Chapter 4: Crazy Cats and a New Mission

Author's Note: Sorry the last chapter was so short. I've tried to make this one longer. Thank you everyone for story alerts, reviews, etc. I've now passed the 100 mark for story alerts, so thank you. Thank you those that gave me ideas for the story, in particular FlaTone for the wonderful idea. (hope I got your name right, sometimes I can't read my own handwriting. Sorry if I didn't. I need to write better when jotting down things in my handy dandy fan fiction notebook hehe). On to the story

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It was one of those mornings. The sun came out early and starting to shine. The inhabitants of the village were starting to emerge from their homes and travel to their places of employment. Merchants and business owners had been up longer than most of their fellows in order to open up before the early crowd came. Shinobi who were in the village generally started to wake up too. Some of them went out to train or head to the mission office, but there were many a ninja that decided to sleep in. Generally, the mood was peaceful and happy. People greeted strangers and friends alike in the streets, and stopped to say hello to one another.

Those ninja that were lucky enough, or unlucky enough, to work in the mission office knew it was THAT part of the year again. The fresh baby ninjas off the rack…err….out of the academy were starting their first missions as ninja. They had graduated two months ago, and were still doing D-ranks. Today the Hokage was too busy in meetings to oversee his usual tradition of handing out starting D-rank missions to the new Genin. So, an unlucky soul had been assigned the sole duty of giving out the missions for the past two weeks. That poor Chunnin had manned the desk the whole time, and had eventually learned to drown out the shouts of "WHAT!!" with brand new earplugs. Ah, sweet silence. It made his job easier, since he just had to hand off one of the mission sheets to the Jounin-sensei and he was done. He was so glad to be one this side of the desk, since he remembered the horror of D-rank missions himself. Especially the one…

The sun was shining outside, the birds were singing…"COME BACK HERE DEMON CAT!"

Or not…. The Chunnin minding the desk heard the screaming from the forest surrounding Konoha easily, even through the earplugs. That was the reason he mainly HATED and LOATHED D-rank missions: Tora the Demon Cat. It had been mainly his team to always go after the stupid thing when it escaped. He was so happy that another team had to deal with catching it. For just an animal, it was very, very intelligent. It must be a demon, or a mutant or something to be that smart.

"NO, NARUTO DON'T THROW A KUNAI AT IT! HARU, DON'T YOU DARE BURN IT TO A CRISP WITH A FIRE JUTUS. DON'T GIVE ME THAT LOOK! NOOOO, SASUKE DON'T TRY TO STRANGLE IT! NO, NO, NO, NO! DON'T DO THAT…! WE NEED IT ALIVE…

"…."

"NO NARUTO YOU CAN'T KILL IT EVEN IF IT IS THE SPAWN OF THE DEVIL…"

"….."

NO HARU, I DON'T CARE IF IT WANTS TO KILL YOU IN YOUR SLEEP……NO, IT WON'T WAKE YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT WITH A KNIFE……"

"…….."

"STOP IT YOU THREE!"

!!!!!

DON'T DO THAT! GIVE THE POOR THING TO SAKURA, SINCE SHE'S THE MATURE ONE OF ALL OF YOU."

********

Thirty minutes later, four very sorry looking figures (plus one) came into the mission office. Every one in it suddenly got sweat drops as they came in. All four of the Genin, minus one, was looking very sorry for themselves. All boys had distinct scratch and bite marks on them, including some that looked like they were very deep and very painful. Naruto was the worse off, with the injuries but the other two came in very close. Naruto had three claw marks going across his face, like an animal had tried to claw his eyes out. Which Tora did, who was now resting smugly in Sakura's arms. He also had many, many other punctures and claw marks along with bite marks everywhere his skin was shown. A lot of skin was actually showing since his clothes had been torn to pieces. His beloved jumpsuit had been torn to shreds with only the pants remaining in any saveable piece, which was not much and probably could only be cut up for shorts or something. Haru did not look much better. His shirt he had been wearing was only now tatters. He had tears in the white shorts he was wearing. He had what looked like claw marks going across his chest and his face. Sasuke looked much the same, just with what looked like a big bite mark on his leg that would need to be looked at.

