A/N: I would like to thank my Beta, DevlinGrace for the work he's done on this, especially since he doesn't know my about this world, so for that he is owed a BIG thanks.
Chapter 4.
Wave Arc, part 1
Off to Wave.
Over a month had passed since Team Anko was formed and over that time they had performed several D rank Missions. Naruko was just getting ready for some well-deserved downtime. She was relaxing on her bed and thinking about maybe getting up and getting a bowl of Ramen (or three), but just as she was coming to a decision there was a knock at the door. Getting out of bed Naruko opened the door in an old tank top and worn panties, she found Anko standing on the other side.
"Heya Whiskers, get dressed, Hokage-sama wants to see us right away."
Naruko nodded; "Hai. Let me get dressed, she replied then motioned for Anko to step inside while she went to her closet and pulled on her jumpsuit; while she was doing this Anko was looking over her apartment.
While Naruko changed Anko looked over her apartment; "What the hell is my student doing living in This dump?' she thought to herself while looking around the too small apartment, the tattered clothes, the too small and deteriorated bed, the cracked and broken window and the rusty sink. She noticed that all of Naruko's Nin-gear was old and worn out as well, rusty Kunai, chipped Shiriken, Shinobi sandals that were almost too small and worn to the point that she expected them to start tearing at any point.
Anko then frowned and said; "Where's your armor?" She had given an order that her whole team was supposed to get mesh armor vests. Naruko blushed and mumbled something. "What was that?" she asked.
Naruko sighed before answering; "I couldn't afford it."
Anko raised an eyebrow at this; "What do you mean? I know we got paid for a few missions since I gave you that order."
At this Naruko looked up with a surprised look; "What do you mean? I haven't gotten paid for any missions... other than my monthly stipend that Hokage-sama paid me, I haven't received any money."
"Really? Show me," Anko replied with a raised eyebrow; "We all received a pay note when we completed our missions, to be given to the pay secretary on our way out."
Naruko frowned and got the pay notes, thirty in all, and handed them to her sensei, what Anko saw made her blood boil.
Rejected.
Each and every single one of them bore the same message on it as Tokubetsu Jonin flipped through the notes, in big red letters.
"W-what the Fuck is this!" Anko asked with a snarl in her voice.
"It's alright Anko-Sensei; I'm used to things like this happening," Naruto replied with sigh.
Anko looked at her; "It is not alright! Get the rest of your gear on, we're going to the pay secretary first and getting this sorted out! Then, after our meeting with Hokage-sama, we're going to get your some proper gear," she informed her firmly.
"Hai Sensei," Naruko replied, sensing there was no point in arguing.
Ten minutes later Anko and Naruko were standing in front of the pay secretary where Anko slapped down the pay notes; "Care to explain this?" she asked with a deceptively sweet tone to her voice.
The pay secretary looked at them; "It should be pretty obvious; Genin Uzumaki's pay notes have been rejected," he explained.
"Why, may I ask, is that?" Anko asked with narrowed eyes.
"Simple, all of us have orders from Counsel members Mitokado Homura, Ututane Koharu and Shimura Danzo, that any pay notes for one Genin Uzumaki is to be rejected out of hand," the man replied with sigh.
"Really? And if I went to the Hokage about this?" Anko asked with a frown.
"Danzo-san told us that we were to ignore anything but a direct order by the Hokage on pain of being sent to Ibiki-san," he replied with another sigh.
"Really? And why do you think they are doing this for?" Anko asked with a smile.
Before the man could answer, however, Naruko spoke up; "It's alright, Anko-Sensei, it's just them showing their displeasure at being forced to allow me to enter the Shinobi force." Anko and the pay secretary both looked at her with a look of surprise.
"What do you mean?" the man asked.
"When I applied for admittance to the academy, I had to apply four times. The first three times the counsel made sure my application was rejected at once, but the last time Hokage-sama himself took the application and approved it himself," Naruko explained.
"So now they're going to force you out by not paying you?" she kissed, to which her student nodded and said
"Yes, it looks that way."
"Let's go Whiskers, we'll get this settled," Anko hissed again, taking the pay notes with her.
Standing in front of the Hokage's desk, Team Anko was issued their first C rank mission; the Hokage sat back in his chair and looked at Anko; "Do you think your team is ready for this?" Anko nodded, the mission was simple enough: escort the bridge builder back to the land of waves and protect him, and his people, from bandits who had been raiding the work site for the last month.
"Hai, Hokage-Sama, they should be able to handle this with little or no problem," Anko replied.
"Very well, you'll leave in one hour," Hokage sighed.
Anko blanched slightly; "Hokage-Sama that might be a problem."
"Oh?" the third said, looking at her and raising an eyebrow. Anko nodded and explained what had been happening with her students pay.
Both Nagare and Sakura looked at their teammate in surprise, even the Hokage looked at her with surprise. Then his face smoothed out into neutrality; "Naruko-Chan, why didn't you tell me about this?"
Naruko scuffed one of her sandals; "Well, I didn't want to bother you with-"
The Hokage's hand came up and cut her off; "Enough! I have heard this from you often enough Naruko-chan, and I will accept it no more. As your surrogate grandfather I am putting my foot down in this now." Naruko flinched, she knew that tone, and knew at once that it would be of no use to hide things from him anymore. "Now then, Naruko-chan, I will give you two choices; you can either promise me that you will tell me about things like this at once, or you can have an ANBU following you once again." It was well known by all in that room that when she made a promise, Naruko would keep it, no matter what.
Naruko sighed and said reluctantly; "Hai Jiji-san, I promise," with that Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed and snapped his finger. Instantly two of the ANBU dropped out down from the ceiling and knelt.
"Go to the Pay secretary and tell him to honor all pay notes for Genin Uzumaki at once, including all of these," he handed them the ones that Anko had placed on his desk; "Then bring me the council members, I would dearly like to have a word with them." The two ANBU nodded and vanished in Shunshin's. "Team Anko, you're dismissed. Stop by the pay desk to get Genin Uzumaki's pay, and you will be leaving for your mission in two hours."
As Team Anko walked through the streets, Anko looked at Naruko; "Now you've got enough, for not only armor, but for some decent gear."
Naruko shook her head; "I doubt it."
"What do you mean?" Anko asked.
"You'll see," Naruto replied with a sigh.
Sure enough the team found out exactly what their blonde teammate was talking about. There were ten weapons shops in Konoha: three of them threw the blonde out the moment she walked in, two of them would only try to sell her junk, and the other five would have sold her gear at three times the standard price. By the time they left the last shop Anko was frothing at the mouth, furious that they would have tried to do anything like that to her student.
"Well, Uzumaki-san, I think we know why you're wearing such rubbish." Negare sighed; her voice wasn't harsh or negative anymore but now had a tone of respect that anyone from the academy would have found to be extremely out of character… unless they knew the reason why.
Flashback
Two weeks into their being a team they were being hired to help with one of the farms in the farming district. Sakura was next to useless on this mission having never done anything like this before. Negare proved to be rather knowledgeable when it came to farming, having worked on the small farms in the Hyuuga district since she was part of the cadet branch, but the one who surprised them all was Naruko.
The young Uzumaki took off her jacket and used the hoe that she was given in a way that showed that she knew exactly what she was doing. Negare frowned when she saw the state of Naruko's bra, being all but useless and supported by bandages that she had wrapped around her breasts. She didn't know why Naruko was wearing that bra, but she knew that it was ruined.
As they worked, Naruko suddenly stopped and looked into the forest that bordered the farm with a look of intense focus. "Anko-Sensei, something's coming." she said, Anko looked at her and raised an eyebrow. Before the Tokubetsu Jonin could ask anything an enormous boar came charging out of the woods. Right at Negare.
The Hyuuga was frozen by the sudden charge of the enormous animal, its tusks lowered ready to skewer the Genin where she stood. Before either Negare or Anko could do anything, Naruko ran and jumped onto it's back, grabbing it's ears and pulling on them to force it away from Negare "Come on pork, you're going to leave her alone!" she growled.
"Naruko, get clear!" Anko yelled, her hands flying through hand signs; "Kanton: Hinotama no Jutsu!" she yelled. (Fire release: Fireball technique), and a decent sized fireball flew through the air toward the boar. Naruko waited until the last second to jump out of the way. When the fireball hit the boar, the animal vanished in a cloud of smoke. "Team! Form up, this mission is aborted!" Anko yelled.
As Team Anko gathered their gear together, Negare came up and looked at Naruko, she scuffed her sandals on the ground for a second then said "Thank you, Uzumaki-san."
"Don't worry about it; we're a team, so we have to look out for each other," Naruko replied with a smile.
End Flashback
Since that day, Negare had started to try to get along with Naruko, and while they still had their problems, the two young women found that they had some things in common.
Naruko smiled and shrugged; "I'm guessing most of them are hoping that I'll be killed on my first out-of-village mission." Negare and Sakura frowned, neither of them liking to think that something like that could happen to their teammate.
Suddenly Negare perked up; "Hey! I have an idea! I know a place that we haven't been to yet," causing the other three women to look at her skeptically.
"What do you mean? There are only ten in the village," Anko asked.
Sakura shook her head; "Nope, there are only ten who are popular, but there's one more in the village who can possibly help us."
Negare nodded, "Yes, The Iron Boar, my brother Neji's teammate, a girl named Tenten, her family runs it."
They nodded and set out to find The Iron Boar. When they walked in they saw two young women talking over the counter. One of them had brown hair done up in twin buns on her head and was wearing a simple white shirt that buttoned up on one side. She turned her large brown eyes toward them; "Welcome to- Oh, hey Negare-chan! What can I get for you?" she asked cheerfully.
"We need some equipment for my teammate Tenten-chan, and we need it at a reasonable price if you don't mind," Negare replied smiling, as the other girl at the counter turned to look at them… Naruko's heart seemed to stop.
The other girl was, simply put, the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Long dark blue hair, pale skin, and lavender tinted eyes that Naruko felt she could simply drown in. "Hinata-Sama, what are you doing here?" Negare asked, bowing to her before noticing the look that Naruko was giving Hinata.
Hinata was staring at the blonde haired Uzumaki with something akin to awe, her eyes wide as she took in the long ragged hair, the bright blue eyes, the whisker marks, and felt her heart going into over drive. Without knowing what was going on, the young woman walked forward and bowed slightly saying "I'm Hyuuga Hinata."
Naruko smiled and bowed; "A pleasure, Hyuuga-san, I'm Uzumaki Naruko."
Anko smiled slightly and walked over; "We need a standard Kunoichi set up, Kunai, Shiriken, sandals, and the works. Also a full set of mesh-armor as well," she stopped smiling and added; "And I want them at Standard prices."
"No worries there, Mitiarashi-san, I don't hold with charging high prices for my wears simply because of who's buying them," a gruff voice called from the doorway into the back.
Negare nudged Naruko; "Hey, snap out of it Uzumaki-san."
Naruko looked at her; "What do you mean Negare-chan?"
Negare simply raised an eyebrow; "She's the heir of my Clan, Naruko-chan. Her father would kill you if you so much as looked at her on the streets!" she explained quietly.
Naruko sighed and looked at her teammate with tired, somewhat sad eyes; "That, Negare-chan, only describes over half the people of the village," she replied quietly.
Anko came up; "Alright, we've got your gear, so gear up… we've got to pack still and get ready to move out." Naruko smiled and paid for the equipment before they left and went to the closest place that she knew would allow her to change into her new gear… Yamanaka flowers.
"Welcome to Yamanaka flowers, how can I help you?" said a voice from the back as Ino's mother came walking out; "Naruko! Welcome, what can I do for you?" Yamanaka Furawa, Ino's mother, was one of the few people of the village who had never mistreated Naruko. In fact, she rather liked the young Uzumaki and actively encouraged her daughter's friendship.
"I just got some new gear and I need a place to put it on," Naruko replied with a smile then added; "I'm going on a mission in less the half an hour."
Furawa nodded; "In the back, come on."
When they got in the back Naruko took off her jacket and shook out her mesh-armor before seeing the shocked look on her friend's mother's face " What?" she asked.
"How old is that bra?" Furawa asked.
Naruko's eyes widened; "Almost three years, for me anyway, I think it was pretty old when I got it. Why?"
"We'll have to get that fixed, right now," she replied with a sigh then grabbed Naruko's hand and took her upstairs into the house part of the shop and started to go through her own bra's; "What's your size?" she asked.
"I… uh... I don't know" at her shocked look Naruko added; "I've never been measured."
"We'll, we've no time for that right now, I'm afraid you'll have to do with the one you have, but as soon as you get back I'm taking you shopping," seeing Naruko was about to object she added; "And that's final, Uzumaki Naruko, even if I have to make it a mission, understand?"
Naruko nodded, her eyes a little wide; "Hai, Yamanaka-sama!"
There was a surprise for them when they arrived at the village gates, not only was Tazuna, (their client), waiting for them, but they also found an unexpected person as well. "Sasuke-kun!" Naruko cried as she ran over and lept into his arms and hugged him closely.
"Hey Baka," Sasuke said with a smile; "Orochimaru-sensei asked me to pick up something from wave, so I'll be coming with you."
"That's great Teme! I'll be glad for the company," Naruko replied smiling.
The last Uchiha smiled and clapped his cousin on the shoulder; 'Good, because you're stuck with me for the rest of your mission."
Anko smiled as she watched the two of them interacting; "Alright folks, let's get going!" she called.
A/N: I hope you like this chapter as well, and I hope that you'll enjoy how I've decided to work Mizuki into the story.
