Sakura's POV The Next Morning
I woke up, got ready, and ate breakfast before proceeding to my door to leave towards the hospital. A jounin awaited me outside.
"The hokage-sama has summoned for you." he said. I nodded and made my way towards the hokage tower instead of the hospital. Sasuke was there already and Naruto arrived soon after me.
"Aren't you guys hyped up? This is probably our first mission together after so long!" Naruto said. I couldn't help but smile at his happiness and determination.
"Let's make sure we get it done right." I said with sweet firmness.
"If our sensei ever gets here, that is." Sasuke said. I nodded. Right at the minute, he arrived. He is 15 minutes late.
"Do you always have to be late?" I asked. He rubbed the back of his head.
"I was helping an…" he said before I waved it off.
"Well anyway, sorry for underestimating you yesterday. I know that you were angry about it." he said.
"It's okay. Just don't do it again." I said with a smile. He nodded and we walked into shishou's office.
"Hey granny Tsunade, so what's our mission?" Naruto said right off the bat. She scoffed.
"I see you're eager about it." she responded. Naruto nodded his head madly, all up in her face. She flicked his forehead to back him off, though it shot him across the room.
"I'm going to start you off with an escort mission." she began.
"Escorting? How about something with a little action?" Naruto whined. I banged his head.
"Shut up. We'll take it either way." I muttered to him.
"So who are we escorting?" I asked, turning back to shishou.
"A very wealthy man from the Land Hidden in the Mist. Many people are out to get him. Any ninja would attack for his riches. Hold a ransom to the family." she said.
"Where will we rendezvous with the man?" Kakashi-sensei asked.
"Tomorrow at the Konoha gates. Let me warn you that he is very always very anxious and nervous. He talks a lot too, sometimes." she said, then looking towards me.
"In case of emergency, I'll do what I have to do." I said with a nod. She nodded in return and dismissed us.
"I can't wait until tomorrow!" Naruto said, while we walked outside of the hokage tower.
"Yeah, says the one who was complaining." Sasuke muttered.
"Hey! I was just expecting a bigger harder mission! Probably no one will attack us at all on this mission!" Naruto started arguing. Sasuke, like the old days, kept cool during the argument while Naruto kept on opening his huge mouth.
"They never change." sensei said. I shook my head.
"No they don't." I agreed.
"But you've changed plenty, I assume. I have been hearing that you were rarely seen because of training." he said.
"Yep. Just wait until you see all my new attacks. I'm not going to fall behind this time. I'm not going to be a ball and chain." I said. He nodded at me.
"Well, I should get ready and then rest up. This is going to be my first mission in years. Rest up everybody!" I called as I ran home.
Next Morning
I waited with Naruto and Sasuke by the gates.
"Great, our sensei is late as always, and so is our client." I said.
"What do you mean late?" sensei said, poofing out of no where right beside me.
"Yeah, half an hour. Buy a watch, would you." I said. Just then a chubby man arrived with two ninjas from another village.
"We have arrived at the leaf, sir." one ninja said.
"Th-thank y-you. I will be sending th-the payments to you once-once I ha-have arrived." the chubby man stuttered. His voice just screamed scared and nervous. The ninjas nodded towards us and proceeded towards jumping back to their village.
"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Ritsumu. My name is Kakashi Hatake, and my team I and will be escorting you to your home in the land of the mist." sensei said.
"He-hello." he stuttered.
"This is Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, and Sakura Haruno." sensei introduced us. Naruto smiled while Sasuke just nodded.
"Nice to meet you." I said. He pulled his small round glasses closer to his eyes.
"A girl?" he asked.
"A kunoichi. Female ninja." Kakashi said.
"Can I rely on her?" he asked Kakashi.
"Of course. My team has each been trained under a legendary sannin. Sakura was trained under Tsunade-sama, our own hokage." sensei said.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Would you like a demonstration of her strength? She is stronger than most adults. As I told a prince we once escorted." sensei asked. Mr. Ritsumu nodded.
"Sakura, if you would?" sensei said. I nodded before proceeding to the tree beside us.
"This is without chakra." I said and punched the tree. It collapsed and the man's eyes went wide.
"Nobody would like to experience that with chakra." sensei said.
"Now let's head out!" Naruto said. We began walking towards the village hidden in the mist. All was clear and we had no problem for hours.
"I guess we should set up camp for now. It's getting late. Sakura, if you could set up a tent for Mr. Ritsumu while I look for wood. Naruto, you're on lookout tonight, but for now, go find something we can eat, whether it be a bird or a fish. Sasuke, help me look for wood that you can light on fire." sensei said. We all nodded and began to do our job. Mr. Ritsumu only watched me do mine. Once I was done setting up the tent, the said person, entered and sat down to wait for the food. Sasuke, Kakashi, and Naruto all returned at the same time, getting everything started. There were five fish, one for each of us.
"Mr. Ritsumu, the food is prepared." I said, calling to his tent.
"Food! I am starving!" he said, running to the fire. Before he even got here, he tripped on a rock. I stood up.
"Are you okay, sir?" I asked. He shook his head and pointed to a cut on the back of his hand and on his knee. This man must have been pampered since childhood. A cut that small should not be a worry to anyone. I took his hand and knee and began flowing my chakra out to heal him.
"It's fixed!" he mused.
"I forgot to mention that Sakura is also a medical ninja. One of the most superb around." sensei said. I handed the client his fish and we began to eat around the fire.
"I didn't know you were a medical ninja." Sasuke said.
"You left before I began training." I said. He stayed quiet for a second.
"It doesn't matter though. You're back and it was part of my motivation towards becoming a medical ninja anyway." I said. He nodded and we finished our meals.
"Well, I'll go sit on that stump to keep look out." Naruto said. I threw a kunai in his direction by instant reaction.
"Sakura-chan! You could have hit me with that!" he yelled. I got up from my spot. I walked to the trap he was soon to trigger and stepped on the string. When the tree came swinging down from it, I pulled back my fist and punched it away.
"Now you can sit on the stump. That must have been an old trap left by previous ninjas. I didn't want you to drop a tree on all of us and a kunai was the quickest way to stop you." I said.
"Oh. Good job, Sakura-chan!" he said. I smiled.
"Thanks!" I said.
"To bed everybody. Two more days until we arrive and we need rest for that." sensei then said with a clap of his hands.
"Sasuke, you have a tent to yourself tonight, because Naruto is on lookout. Mr. Ritsumu, you of course have a tent to yourself. And Sakura, you are sharing a tent with me." sensei said. I nodded.
"Why do you get to share a tent with Sakura-chan?" Naruto complained from his spot on the stump.
"Because Sakura is the medical ninja. The most important people on a team are the medics and the leaders. In other words, Sakura and I. You and Sasuke should get along swimmingly though." he explained.
"By the way Sakura, those were some sharp eyes earlier." he said.
"Yeah, thanks." I said, walking into the tent. I lied down and shut my eyes, keeping half of my guard up as I slept.
Next Morning
We were walking like yesterday, calmly. Besides the fact that our customer must think we are so interested in his life story, because he doesn't stop talking about it. Mid-walk, Kakashi and I halted.
"You sense that?" he asked. I nodded.
"I feel it coming from 30 degrees south-west of us." I said. He nodded.
"Sasuke, go check if we should be concerned about those people or not." he said. Sasuke swiftly went off in the direction I had mentioned earlier. When he returned, his face was still the same as always.
"They look like some mob men plotting something. I'm thinking they noticed us." Sasuke said, reporting back.
"We've got to go then." Kakashi said. I nodded. Naruto knelt down in front of Mr. Ritsumu.
"Get on my back." he said.
"N-no! I-I can't d-do that-that!" Mr. Ritsumu replied. They went back and forth at it until I got tired. I jabbed a point in his neck to knock him unconscious. He fell onto Naruto's back.
"Let's get going. I can feel them getting closer to our location." I said. We began jumping through trees, getting farther away from the mob men that Sasuke spoke about.
"We finally got him to shut up." Naruto said.
"I was afraid he was going to talk the entire way there." Sasuke said.
"Yes. You all did us a favor, Sakura." Kakashi said. I smiled at them.
"How could you tell where they were? Did you like shack up with Neji or something and get a Byakugan?" Naruto asked. I gave him a light punch in the head so as not make him drop our customer but just to show him his lesson.
"No, I did not. Tsunade-shishou helped me to improve the awareness of my senses. Like feeling when chakra is near. She merely helped me to sense more specifically where the chakra is. In Byakugan, Hyuugas are allowed to see the chakra flow within a person. I can't see it, I can feel it. And besides, Neji is not my type, and he has Tenten" I explained. Naruto nodded, still rubbing his head from my hit before.
"So when will he wake up?" Kakashi asked.
"Probably when it's time for us to set up camp." I answered.
"Thank the lord." I heard Sasuke mutter.
"Double to that. He's out for the day, and then he sleeps for the night." Naruto said. I smiled and we continued jumping through trees.
Later That Night
We had set up the camp and everything.
"Wh-what happened?" we heard. It appears he's woken up.
"Sakura…" Naruto said before I cut him off.
"You fainted when you heard that there were people around. But we took care of you and them." I said with a smile. He had fallen for my lie so easily. What a gullible person.
"I-I ha-have to u-use the bathroom." he said, then bashfully placing one hand in front of his mouth and the other in front of his area.
"Perfect. Naruto, Sasuke, you and I can all go to the forest together. We'll have to make a few stops for picking up wood and grabbing fish after your done, though." sensei said.
"Okay." he answered. They all walked off into the forest as I sat leaning against a tree. A minute or two later, I had suddenly felt a chakra presence and looked to it's direction. Three ninjas approached me.
"Well, what do we have here? A pretty little kunoichi?" the first ninja said.
"From the leaf too." the second said.
"She must not be familiar with the territory. Should we kill her?" the third asked.
"Yeah. She looks weak." the first answered. I stood from the trunk I was leaning on.
"If you'd like to try and beat me, go ahead. But you would have to be some pretty strong ninja." I said.
"Oh, we are." the second said. I gestured for them to come at me. They did, all at once. In one kick, I landed them against a tree, one in front of the other. They were shivering in fear when I grabbed them all by their legs and held them upside down. Naruto, Sasuke, sensei, and Mr. Ritsumu all arrived to the scene of me hanging them on a tree with some rope.
"Oh, I was going to hang them here until you came back, but I guess not." I said. I let go of the rope and they all fell on their heads, on the ground, knocking them out.
"So what should we do with them?" I asked. They all looked surprised.
"And how did you do that without making a sound?" sensei asked.
"I took them out in a single hit so there wasn't much noise to make." I said.
"They probably won't try anything or remember anything when they wake up in the first place, so you can just throw them somewhere." sensei said. I took it literally and swung them around for a few seconds before letting go of their feet and letting them fly.
"I don't think he meant it literally." Sasuke said.
"Yeah, well, they're gone. That's what matters." I said, before beginning to step up the fire by taking sticks from their arms. The rest of night went with Mr. Ritsumu's continuous blabbering, but when everybody went to bed, except for Sasuke, he shut up.
Next Day
Finally, the last day with this man. All he does is talk and stutter. He's getting on my last nerve. It's already mid-day, so we should be there soon. The trip back will be so much quicker, since we won't have to wait for a slow fat man. We arrived at a large house with maids lined up near the front door.
"You are home. I trust you will send the payment to our hokage in the village." sensei said. The fat man nodded. When he walked into his home, we turned around. Naruto entwined his hands behind his head, while I entwined them behind my back. Sensei pulled out his favorite book and Sasuke just…did nothing. Once we reached the forest though, we paid attention to our steps on the trees, rather than our own thoughts.