All of the boys were also covered in dirt and scorch marks. The story did not need to be told there, since everyone could hear the screams from the forest during the whole incident. Kakashi and Sakura were both spotless, with Tora in Sakura's arms. The animal, who seemed to be acting as much innocently as possible even with the smug looks it was giving the boys, just lay there purring as Sakura petted it. The Chunnin who was on duty kept back his laughter, though just barely.

"How about you go get new changes of clothes and get checked out at the hospital too. We don't want those bites to get infected." All three boys glared death rays at him, and if looks could kill he would have died a thousand deaths then and there. They stalked out of the room indignantly.

A half a hour later, they were all back. They had been checked fully out in the hospital and was back with bandages covering their 'wounds'. They all refused to be healed, and just wanted to be bandaged up to get back to get their next mission. The boys had gotten new clothes from their homes and then rushed back as fast as they could. Naruto pouted the whole way back. His favorite suit had been ruined, and he only had one, on his first mission as a ninja (even though it wasn't that much of a mission, just catching some dumb cat.)

Oh, he wanted to kill the stupid thing. All three of the boys had actually tried to kill it, even Sasuke. It had taken an instant dislike, even hatred, of all three boys and in their opinion had tried to kill them. It had been like a bigger cat twice the size of the little devil had attacked them, with the damage it had done. Haru had tried to burn it to a crisp when it had been thrown into a tree by Naruto, who was protecting his eyes. Even with it hitting the tree, it had come back for more. That had been when Naruto had launched three kunai at it, which it had all dodged. Sasuke had tried to strangle it with his bare hands when it had come at him again. Needless to say, Kakashi had not had the greatest time trying to make sure the cat lived long enough to get paid. Oh, he wasn't against killing it since it had ruined his face mask as a Genin. He had been very young then, and the cat (it couldn't be the same one could it?) had been almost as big as him. He still held a grudge against it to this day. But it would be bad if his team was the one to kill the cat. After all over the years it had brought a lot of money to the village.

When the boys were back in the mission office, with Naruto pouting about having to wear regular clothes (non-orange clothes since he didn't have anymore orange), the demon cat was already gone and the Hokage had gotten back from whatever meeting he had been in. Naruto could almost felt the gaze of the amused Jounin on the back of his head, and he hated it. Kakashi had been silently laughing at all of them ever since they had dragged themselves back with the cat.

The Hokage was also amused. He had been told of the scene when he had arrived. "Congratulations on a job well done, even though you had a little….mishap….Hmmm, let's see, what one you can do next…"

"Mishap, yeah right. That thing is not a cat. Did you see it when we arrived here? All the…ahhh….wounds we had given it had disappeared. It heals too fast." Haru whispered to his team, so only they could hear. All snorted in agreement.

Naruto spoke up. "Old man, give us something better. We are tired of doing all this stupid stuff. We're ninjas now, we need a mission where we can show our skills."

"Why you… How dare you ask for a better mission. You are new Genin so therefore you have to start at the very bottom. D-rank missions then up. You can't just come in here and demand a better mission…"

The Hokage raised a hand, stopping the unnamed Chunnin from his outbursts that was turning into a lecture. "Now, the request is not so reasonable if they are ready. Kakashi, do you think your students are ready for a higher ranked mission?"

Kakashi rubbed his chin, and thought about it a little. "Yes, I think they are. Their teamwork is good and their training had been going well so I don't see why not." They had been training during the times that they weren't doing missions. The training had been showing some results already.

Flashback

Kakashi stood in front of his little minions…err I mean students. "It's time to start working on getting better. Your level is acceptable for new Genin, but not for Genin on the field. To advance in the ranks you have to show that you have gotten better individually as well as for teamwork. You got teamwork done pretty well, so it's time to start on individual. Before we start, here are some things that I have for you all. I expect you to use them." He set down his pack and pulled out a few straps of ninja weights. "These are weights. Put them on and they will start to build muscle and will help you a great deal. Just make sure not to use them excessively that your natural flexibility is affected. Only set them to half your body weight at most. Any more will be shortcutting your natural strengths." He showed them the seal that would add weight and decrease it, and watched as they put it on. When they formed the seal, they found that it was harder to move.

He nodded in approval. "Walk around a little to get used to them. You'll get used to them in no time at all. When you do, you can just add more weight. Another thing that weights help is speed. You learn to go fast with them on, and if you take them off you'll have an advantage of faster speed than you had before."

"I want to start working with you on your taijutsu, which will help in a fight. Knowing only ninjutsu is actually a very bad idea." He smiled evilly, which they could see through his mask. "I'm not the best teacher when it comes to taijutsu, so you will now on be joining the daily training activities of a certain friend of mine. You'll be working on your taijutsu and body training with him when they don't have a mission, otherwise you will continue to do the same thing when they are not here. If you slack off, I will know and you'll know the consequences of that. Now, follow me little students of mine."

That was how they had met Maito Gai and his team. Tenten and Neji had not been so thrilled at first to have newbies joining their training, but both soon found it hilarious seeing the newbies at Gai's training. They had had to go through it themselves, so it was fun actually watching others go through it. Lee had been….enthusiastic….about the whole situation. Team 7 had been horrified when Gai had announced as a 'warm up', they would run around Konoha 100 times. If this was a warm up, what was real training. The Genin had thought that they died and went to hell that day. The first three weeks had been torture. They had literally dragged themselves back to their homes, and dragged each other. But all the exhausting training had been starting to pull off, since all were stronger. They now had a pretty good foundation on taijutsu now, and would just have to work more at it.

From Kakashi, they still were getting teamwork exercises but these had been combined with training to learn and perfect Jutsu. He wanted them to perfect eh Jutsu they knew now, and then work from there. In his opinion, all were doing much better. Naruto, after Kakashi found out he had been taught the wrong basic movements and techniques and thus corrected them, had jumped in ability. He now used kage bushin to practice. Due to pranking, he already had a great foundation for stealth, speed, and infiltration. Naruto now could set up some pretty high level traps. He still tended to rely on his clones a bit much, but Kakashi was trying to curve creating useless clones and finding ways to better use the ones he did make. Kakashi had all his students learn tree walking, and now they could all walk up and down the tree easily. It had taken Naruto a week to learn tree walking. Now, Kakashi had assigned Naruto some ways to get better Chakra control. Naruto did the exercises daily and was getting better. Naruto being rivals with Sasuke and Lee's 'self-proclaimed eternal rival' (Naruto had taken it as a challenge and Kakashi had groaned. The rivalry now claimed another generation. Lee had been challenging Naruto much like the way Gai challenged Kakashi.)

Sasuke had gotten much better with taijutsu, along with the others, and found that his speed needed to be worked on. He had been working on that for a while, pushing his endurance to the next level. He had stocked up on explosive tags to put on his kunai, when he was fighting an enemy since he didn't want to blow up a teammate no matter how annoying (well, scratch that. If Sakura didn't stop trying to get him to go on dates with her, he WILL blow her up. But then again Kakashi wouldn't approve.) He also was working on Chakra control, as well as trying to build up more reserves than he had at the time. Since he didn't have as much Chakra as say Haru or Naruto, he had an easier time with Chakra control than Naruto. He had learned the tree walking exercise in four days, finishing before Naruto to his utter delight, and was working on perfecting it. He didn't want to think about doing it, he wanted to just naturally do it.

Sakura had made some improvement, but mostly though taijutsu. She was still unfortunately a die hard fan girl and was driving the others (Uchihas mostly) nuts. Even Kakashi was tired of it, though he didn't say anything. It would take a miracle to get Sakura from a fan girl to a serious ninja. He had a little hope for her, in the realm of taijutsu she was much better than she was. She had very good Chakra control, so he had gotten her some basic medic lessons and genjutsu. She was going to the lessons, but he just didn't know if she was taking it seriously.

In all fours' opinion, Haru needed to stop giving into the temptation to blow things to kingdom come. They blamed it on the contact he had with Tenten, but somehow he had found out about explosive tags. They wished he hadn't. He also was coming up with interesting new ways to blow things up, and actually experimenting. One way he would scatter this oh-so-lovely dust on the ground, or his enemies, and just blow fire at it (or use a small jet of fire that did it just as well). He was becoming quite the little pyromaniac, even more than the usual Uchiha was. All Uchihas throughout history tended to be pyromaniacs, but Haru was starting to take it to the extreme. He had actually come up with a way to set his enemies on fire, and keep them that way until he put the fire out or…you know….(water wouldn't put the fire out, it actually fed it) and control it so allies or friends wouldn't be hurt. He loved it, but his teammates wished he wouldn't try to set so many things on fire. His dango had been threatened, his poor dango had been threatened to be taken away from him if he didn't stop, so he did. For a while at least, he complied then started it up again. Kakashi had told him that he can use it on enemies, but not to overuse it. Save it for surprise. Kakashi had threatened to ban him from eating dango if he blew things up or set them on fire too much. It was the only way he had any control over Haru. Threaten him with dango, much like Naruto's ramen, and it all worked out. He thought it was hilarious how similar the two were with their food obsession. (If only he knew about Sasuke's obsession with the same food, dango or his love of tomatoes).

Another little love he got from spending WAY too much time with Tenten was the love of using a sword. He picked out a small sword from the Uchiha armory for temporary use, but decided to look for one. He wanted the best, so he was willing to wait a while to get it. He trained with Tenten's brother in how to use a sword, so he was pretty good. His Chakra control had been going pretty well too. He was doing the same things that Naruto and Sasuke were doing, Chakra exercises.

End Flashback.

"Yes, Hokage-sama, I think they are ready." Kakashi finally replied. His students gave a collective sigh of relief. They had literally been holding their breath, and holding back from interrupting. They wanted this mission, so they didn't want to ruin the chances of getting on with a rude comment.

The Hokage hummed slightly, digging through the mission requests for the perfect one. Ah, there was one. "I'll get you a C-rank mission, then. It'll only be a simple escort mission to Wave Country. Do you accept?" Kakashi nodded. "Alright. You'll be escorting Tazuna the master bridge builder and protecting him from bandits and such as he finishes the bridge. Hiro, if you will go tell Mr. Tazuna we have escorts for him."

The Chunnin beside him nodded and quickly went to get the client. A few minutes later, an older aged man walked in through the door. Well, not actually walked since he was drunk and holding the bottle still, so staggered in. He looked over his new escorts in front of him slowly. "This them? They are only a bunch of brats and a funny looking guy. Can't you get any body better? They don't look like much, especially blondy."

Naruto bristled and went to run at the man that just insulted him. Kakashi, though grabbed the back of the grey hoody he was wearing (all orange had mysteriously disappeared from his closet and anytime he bought more they also disappeared) and put his hand over his mouth. He eye-smiled at Tazuna.

"I assure you that you will be kept safe. I'm a Jounin, so you'll be well protected." He ignored the muffled protests from Naruto. He looked down at his students. "Go pack, and bring enough for three weeks just in case. Meet at the gate in a half a hour."

End of fourth chapter

Author's Note: Hope the chapter was good. Please tell me what you think. I've added a little blooper below, I suppose.

Haru passed the marsh mellows over to Sasuke. They were currently in the forest outside of the village enjoying making some s'mores. There was a pile of food beside them, among with was the grand crackers, marsh mellows, and chocolate that made the delicious snack that they both enjoyed. There was more food, which included a really, really, really BIG pile of freshly made dango. The pile stretched far above them, almost as tall as the trees around them and was just as big. How they got that much out here in the first place became yet another one of life's little mysteries that could never be solved. Well, they planned to eat it all. (When it came to dango, both boys had bottomless pits for stomachs and never gained an ounce from all the food). Sasuke also had a relatively small pile of tomatoes beside him, which had also mysteriously appeared.

"Good night for a fire, right Sasuke?" Haru commented, looking up at the clear night sky.

"Yes." Sasuke nibbled at some dango he had just gotten from the pile.

Haru looked down and saw that the fire needed more fuel. Going over to the pile behind him, he grabbed a couple pieces and threw them in quickly. The fire, renewed, leapt up to the sky and the orange outfits started to shrivel up. The entirely orange pile was made up by hideously orange outfits. Somewhere in the village, a blond haired boy started to cry in his sleep (which somehow got into this dreams and he ended up crouching in a corner in his little dreamland with tears streaming down his cheeks).

Hehe. Couldn't resist writing that at all. Well, I'll be starting the next chapter tomorrow and have it out soon enough. Hope you enjoyed reading "Not So Alone."