Hiya again everyone! I was excited about putting up my first story ever, I decided to write the next chapter today. I'm trying to do things a bit differently from now on. I felt that the story was getting a bit too "generalized" as in, not really spending time on Sakura's thoughts and such. Not to mention it becomes dull at times writing stuff most of the readers should know what happened. So I hope the new perspective works out. Oh and this... Thanks .ulqui for giving my first review ever! Please review so I know how to make my writing better!
Author's Note: All thought text (ex. 'I like writing' ) will all be in Sakura's perspective unless otherwise said.
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Chapter 3: A Real Mission Pt.1
"Ow ow ow ow ow!" Naruto continued to yell as the furry cat continued to claw at his face. 'These missions are so boring…they're just stupid chores.' Sakura whined to herself. 'Let's see, walking dogs, cleaning a garage, and chasing this stupid cat around for hours…I didn't become a ninja for this.'
After making their way back to the missions office, Naruto was back to being Naruto, not some cat scratcher. 'At least seeing Naruto get pummeled by a cat was funny.' Suddenly a huge, too much make-up on old lady came running up to grab the cat. She immediately began crushing it in her death grip hug saying how much she missed her precious cat. "Ew…now I know why it ran away…' Looking at her teammates, Sakura could tell that's what everyone else was thinking too.
Iruka began looking through the other available missions to hand out. "Let's see, next up I suppose you can go water some…" "No way!" An obviously mad Naruto yelled out. "I've had enough of these stupid chores! If we've officially become ninja now, I wanna go on a ninja mission for real! Not some dumb community service!"
"Naruto…you and you're team have just become genin. You will take your D missions until we say otherwise." The hokage calmly responded, almost as if he were expecting this reaction. "Wait…D? That sounds low." Naruto asked with his usual confused look. Iruka decided to field this question with a plain annoyance in his voice, "Missions are rated as certain…" He was immediately cut off by Sakura, who was just as annoyed as Naruto was about their current mission status.
"Yea whatever. Everyone but Naruto knows this. We're genin so we get stuck with crappy "missions" (giving the quote marks with her fingers) and not actually learn anything. For once I actually agree with the loudmouth. How about something actually worth it?"
'Well…at least those two share one thing in common.' a bored Kakashi briefly looking up from his book. "What's with both of your attitude?! You're in no position to demand anything" Iruka said back, his annoyance turning closer to just anger. Not having said anything in a while (well, a while for Naruto at least), the blonde spat back "No no no no no! How's that fair at all? We want a real mission." After finishing, sucked in one big breath, and closed his mouth shut. "You're childish games won't get you anywhere. Quit it now!" Now just a plain angry Iurka said.
As his face started to turn a deep red, Hokage finally broke the silence, "Fine. We'll give you a C mission if you just leave and quit giving us a headache." After that finally Naruto let out the held breath. "Finally." Muttered Sakura under her breath. "So…what is it?" "It's just an escort mission, you're job is to protect the client to the Mist village and continue it until he finishes his work."
A knock came from the door and an old, fairly drunk old man with balding grey hair came in. "It's the date I asked for, so who's the group escorting me? I wanna get outta here already." "So, this is the client?" Sasuke asked rather seriously. "You can't be serious…you're sending these little brats out? I thought you were going to give me someone competent…" Already annoyed with their protectee, Sakura joined in the confused conversation, "We are competent. Look at the headband we're ninja. And we were just assigned this mission. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to insult us." "You better watch your…"
"Tazuna…" said the third intervening. "The mission you requested asked for standard protection, which falls under their rank technically. Not to mention their sensei will be accompanying them. If you want a higher level group, we could always bump this mission higher up."
Pretty upset with the decision, but knowing he wouldn't be given another choice, the old man reluctantly agreed…and then proceeded to boss the group into hurrying so they can leave. 'I wonder what's going to be worse? This old loser or the cat?'
After an hour or two of gathering their belongings, the total of team 7 met at the village gates ready to go. "It's about time. Can we get going already? I've waited long enough."
