New chapter time. Has anybody else noticed problems with the 'stats' page in their profile recently, all of my stats stopped working from about midday Saturday to midday Tuesday.

Anyways, on with the story.

Disclaimer: You already know what should go here, why do you need to see it every chapter?

Key to speaking:

"Someone's speaking"

'Demon speaking, inside mind'

"Demon/Summon speaking, outside mind"

'I'm thinking' (First person)

'Speaking, inside mind'

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Team seven met at the same training field the next day, as Kakashi told them to at dinner last night. "So... How late do you think Kakashi-sensei will be this time?", Naruto asked.

Sasuke thought about it a minute, before answering with "About an hour and a half."

"No way.", Naruto said. "He'll be longer than that."

"No way, no jonin is going to be more than an hour and a half late for something.", Sasuke said.

"Wanna bet?", Naruto asked, pulling out his wallet, 'Gama-chan'.

"Sure.", Sasuke said, "How much?"

Naruto pulled out several coins. "200 Ryo.", he said (about 20$). "Two hours fifteen minutes... at least."

"You're on.", Sasuke said. They gave there money to Hinata, who Naruto asked to hold the money to 'make sure it was fair.'

"Well Sasuke,", Naruto said. "I guess we'll see who's closer, won't we?"

"Sure.", Sasuke responded, before sitting at the base of a tree to wait.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

(Two Hours, Forty-Five Minutes Later)

"Yes!", Naruto yelled as Kakashi appeared in the small clearing in a puff of smoke. "Pay up Sasuke!"

Sasuke grumbled some at seeing the money he had brought for lunch disappear.

"See, Sasuke. Never bet against Uzumaki Naruto!", Naruto said.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever.", Sasuke grumbled.

"Ahem.", Kakashi said, interrupting the two genin. "While I'd love to stay around and watch you two, we have missions to do."

"Yes!", Naruto yelled again, excited at the prospect of doing 'cool ninja stuff'. "So what missions are we doing?", he asked. "Maybe rescuing a princess, or escorting an important person somewhere, or maybe fighting bandits, or bounty hunting, or..."

Kakashi interrupted him. "Well, I actually have a few missions lined up already." Kakashi smirked inwardly at seeing Naruto's excitement. 'This is almost sadistically fun.', he thought. "Let's see...", he said, pulling out a scroll. "We've got the choice of...", he built up a dramatic pause.

"Yeah?", Naruto asked.

"Moving furniture,", Kakashi said, much to Naruto's dismay. "or if you don't like that, there are others. For example, we could weed a garden." Naruto's face fell further. "Oh, wait. Here's a good one. This one is rescuing the daimyo's..."

"What? His what?", Naruto asked. "His daughter, or maybe his wife. An important courier?" Kakashi shook his head at all three.

"His wife's cat, Tora.", he said, finally bursting Naruto's bubble.

"What!", Naruto (and Sasuke) yelled. "Those aren't missions, they're just glorified chores."

"Chores they may be, but they are important exercises.", Kakashi explained. "They help build teamwork and trust in your teammates, and get you used to working in a professional environment."

"They're still wastes of time.", Naruto grumbled.

"Be that as it may.", Kakashi said. "They are a important and necessary part of your shinobi career, and you need to do them, just like every other ninja in the world has had to. So just follow me, we need to get a mission assignment." Naruto grumbled some more about 'stupid chores', but still followed Kakashi to the hall where they would be assigned missions.

Once they arrived at the mission hall, Kakashi asked the chunin attending one of the desks for a D-rank mission. He received a scroll, which he read and briefed the team on. "Okay, I've got a mission for you three.", he said. "There's a farmer who needs a field cleared; just some rocks and things."

"Hai!", Naruto said, determined to finish the mission as fast as possible. The others also added their own "Hai"s, albeit less excited at the prospect of a d-rank mission, before all three of them followed Kakashi to the farm they would be working at.

When they arrived at the man's farm, he escorted them to a field behind the house and told them to get started. All three of them responded with "Hai"s, before starting work on the field.

They had been clearing rocks from the field for an hour when Naruto discovered a rock too heavy to life by himself. He tried shouting for the others, but they were either too far away to hear, or just didn't want to hear him. Naruto stared at the rock for a few seconds before an idea came to mind. Placing his hands in the Tiger seal, he shouted "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu! (Shadow Clone Technique!)" Making three clones to help him, Naruto was able to get the rock out of the ground and carry it to the edge of the field.

After setting the rock down and dispelling the clones, Naruto realized something. Once again placing his hands in the Tiger seal, he yelled "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu! (Shadow Clone Technique!)" This time however, instead of making three clones, he made 100. Wordlessly, the clones began separating into groups. 80 of them left in pairs to gather rocks, and 20 of them stayed at the edge of the field to pile the collected rocks into a wall.

"Good thinking Naruto.", Kakashi said, observing Naruto's clones doing most of the work in the field. "You made creative use of the resources you had, you're thinking like a shinobi."

Sasuke, seeing Kakashi praise Naruto's efforts, was slightly jealous. 'Why is he praising the dobe, he's not even doing any work, just the clones are.', he thought, observing Naruto's clones at work.

"Okay, come on in.", Kakashi said to the team once they (mainly Naruto) had finished. Not only had the field been cleared of all the rocks, but a decent-sized wall had been built around the perimeter, and all the weeds and grass had been pulled up, and burnt by a Katon Jutsu (Fire Release Technique) from Sasuke.

"Now that we're finished with the mission,", Kakashi said. "Let's grab some lunch, and in the afternoon we can train." All the team members responded with hungry "Yay!"s, but groaned when Naruto suggested Ichiraku's.

"We ate there yesterday Naruto, and you can eat there for dinner.", Sasuke said. "Besides, you took my money earlier, I should choose."

"First, I won it fair and square.", Naruto said. "Besides, I think Hinata-chan should decide, don't you think?"

Sasuke grudgingly agreed, and they both turned to Hinata and awaited her decision. The shy girl blushed at everybody staring at her, but eventually stuttered out "T-There's a barbecue place I-I know some classmates said was good." Naruto and Sasuke both thought that was fine, so they all headed to the barbecue place Hinata mentioned.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Once they got there, they noticed several other teams of their classmates were already eating there. Team eight, Shino; Sakura; and Kiba; were with their sensei, Kurenai, and team ten, Ino; Shikamaru; and Chouji; were also with their sensei, Asuma. Once Ino and Sakura noticed Sasuke, they both stood up and asked Sasuke to sit next to them. Sasuke simply ignored them and sat down at another table. Naruto sat on one side of him, Hinata on another, with Kakashi taking the seat opposite. Of course, that didn't stop the two fangirls, who drug their chairs over from their team's tables to sit next to 'Sasuke-kun.'

"Hinata, I don't think we should ever come here again.", Sasuke said, observing the two fangirls fight over who got to the table first. Hinata didn't say anything, but inwardly agreed slightly. This place was way too crowded for her tastes, she wanted somewhere private with Naruto... 'Ugh. Bad thoughts!', she chided herself, before noticing her food had arrived. All three teammates said "Itadakimasu!", before digging into their food.

Naruto asked Sakura and Ino where their food was. Both of their teammate's orders had just come out, but neither had anything to eat. Ino told him she was on a diet, and Sakura just said she wasn't hungry and that it wasn't any of his business.

"Why in the world are you on a diet?", Naruto asked. "You're a kunoichi, there's no way you could possibly get fat."

"How do you know?", Ino replied. "Look at Chouji." Chouji sent her a not inconsiderable amount of Killing Intent before returning to his food.

"Chouji's not fat, he's just built that way.", Naruto responded, for which Chouji thanked him. "His whole family's techniques relies on him being able to burn any excess amount of fat in his body for energy, and it wouldn't even be healthy for him to be skinny."

Ino scoffed at Naruto before turning back to stare at 'Sasuke-kun'. Naruto also scoffed back at her, this time at the girls' stupidity, before turning back to his food.

Once the team had finished eating, Kakashi took them to a training field. Unlike the last one, this one had a stone in it, with numerous people's names on it. "Do you know what this stone is?", Kakashi asked. None of them answered, so he continued. "This stone... is a monument to the heroes of this village.", Kakashi explained.

"I'm going to get my name on that stone too!", Naruto said tactlessly.

"Are you sure?", Kakashi asked. "Because all of the names on this stone... are of dead people." Naruto's face fell at hearing that. "They all died serving our village. Many people I regarded as friends have their names on that stone, and my best friend and teammate also has his name on it."

"I'm still going to get my name on that stone.", Naruto said, though less excitedly. "I'm just going to make sure it's a long, long time before it's there."

"That's very noble of you Naruto, but are you sure you mean that?", Kakashi asked. "You can say that all you want now, but it won't help you if you freeze up and get someone killed later on in another mission."

Naruto thought about that. It was true he thought that he could do something amazing, but thinking it would not help him once it came down to doing something. "I won't do that.", Naruto said. "And I never go back on my word."

Kakashi gave an eye-smile to the three of them. "Now, the reason I've taken you here after that mission is to show you the difference between what you call 'glorified chores' and a real mission. To my knowledge, nobody has ever died on an in-village d-rank. That changes as soon as the mission gets harder. One or all of you may not come back from one of these missions, and I guarantee the other two of you will feel like shit for the rest of your lives because of it.", he explained. "But the goal should be to make sure that doesn't happen. Remember, your comrades come before the mission. If you have a choice between sacrificing the mission and sacrificing someone's life, you sacrifice the mission, unless there is an overriding reason not to."

Kakashi again gave them an eye-smile. "But for now, don't worry about that. Now is training time. Naruto, the Hokage told me you have been studying Kenjutsu some. Mind showing me what you can do?", Kakashi asked.

Naruto unsealed his Shinai from a scroll he carried inside his jacket. He performed some of the katas the scroll he had gotten showed, and asked Kakashi if he was doing them right. Kakashi corrected him some, but otherwise told him he was doing fairly well, for a beginner. Kakashi then told him to form a dozen shadow clones. Naruto complied, but then asked him why.

"You read the scroll on shadow clones, right?", Kakashi asked.

"Yeah.", Naruto responded.

"So what is the main point of a shadow clone?", he asked.

"Information gathering. You send a cone somewhere so the original doesn't have to risk is life, and when the clone is dispelled, the original gets its memories.", Naruto said, nearly perfectly reciting what was on the scroll.

"Very good Naruto.", Kakashi said. "It works the same way with what you are doing now. Clones cannot help you get stronger physically, but they can help you learn things faster."

"So... how does this help me with kenjutsu?", Naruto asked. "It would be strength, wouldn't it?"

"Ah, actually no,", Kakashi said. "since you're not trying to build up strength. what you're actually doing is trying to get used to the motions you need to go through. That requires that you have enough training to instinctively know what to do. If you use your clones to help, it should take less time than it normally would to learn, and depending on how many clones you make, it should make it take that much less time. For instance, if you made one clone, it would take half the time, two clones, a third the time, and so on. With the numbers of clones I've seen you make, it should take no time at all to learn techniques that would take months, or even years, to learn normally."

"Okay.", Naruto said. It seemed simple enough, just make a bunch of clones and have them work on something until it was perfect. Kakashi told both Naruto and the dozen clones he had made to start fighting in pairs, so they could work out what the weaknesses in each other's styles were. After he had started with Naruto, he moved on to Sasuke. He mainly focused on strength training for Sasuke, and the same for Hinata. After several hours of training, Kakashi called them all back in for a meeting.

"Okay, here's how training is going to work for now.", Kakashi explained. "In the morning, we'll do a D-Rank, or, if you get better, an in-village C-Rank. After we're done with the mission, we'll have lunch. Once we're done eating, we'll work on training. Naruto, you'll work on chakra control, taijutsu, and kenjutsu with your clones. You have ridiculous amounts of stamina, but you can't put it to good use without proper chakra control. Sasuke, you work on strength training and taijutsu. You're mainly oriented towards speed, just like the rest of the Uchiha, and strength would be a good thing. Hinata, we'll work on strength training and endurance. After training, all of you will fight against me. No rules, just try to defeat me in combat. After we're done with training, if you want, we can eat dinner, or you can go straight home. Anybody have problems with that?" Nobody disagreed with Kakashi's training regiment, so he simply said "Good, do you all want to eat dinner with your team today or not?" Everybody wanted to eat with their teammates, so they decided (read: Naruto bugged them enough) to go to Ichiraku's.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

He had to get out of the village. They had captured him before, and they would do it again if he let them. That was why he was running away from that despicable place as fast as his legs would take him.

He didn't know why they had left him with one of the cruelest women he knew to be tortured, but he had managed to escape once again. By now, he had managed to escape so many times that he had almost given up hope of getting away from his captors. But not quite. As long as he could get away, he would keep trying, until the day he could, once and for all, escape from the village. Once he made it across the edge of the clearing, he would be home free. Wait, was that someone behind him? He ran faster. Just a little more to go now...

"Gotcha!", Naruto yelled, picking up a hissing cat with a bow in its ear. "Ugh. This is the fifth time I've had to catch this stupid thing, can't we do something else?"

"Hmm...", Kakashi said, thinking. "Well, your teamwork is getting better, and I think you're all doing decently with your training, so... yeah."

"Really!", Naruto said, excited at the prospect of doing something besides manual labor and catching Tora, who was still trying to claw his face off.

"Yup.", Kakashi replied. "I think you're ready for a simple C-rank, so we'll have one tomorrow. I'll let you go early today to rest up and get ready for leaving, so you can go home right after we drop this cat off at the mission hall."

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

That was what led to the team's current waiting for their sensei in the 'memorial stone' training field. The had, so far, been waiting on Kakashi for an hour, with no sign of him ever getting there.

"So, what do you think we'll do?", said Naruto. "I bet it'll be something cool, don't you think so Sasuke? How about you, Hinata?" Naruto continued rambling about the 'cool' mission that the team would soon be doing, too busy talking to let Sasuke or Hinata get a word in edgewise. Eventually Kakashi made an appearance, halting Naruto's excited, and rather one-sided, discussion with his teammates.

"OK, you're all here, I guess we're ready to go.", Kakashi said, looking at the assembled (and excited-looking) team.

"So what are we doing, Kakashi-sensei?", Naruto asked.

"I don't know, we'll see when we get assigned a mission.", Kakashi said. "Once we get to the mission hall, I'll just ask them for a C-rank mission instead of a D-rank."

Team seven headed to the mission hall, where Kakashi asked the attending chunin to give them a C-rank mission. The chunin complied, handing them a scroll, and sending them out to meet their client. Once they saw him, all of them stared in disappointment. He was an old man, carrying (and drinking from) a bottle of sake in his hand. He seemed similarly disappointed.

"What's this?", he asked. "I ask for a ninja escort, and instead I get a bunch of kids and their babysitter. And what about that short one there, he looks like he should be in school right now."

All three of the genin on team seven lined up to compare heights. "Damn!", Naruto said, noticing he was the shortest. "Hey! Watch who you're calling short. I'm Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage, and already one of the best seal masters in the village!" In truth, he was good at seals, but the only reason he was considered good in the village was his lack of competition. He didn't have to mention that though.

"Ha! A brat like you, Hokage?", the man scoffed. "I'd sooner be Hokage."

Kakashi spoke up. "Well, they're better than you think, and I'm a high-ranking jonin, so whatever comes up, I'm sure we can take care of it."

"Hn.", the man grumbled in a way reminiscent of Sasuke. "Well, whatever. Let's get going, I've got to get back to Nami no Kuni (Land of Waves), and I want to get there soon, if you can get going."

"Okay.", the three genin grumbled. They started walking out of the village, towards the land of waves.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"How long is it going to take, Kakashi-sensei?", Naruto asked. "We've been walking for hours."

"It'll be a while, Naruto.", Kakashi replied. "Wave isn't exactly next door, and it takes a while to walk everywhere, especially with a drunk civilian with us." Said drunk civilian glared at Kakashi slightly before stumbling. "As I said, drunk civilian. Anyways, we need to walk to the point where we can get to the coast, and from there secure passage across the water."

"You mean get a boat?", Naruto asked.

"Yes, Naruto.", Kakashi replied. "I mean get a boat."

They walked for a while longer without anything happening, when they came across a strange sight. Kakashi noticed a puddle in the road, even though it hadn't rained in nearly a week. He didn't say anything about it though, preferring to see how his students would handle it. As expected, the 'puddle' genjutsu was soon dispelled, and two people jumped up, holding a chain. They immediately went after Kakashi, and, surprisingly, won. They jumped into the air, wrapping their chain around him. Kakashi only had time to mutter a "What?", before they reached the ground, pulling the chain taut. It ripped Kakashi into several chunks, and covered the ground in blood.

"Who's next?", one of them said threateningly. "Leave the old man and we'll only send you back with minor injuries."

"No way!", Naruto yelled, rushing at them with a kunai.

"Ha!", one of them said. They also ran towards him, trying to use the chain in between them to slice Naruto's head off. Which it did, but not before 'Naruto' could place several explosive tags on the chain. He then dispelled in a puff of smoke, confusing the two. They then realized what he had done, but were too late to avoid being hit by the combined force of five explosive tags, pushing them both to their respective ends of the chain. One of theirs' gauntlet ripped apart, completely destroyed by the force the chain pulled it with, and the other of the two ninjas looked as if they had dislocated a shoulder. The one with the destroyed gauntlet fell to the ground, clutching what was left of his hand, which had mostly been ripped off, along with part of his arm. The other tried futilely to pull his shoulder back into position, but, failing, grabbed a kunai in his other hand to resume fighting.

"Brat! Guess who's getting killed next.", he yelled, running towards the group. "Now I don't care what you do, none of you are getting away."

Sasuke acted next, pulling out a kunai and fighting the injured ninja with it. He seemed to be doing fairly well, until the other caught him by surprise, hitting him with his other arm, which Sasuke thought was immobile. Just as Sasuke was about to be beaten, Kakshi came out of the tree he was sitting in.

"I think that's enough.", he said, observing the startled enemy ninja, who now had a kunai held at his throat. Kakashi quickly cut the man's throat open, pulling him to the side so the blood wouldn't get on Sasuke. "The Demon Brothers of the Hidden Mist.", Kakashi said, pointing to the two, one of which was dead, the other missing most of an arm, and trying desperately to stop the flow of blood. "Chunin from Kirigakure. What might they be doing here, hmm?"

Kakashi walked over to the remaining ninja. "So, what were you doing? Trying to get me? The old man? Who?"

"W-We were paid to kill the bridge builder, that's all.", the man stammered out.

"Okay.", Kakashi said, turning around. The Kirigakure shinobi sighed, before Kakashi turned back around and put a kunai through the top of his skull. "Now that that's taken care of, would you mind telling me why this is a C-rank mission, even though there are enemy ninjas after you?", he asked Tazuna

"Please, I couldn't pay for a B-rank. I just need to get back to wave to finish the bridge. Once we get back there, I can pay you for an A-rank, just get me back there safely.", Tazuna begged.

"Well, we're out of the mission boundaries.", Kakashi said. "If I had any sense at all I would turn around right now and leave you here. But I don't, which is why I'm going to ask my students if they want to stay. So, should we keep going?", he asked the three.

'There's no way I'm returning from my first mission as a failure.', Naruto thought. "Of course! We can't just leave him to die out here.", he said.

'There's no way the dobe's getting this one, I'm going too.', Sasuke thought, before also acknowledging in the affirmative. Hinata didn't seem to care one way or another, so she just agreed with her two teammates.

"Well, it's your lucky day, isn't it?", Kakashi said to the grateful bridge-builder. "Let's get going, we want to get to wave, don't we? Naruto, take care of those two." Kakashi pointed to the two 'demon brothers'. "If you want, you and Sasuke can probably get the bounties on them, just seal their bodies into a scroll." Naruto did so, pulling a storage scroll out from his jacket and sealing their bodies in it, to be returned to a bounty office later.

With that, