Disclaimer-I don't own Naruto

Chapter Four

Tayuya glanced down at the ground and noticed a large puddle on the side of the road. She frowned and discreetly glanced upward. The sky was pure blue without a trace of a cloud, just as it had been for the past few weeks. She reached into her side pouch and pulled out her flute. "Anybody mind if I play my flute while we walk?" She asked. Kakashi and Tazuna shook their heads, and Sasuke didn't say anything, but Naruto gave her a strange look, confused by why she'd bothered to ask for permission. Tayuya quickly began playing before he could say anything though, and his and Sasuke's eyes widened slightly. The three of them had gotten together to train a few times, largely because Sasuke had been impressed by Tayuya's skill in the test, and Kakashi barely trained them at all himself. During the training sessions, it had been decided that while they were traveling for a mission, Tayuya would use her cats to scout the area. They'd also worked out a simple code based on distinctive melodies that Tayuya would play based on the information, so as to keep how much they knew a secret. Even Naruto had gotten the meanings of the tunes down, though it had taken him a long time.

In this case, the tune meant 'keep an eye out and stay on guard." Tayuya wasn't entirely sure what the puddle meant, but it had her worried. Anko and Koshioro had taught her that there was a whole range of jutsus that could be utilized purely with water, and a suspicious puddle like that could easily be related to one such jutsu.

Her suspicions were confirmed a few seconds later when two large claws attached to chains shot out and impaled Kakashi. She and the other three travelers stopped and stared in horror as Kakashi's eye widened, and the chains ripped him apart. "One down!" The one of the two rogue shinobi called out.

"Naruto, guard!" Tayuya yelled, drawing her sword and charging. Naruto blinked, coming out of his stupor, and then nodded and created five clones to help guard Tazuna as Sasuke charged after Tayuya. The shinobi lashed out with their clawed chain, but Tayuya blocked them, twisting the chain around her sword, then stabbing it into the ground, Sasuke rushed past her and jumped between the two men, kicking them both in the head. The two rogue shinobi dropped the claw and pulled out blades, slashing at Sasuke and Tayuya, only for Kakashi to appear between them, easily dispatching both of them with a single blow.

"Nice job." Kakashi told his students, nodding. "Good use of the clones Naruto, and good teamwork from you two." Tayuya nodded in acknowledgement of the compliment as she carefully retrieved her sword, while Sasuke merely grunted. Naruto blushed in embarrassment and dispelled his clones as Kakashi quickly tied the two rogue shinobi up.

"Why'd you let them think you were dead?" Tazuna demanded, looking pale and scared.

"I needed to see what they'd do. Were they rogue shinobi who merely wanted to kill other shinobi, or were they after you? We were hired to protect you from bandits, not ninja. The presence of these two alone raises this up to a B rank mission. After all, this was supposed to be a simple escort mission. If we had known that ninjas were after you, this would have become a much more expensive B, or even an A rank mission. I'm sure you had your reasons, but it causes problems for us when you lie about the mission. We are now operating out of our duties, and in the case of my genin, their skill range."

"Bullshit." Tayuya growled. Kakashi turned to face her, his one visible eyebrow raised.

"Excuse me?"

"I said bullshit. We just took down two rogue chunin without a single injury. Yeah, you helped us, but that doesn't mean we're doomed. At the very least we've proven that we can hold our own." Kakashi stared at her for a moment, then turned to look at Naruto and Sasuke.

"And what do you two think?"

"Totally! I'm not scared!" Naruto said eagerly. "The next guys won't even touch us!" Sasuke rolled his eyes at Naruto's enthusiasm, but he nodded.

"Tayuya's right. The two of us can handle ourselves, and the Dead Last can spam his clones to guard Tazuna." Kakashi considered them for a moment and then, surprisingly, he nodded, even seeming to smile a little.

"Very well. We've travelled this far, we may as well continue. However…" He turned back to face Tazuna. "I'm afraid that I'm going to require complete honesty on your part. I need you to tell me exactly what's going on." Tazuna sighed.

"I suppose you do deserve to know the truth. There is an incredibly dangerous man after my life, someone who will do anything to kill me." Kakashi didn't even blink.

"Who?"

"You've probably at least heard his name before. He is the wealthy shipping magnate Gatou."

"Gatou? Head of the Gatou Shipping Company?" Kakashi asked, genuinely surprised by this particular turn of events. Tazuna sighed again.

"Yes. Officially, he merely runs a very large shipping company. But secretly, he uses his power and wealth to sell drugs and other illegal items, using rogue ninjas and regular bandits to take over rival businesses and even whole countries. A year ago, Gatou set his eyes on the Wave Country, and has taken over all shipping to the land. He now has a complete monopoly, and the only thing left for him to fear is the completion of the bridge."

"So, you knew that Gatou might hire ninjas to kill you? Then why weren't you honest about the situation? After all, that would have gotten you a team far more experienced and far more powerful." Kakashi asked, sounding puzzled.

"The Wave Country is very poor." Tazuna admitted. "Even our Lord doesn't have much money. We don't have nearly enough money to pay for an expensive B rank mission." Kakashi sighed.

"Well, all three of my cute little students" All three of the genin in question bristled at this comment, which made Kakashi chuckle slightly before continuing. "Have decided to go on. So, we'll at least protect you as far as your village." Tazuna nodded his thanks, and they continued on.

Two days later

Tayuya scowled as Naruto threw yet another shuriken into a bush, determined to prove his bravery. After the fight, he'd decided that being regulated to guard was stupid and that he'd be in the front line of the fight next time, no matter how many times Kakashi and Tayuya tried to hammer into him that, in this situation, guarding Tazuna was the best use of his clones. It had gotten so annoying that Tayuya had decided that she'd just tree hop, since it'd keep her out of the crossfire, as well as giving her a better vantage point. She'd gotten permission from Kakashi (she figured that she'd pushed him enough recently. She was rude, but she wasn't stupid enough to purposefully piss off the person responsible for her continued progress as a shinobi) and then walked up the trunk of the nearest tree.

To her surprise, both Sasuke and Naruto had reacted with shock to this. Naruto had yelled in amazement, and Sasuke's eye had actually gotten wide. Tayuya, for her part, was just as surprised as they were, though for different reasons. She wasn't too surprised that nobody had bothered to teach Naruto this skill, but she was truly amazed that nobody had bothered to teach Sasuke, the precious last Uchiha, such a basic and valuable skill. So, every night when they'd stopped to camp, she'd begun teaching the two of them while Kakashi watched and occasionally gave the two boys some suggestions.

Suddenly, something white passed underneath her, and she looked down. "Oi, Naruto, stop scaring the rabbits!" She called out.

"What?" Naruto, asked, frowning. Tayuya pointed down at the bush below her.

"There are rabbits down there. If you don't stop throwing those shuriken around, you'll scare them into running away and making even more noise." Kakashi frowned up at her.

"How can you see them? Rabbits are normally pretty camouflaged."

"They're white." Tayuya said simply. Kakashi looked up at her for a moment.

"You'd better come down from there." He said. Tayuya frowned down at him, then jumped down.

They continued along for a while, only for Kakashi to call them to a halt a few minutes later in a large clearing. "I think that's far enough." He said, pulling out a kunai. "Guard Tazuna." He said quietly, and then threw the kunai into the trees. There was a thud, and a man fell out of one of the trees, Kakashi's kunai embedded in his forehead. Instantly, twenty or so rogue shinobi appeared from out of the forest, with three more appearing on the surface of the nearby water. Naruto scowled and summoned five clones.

"Guard the old dude!" He ordered, rushing after Kakashi into the fray. Tayuya and Sasuke looked at each other, sighed, and went after him, Tayuya breaking left and heading for the water. Kakashi frowned as Sasuke jumped in front of him, taking down a man with one kick to the head.

"Didn't I tell you to stay put?" He demanded, throwing a kunai into another shinobi's head.

"The idiot made some clones and then charged in." Sasuke grunted, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at where Naruto and ten more clones were attacking a group of rogue shinobi. "We weren't going to just leave him to his fate, so we joined in." Kakashi glanced over his shoulder, making sure that the clones were still guarding Tazuna, and then sighed. He was really going to have to drill the idea of obedience into his genin's heads.

"Where's Tayuya?" Sasuke pointed at the water, and Kakashi sweatdropped. Anko had really gone all out in training her if she already knew how to walk on water.

Tayuya scowled and sliced through one of her opponents, only for him to dissipate. Koshioro had warned her when he taught her to walk on water that fighting was a lot harder, since it required even more chakra control to fight and keep the flow of chakra balanced, but it she hadn't understood just how hard it would be. And to make matters worse, the asshole she was fighting kept summoning water clones to fight her. Just as the three on shore were finishing up the last of the attackers, a clone appeared right behind her and pressed an all too real kunai against her throat, then knocked the sword out of her hands. "Hatake Kakashi!" The clone summoner called out. Kakashi and the others all turned, just in time to see the clone force Tayuya to her knees. "I'm just here for the old man!" The man continued. "Let me have him, and I'll leave. I'll even let your little student here live. Unless you'd rather I killed her to teach your other two students to take things more seriously of course." He said with a grin. Kakashi's mind raced. There was no way he'd hand over Tazuna, and even if he did, he doubted the man would really let Tayuya live. He had to come up with a plan, and quickly. Fortunately for him, and for her, Tayuya already had one.

"Now." Tayuya growled. The man turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow as he did so.

"What's that?" He asked. "You want me to kill you know and get it over with?"

"I wasn't talking to you, shithead." Tayuya growled. The man glared at her and opened his mouth, but just then, a massive black tiger burst from beneath the surface, tackling him and then decapitating him with one swipe of its claws. Tayuya stood up, the clone having dissipated when the creator died, and took her sword from the tiger's mouth.

"Whoa, who's that?" Naruto yelled excitedly, pointing at the black tiger as it and Tayuya returned to shore.

"This is Hisui." Tayuya said, petting the tiger on the head.

"I didn't see you summon her during the fight." Kakashi said with a frown.

"She didn't." Hisui said flatly, sitting down and staring at Kakashi. "A summon can appear anywhere, regardless of whether or not a summoner calls them. The contract merely means that a summoner can call upon summons at any time to help them; it isn't the only way we can appear in your world. I've been following you for quite some time now."

"Why?" Sasuke demanded. Hisui shrugged.

"Boredom mostly. Tayuya actually does things, unlike most cats, so following her around is much more interesting than staying home." The tiger turned her head to look at Tayuya. "However, I'm afraid that my absence has finally been noticed, and I must return home. Don't worry; I'm sure I'll be able to return just in time to save your scrawny ass." Tayuya rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you will. Now get out of here, your breath stinks." Hisui rolled her eyes right back, then disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Author's Notes

Sorry this took so long, sometimes college is excessively hectic.

I'm sorry if I was wrong about the nature of summons, and they really can only appear in the world of humans if they're summoned. That really doesn't make any sense to me, and I haven't seen anything in the series that would make me think that that's the case, but then again, I'm not a hundred percent caught up. If I am wrong, please tell me so that I can fix this.