"Man, what does he want protection from? Because if he keeps this up he's gonna need protection from me." Naruto told his also annoyed teammates. "Calm down. Tazuna is an important client. He's supposed to finish a bridge that will connect his village to the mainland. It's rather important that we succeed this mission. So at least take his abuse as best you can. Yelling at him won't make anything easier." Kakashi proceeded to lecture, not just Naruto, but the rest of his team. Then the group left the village and began their journey.
After a couple hours of walking along the road, Sakura was starting to get bored. "Man…this sucks more than I thought it would." She mumbled under her breath. She quickly learned that to be more careful for what she wished for. In a flash two cloaked ninja jumped from the bushes, wrapping their razor wires around Kakashi and then to rip him into shreds. "Sensei!" Sakura cried out. "Who are these guys?" Before she could even react, one of the masked men with a large metal craw for a hand charged toward both her and Tazuna. Naruto and Sasuke were busy fighting the other enemy, so Sakura knew it was up to her now. Pulling out some stars, she threw them at the target. This was to no avail as the metal claw merely blocked them. "Crap!" Sakura tried to pull out some kunai for defense, but the masked man was too fast for her. Sakura was backhanded by the metal hand and sent to the ground and took aim at Tazuna. "No!" Sakura yelled.
Sakura turned out to be the most relieved of the group when Kakashi appeared and defeated both ninja in almost no time. No one tried moving an inch until both men were tied to a tree. "Tazuna…might we have a word." Kakashi wasn't asking, he was ordering in a very serious tone. The two older men walked away until they were out of hearing distance.
"I wonder what that's all about…" Sakura muttered, still shaken up by the ordeal. She admitted to herself that she was scared. Who wouldn't on their first real encounter of enemies in a mission? But she was so mad at herself for being tossed aside like a rag-doll. "I swear you can be almost as dumb as Naruto." Sasuke said back, breaking Sakura's train of thought. "These ninja are of at least chunin rank. Individually we're no where near their league. This doesn't qualify as 'standard protection'." 'Great, there he goes being all smart again…I hate it!'
After a while of waiting for their teacher and the bridge-builder to get back, Kakashi asked the question Sakura knew was coming. "So, since no one received any serious injuries…" At that comment Sakura rubbed her hand on the bruise on her face she had received in the earlier fight. She was so upset with herself for being the only one to actually take a direct hit. "…I'll leave the decision up to you three on whether or not to continue this mission. At the point we are, it'd take almost just as long to return back than to continue."
Sakura knew what she wanted to do…but for some reason she was reluctant to say it. 'Of course we have to keep going…but…' A fear suddenly arose in Sakura's thoughts. 'If these are only the first guys…then…how strong might others be?' "Since we're this far, and as long as Kakashi-sensei is around we should be able to continue without too much worry." Sasuke coolly said. Then Naruto nodded in agreement with a grin on his face. "Besides, we can protect bruise-face if there's any trouble." That was it; Sakura just had to blow up on him. "What was that?!" Before a fight could start, Kakashi quickly motioned that they should move forward for a while and that it'd be dangerous to stay in the same spot.
Once it was time to call it a night and head to sleep, Sakura was finally left to her thoughts. Well, as many thoughts as she could have while pulling strands of hair from her headband. 'Naruto's right though…All I did was get hurt, and couldn't help at all. What am I doing out here?' She curled up into her sleeping bag to try and get as much sleep as she could.
The sun was slowly creeping above the landscape as dawn approached. Not wanting to wake up, Sakura turned around as to not let the sun bother her sleep. It only lasted a few minutes as she felt a tapping to her back. Sasuke then said, "Just get up already…we need to get going." Even though he was annoying, it was true though. While eating breakfast Sakura realized that the bruise had swollen slightly. It caused a slight speech impediment, that Naruto made fun of all day.
'Well…I suppose I'd do the same to him.' The constant annoyance of the teasing had put Sakura in a rather depressed mood. Today she just wanted to be left alone. She wasn't even listening to the others' conversation as she stared at her bruise in the water. The ride had taken seemingly forever, and she didn't want to look at her "failure mark" as she called it to herself. It was today Sakura vowed not to let herself get knocked around in a fight anymore.
Sakura was relieved when they finally got to shore. 'I hate being on water…' remembering she couldn't swim well. She quit the classes after almost drowning early on…it was just another vessel for the teasing she got for being afraid of water. She knew it was a dumb fear. 'It was just a liquid, what was there to be afraid of?' Even though she told herself this thousands of times, she still felt uncomfortable. After getting off the boat she realized that now the trip included more walking. 'When are we gonna get there already? It seems like forever since we've seen anything remotely close to a village.'
After another long trip of walking, Naruto was acting rather strange up ahead. 'What's that idiot up to now?' Once Naruto threw his kunai into the woods, Sakura immediately got on the defensive. She didn't want a repeat of the previous day. As it turned out, it was just a rabbit he had aimed at. 'Of course…he would mess this up…' Now not even focused, a huge blade swung above all their heads landing past them.
Where the blade had landed a large muscular man with his face mostly covered in bandage wrap again, don't really know what it's called and a Mist headband worn sideways. "So, there you are Tazuna." The large man spoke. "Oh and who's this? Another enemy to beat up?" 'Jeez Naruto…why won't you shut up for once?' "Quiet. You three stand back and protect the bridge-builder. This is Zabusa Momochi, demon of the mist. It's a fight none of you should take part of." "Well well, it seems you've heard of me Copy Ninja, I'm flattered. Of course I know of you as well. I've always wondered how your Sharingan works…"
'Sharingan? What the hell is that? I've never heard of it before…' Kakashi then pulled his headband up fully, revealing his red eye with three dots around the pupil. "Then I suppose I'm going to have to use this then." 'No….seriously…what is that? It's really creepy. Wait…this isn't the time to act confused.' Sakura then refocused at her defense, only then to find that a large mist had appeared around the area. 'Okay, now I'm really confused. Now it's hard to see…'
Once again in thought, it frightened Sakura to see Zabusa in front of all of them charging toward their defense. She was frozen still not knowing what to do. She was still half frozen in place as Kakashi's and Zabusa's water clones destroyed each other. Seeing her teacher holding a knife to the rouge ninja's neck snapped her out of it. A much relieved Sakura had a smile and thankful things had ended. 'Phew…that was close.'
"You shouldn't take me so lightly Kakashi. I wouldn't make it that easy would I?" Naruto and Sasuke where just as confused as Sakura was. Before she could even think about what that meant, she saw her sensei fly into the water only to reappear in a water prison. "The three of you, take Tazuna and run!" Kakashi yelled from the water sphere. When none of them moved from their spot, mostly shocked at what had happened, Kakashi continued to shout to them to run away. Sasuke then took at least some charge. "Sensei, even if we did get away. Do you think we could honestly fight this guy by ourselves later? We have to rescue you or else we'll all die anyway."
Sakura could sense a small amount of fear in his voice. She could only wish she could stay that calm in this situation. She couldn't even speak. "So, I guess the kids want to play now?" Sakura had to say something. She needed to shake some of her fright off. "Wait…what can you do from there? You can't come to us while holding Kakashi." 'Hey…I'm actually right! We may have a chance after all!' The newfound confidence was short lived however. "I'm glad you asked…" Zabusa smirked. It was then more water clone showed itself. 'Oh no…me and my big mouth!'
All she could do was stand there as Naruto and Sasuke charged at the clone. Both we're pushed back easily. Sakura was now more frightened then ever…'I…I can't just stand here. I said I wouldn't be useless again.' Forcing with all her might to move, Sakura grabbed five kunai from her bag and jumped in the air to try and attack above. The second she jumped she knew she'd made a mistake. Before she could even throw her weapons, the water clone was in the air near her. 'How could a clone be so fast?!' Sakura had a panicked look on her face as a leg smashed into her face and sent flying into the water.
She could feel her nose bleeding into the water. The kick was harder than she thought it was. Once her eyes were open to try and swim back, she found herself so disoriented she couldn't tell where the surface began and the water ended. Struggling to find any sense of direction, Sakura flailed around desperately trying to find something to grab onto. Even unable to feel any direction at all, she could sense her body sinking and air supply running out. Fearing death, she cried out a shout of help as loud as she could…only to have her remaining air escape in the form of bubbles. She hit the bottom of the water, with her eyes closing shut.
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Me: Hooray cliffhangers!
Readers: "Boo!" throws food and other junk
Me: Dang...
