Chapter 4: Mission to the Land of Waves
Naruto groaned as another ball slammed into his face. They were currently doing a teamwork exercise, throwing a ball back and forth at each other, of course this being only Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura. However, there was one problem with this exercise, they were blindfolded.
Naruto groaned. "Oh my Kami. This is ridiculous, do we have to keep doing this Kakashi-sensei?"
"Yes, Naruto. Teamwork can prove the difference between life and death on the battle, therefore until I deem you all successful in this we will not be doing any sort of extensive jutsu training, or weapons making, at least, not until we reach a good enough level of teamwork," Kakashi responded.
Naruto groaned even more, throwing the ball to where he remembered Sakura to be.
"Sakura-chan, catch."
Sakura nodded and put her hands out. She felt the ball impact on her hands, and clasped down on it, catching it. She smiled as she found herself to be successful.
"Sasuke-kun, catch the ball."
She threw it, gently, too gently on accident. Kakashi sighed. He could understand her if she wanted to make sure Sasuke could catch the ball, but she was throwing it too gently for it to even reach Sasuke. It also meant that Sasuke wouldn't even get to touch the ball before it reached the ground. Kakashi then decided now was the time to up the challenge. He shot forward, grabbing the ball and twisting it in midair; he then fired it directly at Naruto, who was not paying attention as Sakura had not called his name.
As the ball flew towards Naruto there was one thing that allowed him to realize the ball was coming towards him. The speed. The ball was letting out a whistling sound, allowing him to realize the ball was coming towards him, however it mattered not. Even though his hands were up he didn't have enough strength to catch the ball and was sent flying backwards, rubber burning his hands. However, before he hit a nearby tree he channeled chakra into his arms and legs as he slammed his feet into the ground. By doing so he managed to maintain his balance and stop the power behind the blow, although his hands were burning.
Naruto dropped the ball and ripped off the blindfold, glaring at Kakashi with an unearthly rage.
"What the hell!? Sakura-chan doesn't have the power to do that unless she used some sort of Earth Jutsu! What did you do Kakashi-sensei?!"
Sasuke took off his blindfold, confused, as did Sakura.
"Dobe, what are you talking about," Sasuke asked. "And why didn't the ball go to me?"
Naruto frowned as he glared at Kakashi who was eye-smiling. "Well," Kakashi began. "Sakura did not throw the ball hard enough; therefore I decided to improve the speed of the ball. I just lost control over it a bit," Kakashi said, eye-smiling innocently.
Naruto growled at him, reading the lie that was expressed all over his face. However, Kakashi didn't seem to care.
"Naruto, Sasuke, go to the Hokage tower. Sakura, stay here, I have something I want to talk to you about."
Naruto and Sasuke nodded, taking off in two separate bursts of speed, looking like blurs to the untrained eye, however to a person of Kakashi's caliber they would think they were moving in slow motion. Along with the fact that anyone could tell they were racing each other there with their weights on.
"Kakashi-sensei, you wanted to talk to me," Sakura asked, looking at Kakashi with wonder.
"Yes, Sakura, I was wondering when you learned how to do Earth Jutsu?''
Sakura sighed, she knew this was coming. "I learned them from scrolls my Grandfather gave me before he died. When I was 9, he told me that if I ever decided to become a shinobi and wanted to learn a jutsu, I should read the scrolls. And since Sasuke-kun told me he didn't want weak Kunoichi or fangirls at his side, I've decided to train about a year ago. That's why I am the Sakura you see before you."
"Interesting story, I'm glad you decided to train, now this team is even better."
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"Is everyone in position," Kakashi asked over a headset. The responses came in immediately.
"Yes sensei, can we go now," the three asked, all with annoyed expressions on their face. They had done this mission three times already, mainly because the damn cat had escaped as soon as it was brought back to the tower, each and every time. And people thought jonin were useful, yet they were too lazy to stop the damn cat.
"Then go."
Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke all sprang from their hiding places like an eagle descending on it's pray. The four-legged creature hissed and jumped away from them; however, with two quick bursts of chakra-enhanced sprints, Sasuke and Naruto caught it, Naruto cutting off the path in front of it, and Sasuke behind it. The creature sprang towards the left; however Sakura appeared through foliage, arms outstretched. She clasped her hands together, just as the creature fell, avoiding the hands, however Naruto was prepared. With a chakra-enhanced leap he fell onto the figure with a loud, 'oomph.'
Naruto slithered his arms under his stomach, grabbing a furry creature before lifting it into the air, a defeated look on its face.
"Caught," Naruto said as he looked at the thing. He was seriously debating skinning the cat already. He had come to hate the furry creature.
"Has it been identified by the ribbon?"
"Ribbon confirmed," Naruto sighed.
"Mission successful. Head back to the Hokage tower."
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"Oh, my baby," said a rather…large lady. She was hugging the cat very tightly, squeezing the life out of it.
"Here is your money, times three for the trouble," the woman said as she placed the money on the desk. The Hokage nodded kindly as the woman left the room, only to receive piercing glares from the three genin.
"What," Sarutobi asked.
"That blasted cat, Tora or whatever, better, and I mean BETTER, count as three D-rank missions," the genin hissed. "If it doesn't…" the let the sentence drag out, each one drawing a kunai from their pouches.
"Let's just say we'll be having cat for dinner."
Sarutobi gulped. He made a mental classification to wait a LONG time before giving Team 7 the, 'Capture Tora,' mission, again. With that done he smiled sagely.
"Yes, that will count as three missions, here is your share," the Hokage said, handing out the money. Naruto took his money with greed in his eyes, as did Sakura, however Sasuke just took it calmly, after all, he had an entire bank filled with money because of his clan. Compared to that, this was poor people cash, even though he didn't deny the more money the better. Kakashi just smiled and took his money. While he wouldn't gain any significant change in his funds, this was equal to the amount of a C-rank mission. Of course, there would be more if the village didn't take part of the cash to keep the economy running smoothly.
"Any other missions for my squad Hokage-sama," Kakashi asked.
The Hokage nodded. "Cleaning the Inuzuka kennels, painting old George's fence, picking weeds from Ms. Rusk's garden, or carrying the groceries of Ms. Ural."
Kakashi smiled and began to think on which one to accept. Since this was going to be marked as three missions and his goal was four missions per day, as in one week that would mean he had reached the requirement for the Chunin Exams, 20 D-rank missions. Then, he could focus on training his team wholeheartedly for the exams, with a couple of missions mixed in here or there.
"No," Naruto said. "Unless we do something worthy of our caliber I refuse to take any more missions for the rest of the day."
Kakashi sighed and ignored what Naruto thought, still intent on choosing a mission.
"We'll take the painting mission, Hokage-sama."
Naruto groaned as Sarutobi nodded.
"Get to it then, Kakashi."
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Naruto smiled as he caught the red ball headed towards his face. They, his team, were doing the same exercise they were doing two weeks ago, although it was much more advanced. They were still passing the ball towards each other, but they no longer said each others names and they were a much further distance away from each other, around three buildings worth. They were still blindfolded, however what made that more difficult was the fact that Kakashi kept rotating, or completely changing, the direction of the ball, proving it to be more difficult than before, and he was using a fair bit of strength to do so, allowing them to adapt to focusing chakra in key points of their body better.
'It's time,' Naruto thought, throwing the red ball in the air. He flowed through handseals before smirking.
"Fuuton: Reppūshō (Wind Release: Gale Palm)!"
'A jutsu?' Sakura thought, as she was the only one who heard him aside from Kakashi, as Sasuke was to far away.
Naruto slammed his palm on the ball as it appeared directly in front him, just as his jutsu activated. The jutsu sent out a burst of wind from his palm that sent the ball flying towards Sakura; however Kakashi reacted in time and kicked it toward Sasuke. Sasuke was prepared though, even if he didn't know the ball was coming towards him. As soon as he felt the wind touch his palm he channeled chakra into his arms, catching the ball without moving. However, he had a much harder time than he usually would catching the ball, causing him to raise an eyebrow.
"Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke began. "Why was this ball harder to catch than the other ones you've redirected? And don't say you didn't redirect it, neither Sakura, nor the dobe have the strength to put this much force on the ball."
"Mah, mah Sasuke. You just had to reveal my secrets didn't you? Everyone take off their blindfolds."
The genin did so.
"Well, the reason it was harder to catch was because Naruto here added a jutsu in to power it up, and of course the added force from me redirecting it just proved to make it more of a challenge."
"But why would Naruto add a jutsu to his pass," Sakura asked, walking up to Kakashi.
Kakashi waved his hand, signaling to the two boys to come over. As they did so Kakashi looked at Naruto.
"Do you want to explain?"
Naruto shrugged. "Sure, why not. Basically, Kakashi-sensei asked me to make this training exercise harder as we had already mastered it completely. So I added a Fuuton jutsu into my pass, although from my memory it wasn't towards the teme, it was towards Sakura-chan."
The two nodded.
"Why you though," Sasuke asked, a hint of spite in his voice. "I could've used a Katon Jutsu to make it much hotter to catch."
"Because of my Fuuton capabilities. You see, although I don't know why, I have a talent for Fuuton jutsu, although I still can't use any higher level ones yet, but still, Fuuton jutsu can speed something up or shred it to pieces. The one I used was to speed it up, which proved to be more of a challenge for you to catch, wasn't it teme?"
Sasuke just growled and looked away, clear annoyance on his face. Naruto smirked as if he just won a tournament, holding up the 'Peace' sign. Sakura just sighed at their behavior. She still loved Sasuke, but had come to accept that Naruto and Sasuke were best friends and rivals, meaning they would always act like this, no matter how much she wanted to make Naruto shut up at times.
"Exactly," Kakashi said. He then looked up at the sky before saying, "Well, it's time for or daily missions, let's get going." The jonin then took off in a sprint towards the Hokage tower, followed by Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. This was another part of their training you see. It was endurance training. Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke had to try and keep up with Kakashi, who was using minimal amounts of chakra, without pumping any chakra into their legs to speed them up. It would allow them to not only move faster when using bursts of chakra, but move faster when they didn't proving to be a win-win situation. And of course, Naruto and Sasuke's weights played a factor as well.
The team reached the Hokage tower in record time, sprinting up the stairs, or in Kakashi's case running on the side of the wall, and breaching his office.
"We are ready for a mission Hokage-sama," Kakashi said, smiling at his genin. While they were panting, it wasn't as bad as they were when they had first done this exercise, which was when they were on the floor basically dying, and they had lost track of Kakashi.
"Well Kakashi-san, you really are working young Naruto-kun, Sasuke-kun, and Sakura-chan," Sarutobi said, smiling at their fatigued faces.
"They still have a lot of work to do," Kakashi said.
"Tch," Sasuke remarked, getting a laugh out of the Hokage.
"Well, onto more important topics, we have several missions for you, like getting Lady Daimyo's cat-"
"Hell NO!" the genin of Team 7 roared, each of them drawing a kunai and throwing it at the desk. While this could be considered an act of betrayal, neither the Anbu in the room, nor the Hokage moved. They understood why the were acting like that too after all. They too had done that mission as genin, and by the end of the day wanted to skin the cat alive, and all the other Genin teams wanted too as well, even though Hiruzen did it when another lady was the Daimyo's wife, and had a different cat. He was beginning to think those things were cursed.
"Well then," Hiruzen said, laughing at them. "We have-"
"No," Naruto started. "I refuse to take any more of these kid-dy missions. This is just charity work, not fit for something of my status. I want a C-rank mission or higher, or else I'm not moving from this spot."
"Naruto, you can't just-" Kakashi began, but Sasuke cut him off.
"I agree. I want something of higher ranking too. This isn't helping us get stronger or any field experience. This is the crap Academy students do as preparation for being Genin." Sasuke voiced as well.
"As do I," Sakura said. "This won't do any good if a war were to happen right now without any field experience."
Sarutobi groaned. It was that time, the time that every genin eventually demanded. The C-rank mission. It was a coming of age ritual basically. Eventually the genin would get bored with D-rank missions and would fight for a C-rank or above, although they only ever got C-rank. Still, Team 7 had done it faster than any other teams this year had.
"Kakashi-san do you think they are ready for a C-rank?"
"As ready as they'll ever get," Kakashi said, shrugging. C-ranks still involved very little threats, usually escorts to nearby villages or taking out a minor bandit problem, nothing your standard genin couldn't handle. Plus, his Genin were not your average Genin. Alone, they would have to be around mid Chunin level and in Sakura's case, low Chunin level.
"Well, the only one we have currently is escorting a bridge builder to his home in Nami no Kuni (Land of Waves)."
Kakashi nodded. "We accept."
Naruto smiled and cheered, as Sasuke just smirked. Sakura however had the most expressed reaction, excluding Naruto. She gave a bright smile, although afterwards she showed a hint of doubt in her decision, still not quite confident in her abilities.
"Sakura, are you all right," Sasuke asked, looking at the pinkette with curiosity.
"Yeah, Sasuke-kun. I'm just not sure if I'm ready for a mission such as this or not as I'm the weakest link on the team. But why are you asking," the girl responded, as he doesn't talk to her often.
Sasuke frowned. "Of course you're ready for a C-rank mission. You have us. Me, Naruto and an S-rank Jonin. Just because you're the weakest on the team doesn't make you weak, you're a great Kunoichi. You've earned my full respect," he said before turning away and looking at the Hokage. Meanwhile, Sakura's heart soared, high above make-believe clouds. She blushed at the flattery and the fact that Sasuke believed in her.
"Send in the bridge builder," Hiruzen said.
The door opened quickly afterwards, to reveal a grey-haired, bespectacled man with a large beard and dark eyes. He wore a sleeveless v-neck shirt with an obi, pants and a pair of sandals. There was a towel around his neck, and he wore a pointed hat on his head. Lastly, he had a bottle of bear in his hands.
"You give me brats to protect me? The girl looks like she's completely useless, the broody one looks like he has a mental problem with life, and the blonde one looks like he couldn't harm a fly. They better be good enough," the man insulted.
However, when three kunai impaled his bottle of beer, courtesy of Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke he gulped.
"Can you do any better?" Naruto and Sasuke whispered silently.
The man shivered, although he wasn't the only one. Hiruzen also shivered, although for a different reason. The team talking at the same time and saying the same thing over and over again was creepy. Kakashi however seemed fine, as he was used to it.
"Well, Mr. Tazuna, I'd be careful what you say. These three are very capable, and very irritable," Kakashi said as he walked out of the room.
"Meet me at the sough gate at 12 o'clock tomorrow."
And with that Kakashi left the room, however his voice carried up the stairs. "Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto, training time, again."
The three Genin cheered, although Sasuke's and Sakura's was less enthusiastic then Naruto's, though for different reasons respectively.
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Naruto groaned as Team 7 and the old man, Tazuna was his name if he recalled correctly, waited on Kakashi. Normally Naruto wouldn't have even arrived early enough to be bothered by Kakashi's tardiness, however as this was his first C-rank mission he wanted to get it underway already, even if it was just protecting some smug bridge builder.
"Why did you come here early Naruto?" Sasuke asked looking at him. "You knew Kakashi would be late. All of us but the old man did. I came to get in some last minute peace and quiet as those…demons…know where I live," Sasuke said.
Naruto nodded. While he didn't understand Sasuke's pain personally, having fangirls chase after you endlessly wasn't fun, at least from what he observed. When he was younger he would have killed for that, but after seeing the craziness their supposed love for the Uchiha had caused them to do, he was happy he didn't have fangirls.
"I am just excited for the mission, that's all, honestly," Naruto said. "Why did you come early Sakura-chan?"
Sakura rubbed the back of her sheepishly. "I'm the same as you."
"Hey brats, where is that sensei of yours? Isn't he supposed to be a, elite Jonin or something? Doesn't that mean he should be on time? I'm an important contact you know," Tazuna grumbled.
Naruto just looked at him tiredly. "Too many questions, and I don't give enough fucks to answer them. Still, he is running unusually late."
Sakura just shook her head and apologized to the man. While he may be annoying, he was still a paying customer and they shouldn't ruin that. He could have hired a different village after all.
"Sorry I'm late," Kakashi said, appearing behind Naruto, and causing him to jump in the air with surprise.
"BASTARD!" Naruto roared throwing a punch at him, however Kakashi easily caught it.
"Yeah, yeah, I've heard it before Naruto. Are we all ready to go?"
"Tch, you shouldn't be asking that, you were late after all," Sasuke said, just shaking his head as he walked out the gate, followed by Tazuna and Sakura, Naruto not far behind. Kakashi stood there confused.
"What I say?"
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"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" Naruto roared, after he slapped his Fuinjutsu book closed. He had been studying the subject for hours, and while he may love the subject, he was going to snap if he read one more complicated intermediate level seal. Of course it didn't help that Naruto disliked reading to begin with. "This is so BORING!"
"We get it Naruto," Kakashi said, looking back at his student with a dramatic sigh written all over his face. Was his student always this hyperactive?
"Then do something about it," Naruto said, kicking a rock. It landed in a small puddle, although no ripples appeared.
'Strange,' Naruto thought, but ignored it, continuing on his walk.
'That's not normal. Ripples should have spread through the puddle, especially considering the power behind Naruto's kicks. Plus, it hasn't rained in weeks, so why would there be two random puddles on the ground? Unless…what idiots.'
As soon as the group passed the two puddles the puddles rose from the ground, solidifying into humans. They had used a genjutsu to seal their form, hiding from the group.
The shorter one of the duo had shoulder-length, wild dark-brown hair and dark eyes. He wore a gas mask that covered the lower of half of his face and a large, clawed gauntlet on his right arm, which had a chain coming out of it that attached to the others gauntlet. He wore a camouflage suit with bandages around his waist, dark-colored, knee length sandals and a ragged black cloak.
The other wore roughly the same thing; however one thing they wore brought out something unique to them, at least it was the first time the genin and Tazuna had ever seen such a thing.
They both wore Kirigakure headbands with slashes through them.
However, just because they had never seen one before didn't mean they didn't know what it meant.
'Rogue ninja,' the genin thought, taking up a position around Tazuna, Sakura and Naruto on his sides with Sasuke in the front.
The ninja ran towards them, although Kakashi hadn't noticed it until it was to late, and he was wrapped in chains almost instantly.
"Target one, eliminated," the two men whispered creepily.
They yanked on their chains, ripping Kakashi to shreds. Sakura looked horrified, and her face paled though she tensed up ready for a fight. Sasuke and Naruto had different reactions. Sasuke's expression was that of silently controlled rage. He was ready for a fight as he viewed the rogue ninja as Itachi; a person who ripped something from him. Naruto had a look of pure fury on his face, as if he was a demon that was going to slaughter all who stood in his way to avenge his sensei's demise.
"Kill them boy, prove them to be weaker than you are. You are my host, MY VESSEL!" Naruto heard a voice scream in his head. Naruto thought still had enough semblance of control to ask an important question.
'Who are you?'
"KILL THEM CHILD!"
Naruto was soon overcome by the voice and disappeared in a flash. He reappeared next to the taller one of the men; however he didn't look the same. His whisker marks were thicker and longer, his nails had become claws, his canine's were protruding from his mouth slightly, however there was something more ominous about his transformation.
His crimson orbs and the large amount of killing intent he was releasing. It had paralyzed Tazuna, and Sakura. They couldn't move as they were experiencing the most pure form of fear. The fear a prey had when running from a predator. Red chakra formed around him as if it were Yuki.
Sasuke's Sharingan started blazing crimson when his mentor was 'killed'. Though he wasn't the type of person to have emotions, Kakashi was like a surrogate father to him though he would never admit that. Two ebony tomoi (comma) appeared in each of the Uchiha's eyes.
Naruto lashed out with his clawed hand, claws ripping through flesh, and blood splattering over the ground. The man's throat had five slash marks on them, and blood was pooling on the ground and in Naruto's hands. The man tried to scream in pain but found he couldn't, not that it would have mattered as Naruto thrust his hand through his chest soon afterwards. Naruto pulled his hand out quickly, turning to face the other man, who was shaking in his boots, but it wasn't from fear.
"GOZU!" the man cried, charging Naruto, clear intent to kill him in his eyes.
He was however interrupted by a enraged Sasuke. The Uchiha with brutal efficieny pinned the other end of the chain to a tree. The Uchiha then pinned the man to the same tree via a kunai to the shoulder. The man didn't have time to scream as Sasuke quickly took the chain, wrapping it around the rogue Chunin's neck before pulling it. Blood erupted from the man's mouth and he choked to the death on his own weapon. The chain left an imprint on his neck afterwards, meaning it was snapped in the process.
Naruto kept looking around, a sadistic look in his eye before he spotted his team and Tazuna. He smiled before he raised his hand and tensed, preparing to launch at them. Sasuke's own killing intent flared while he glared back at Naruto with his crimson eyes. Before the blonde could attack, his world soon faded into nothingness and he fell to the ground, unconscious. Instantly the killing intent vanished coming off of Naruto vanished.
Kakashi was behind Naruto, a serious look on his face, along with a worried one. That had been the Kyuubi in charge then, he knew it. Naruto wouldn't do such horrendous acts; he wasn't the type of person to do so. Kakashi then looked at Naruto with worry. The seal must have weakened for it to have happened, or Naruto became aware of the Kyuubi and was starting to accept it. Neither were good things.
Kakashi picked Naruto up and put him on his back, sealing the two dead men in a scroll before looking at Tazuna, Sasuke, and Sakura. It seemed the only person who kept his cool was Sasuke, though the realization that he just killed somebody dawned on him.
"Are you guys okay?"
Sakura however didn't answer. Instead she ran to a bush and retched all over the ground. The Uchiha looked away with an aloof expression, however deep down Kakashi knew he was trying to cope with just killing someone. Tazuna looked pale and backed away from Naruto, fear entranced in his eyes. Kakashi sighed; the man and Sakura had a right to be scared. They shouldn't have been forced to see that, but Kakashi had to assess how much control the Kyuubi had over Naruto when he was in the berserker state.
"Sasuke, go help Sakura out. Tazuna, we need to have a chat."
The man nodded as Sasuke ran towards Sakura. The Uchiha fully realized what he had done and retched over it as well.
''S-Sasuke-kun? Y-you're eyes. T-they're crimson," Sakura managed to get out. In truth, she was fearing Naruto and Sasuke at the moment, especially the former. The killer intent Naruto and Sasuke produced together was paralyzing. However, Naruto's way of handling things was incredibly brutal, hell even Sasuke's method was brutal.
"I know," The normally brooding Uchiha said full of emotion. "When Kakashi-sensei was supposedly killed, I felt rage and turmoil. That's how I unlocked my Sharingan. As much as I hate to admit it, you three have grown on me. Kakashi was like my surrogate father in a way. Naruto is my bestfriend even if we don't admit it and kinda like a brother. You're my other bestfriend, Sakura. If anyone of you were killed, I would go berzerk just like Naruto did. Now I'm trying to cope with the fact I just ended someones life a few minutes ago."
The relevation made Sakura widen her eyes a bit. Sasuke cared about her deeply, even if it wasn't the way she would've preffered. The pinkette blushed, but quickly forced it away so she won't be caught.
"Thanks, Sasuke-kun." The pinkette stated while hugging the Uchiha. To her surprise, he didn't push away, instead he looked content. "I'll help you cope with it." The Uchiha just graced a small smile.
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"Tazuna why were those ninja after you?"
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about," Tazuna lied, although it was rather blatant that he was bad at it.
"NO GAMES TAZUNA! You nearly cost my team their lives, and caused them to witness something they shouldn't have had to-" Tazuna interrupted him.
"That demon boy killing those two-" Kakashi interrupted the man right back.
"Call him that again and I will slit your throat, call this mission a failure, and say you ran off into the forest with a case of madness," Kakashi warned.
Tazuna stepped back, shame in his eyes.
"I pretended to die to see if this occurrence would be ninja attacking ninja, or ninja attacking bridge builder. I found it to be the latter, now, why were those ninja after you?"
"Gato," Tazuna whispered.
"Gato, as in the head of the Gato Company, one of the richest men in the world?"
"The very same. You see, while he may be a great businessman, he is also an illegal drug dealer, and recently came to Nami no Kuni (Land of Waves). He quickly took over the ports and has our small island in a stranglehold in terms of economy. All of our money goes to his absurdly high taxes, and we can't trade as he refused to let any ships leave, and few enter, and the ones that do work for him."
"That does not excuse you paying for a C-rank mission. This should have easily been a B-rank."
"I would have liked to pay the money for that, however the entire town came together with the money, just barely scrapping by a C-rank, it was the best we could afford."
"I see," Kakashi said. He looked at Sasuke and Sakura who were looking at him for leadership, as well as Naruto, only they were looking at him with intrigue. It was the exact opposite of what Kakashi had expected. He had expected Sasuke and Sakura to share the view of the villagers about Naruto, or at least Sakura. Perhaps Sasuke really did help her out.
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Naruto groaned as he awoke, only to be faced with an unfamiliar setting. He was in a sewer, with water flooding the ground, reaching up to his ankles. There were pipes along the ceiling, some blue, and some red leaking the aura he had felt not even moments ago.
Naruto then felt it. Whatever that aura belonged to was somewhere nearby, very close in fact. Naruto wandered the sewers, still trying to figure out where he was and where that aura came from, only to reach a large room with a metal cage and a piece of paper that had the kanji for 'Seal' on it.
"What the hell?"
A set of crimson eyes appeared and bore down on him, along with large, canine teeth.
"Welcome vessel, TO YOUR MINDSCAPE!"
The creature's massive roar sent water flying into the air and Naruto had to guard his head and channel chakra into his feet to stand, and then again he was still sent skidding backwards.
"Who are you," Naruto asked the massive creature, just as a form came into view.
It was a giant kitsune with red-orange fur and red eyes. It possessed the upper-body structure of a human, complete with opposable thumbs on its clawed hands. It seemed to be shrunk down, although Naruto assumed that if it wasn't and stood at full height it was the same height as the Hokage Monument, which was saying a lot. Naruto dared say a full grown man was smaller than one of its eyes. And even then, Naruto felt it's size was still being limited.
"I AM THE KYUUBI NO KITSUNE!"