in with a team like the one he had before him. Team 7 was his first team of Shinobi, well the first that he did not send back to the Academy. One of these days, he vowed he was going to get them to work together.
"Let's head out there," he said and ushered the three barely-teenaged shinobi along.
The mission was uneventful for the most part. Kakashi walked them through the basics of Konoha protocols in the case of various scenarios. They did not observe any suspicious activity around the village. Best of all, there were minor injuries from Team 7's constant squabbling.
"One day, I'm going to train under somebody by myself," Sakura muttered while they marched back to the city. "I've had enough of 'teams' and 'teamwork'."
"Nii-sei, I'm going to hand in the report. Are we still on for food at the new ethnic restaurant tonight?" Naruto asked.
"Sure, I'll meet you there. I need to pick up a few things."
Kakashi walked to the market with his hands in his pockets. While he walked, he brainstormed ideas on how to get Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura to get along better. At the very least, he should come up with a punishment for every crack or insult they made to each other, or every time Sakura tried to flirt with Sasuke, or Naruto with Sakura.
"Kakashi-senpai! I knew you'd be on your way to the bookstore."
"Oy, Tenzo," Kakashi greeted with a hearty handshake. They stopped in the middle of the street. He had been about to enter small wooden shop selling books and magazines. It was a store that he often frequented. "It's been a while. What have you been up to?"
"ANBU missions started to pick up again," Tenzo informed him, taking off the metal plate around his head. It was a hot day, and he'd been getting sweaty. "The Valley Village in the Land of Rivers requested our help with a few mysterious attacks and disappearances. They've paid a lot of money for the top ranked shinobi."
"I wonder who Hokage-sama will choose."
"Normally, I would say that he'd choose you, senpai. But you have your hands full these days," Tenzo noticed.
Chuckling fondly, Kakashi thought back to the three rascals. "They'll grow up some day, and then I'll be able to report for duty."
"So you're on your way to buy that new Make-Out series book, aren't you?" Tenzo asked, gesturing to the bookstore. "It was released just today."
"Eh, I'm only doing this for Jiraiya-sensei's sake," Kakashi defended, turning to enter the shop. He flustered a little bit, out of Tenzo's sight. It was his favourite series.
"I wouldn't mind checking it out," Tenzo responded curiously.
Checking the shelves, they found that there were many copies of the new 'Icha Icha" book. There were several copies that were signed by Jiraiya on the front cover.
"Jiraiya-sensei was back? I must have missed him…" Kakashi muttered. "Excuse me, shopkeeper?" he called out to the register.
There was a figure in the backroom, who seemed to be preoccupied with something. He ignored Kakashi entirely, which Kakashi thought was odd. The shop owner was really friendly usually.
"Jiraiya-sensei signed you a special copy!" Tenzo held up a book, where Kakashi's name was spelled out in bold, black characters. "Do you think he'll sign one for me the next time he visits?"
"Hmm, we'll see. Let's buy a copy and go, Tenzo."
The store owner would not come out from the room to speak to them, so Kakashi placed money down on the counter. "Arigatou, Komatsu-san," he called out, clutching his new book in his hand.
As they were about to exit the store, Kakashi absentmindedly flipped the book open with his fingers. Suddenly, there was a loud boom and an instant explosion. Hot flames quickly filled the room and scorched their skin.
Acting quickly, when Tenzo first heard Kakashi mention the storekeeper's name, he reached for the book. He had managed to knock the book out of Kakashi's hands, which hit the wall as it burst into a thousand flaming pieces. There had been several explosion tags hidden well in the pages of the book, which caused it to explode and destroy a good chunk of the building.
Before they got hit by too much of the explosion, Tenzo uses water jutsu to create a barrier of water and soil to absorb the heat. He and Kakashi were knocked off their feet, however, when parts of the building collapsed on them.
"Shit," Kakashi cursed, pushing debris, burnt books, and broken shelves off of him. "Tenzo, are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm okay," groaned his friend underneath a pile of soot and wooden pieces. "Was there anybody else in the shop?"
"Just the storeowner," Kakashi answered, pulling Tenzo out of the ruckus. The younger shinobi smiled gratefully. Tenzo used up a good majority of his chakra to absorb the giant explosion with his earth jutsu, so he had to lean on Kakashi for support as he dragged him away from the wreckage.
"The weird thing is, the store owner should already be dead."
Outside, many of the villagers are screamed and scattered initially. Now they watched as the two grown men walked out of the disaster site. There were flames stretching high into the sky, bringing the rest of the shop down.
Kakashi placed Tenzo on the ground gently and then quickly created a hand sign. He released a shower of water beside the shop to prevent it from spreading to neighbouring buildings.
"Are you two alright?" Several shinobi on duty appeared and quickly assessed the situation. They immediately prepared to deal with the damage.
Their team leader was Shisui, who lent Kakashi a hand putting out the fire. Then he observed Kakashi for injuries. "You have a natural affinity for havoc," Shisui said, breathing a sigh of relief.
"I don't think it was just by pure coincidence," Tenzo said from the ground, looking up at Shisui.
Naruto ran up the street, waving frantically. "Kakashi! I heard an explosion, and I thought the worse when you started to be late."
"I'm okay," he told Naruto, but quickly turned to Shisui. "Shisui, we'll need to go up and speak with the Hokage straight away. Can your team handle the situation down here?"
"Of course we can. Hiruzen-sama has already been alerted of the incident," Shisui said assuredly, instructing a fellow teammate to talk to some spectators. "I'll come with you, though. To make sure nothing else happens."
Naruto waved his hands up. "I'm coming too! I have to make sure that Kakashi and I get something to eat when this is all done."
They helped Tenzo up to his feet, made sure that everyone else were okay, and dashed off towards Headquarters.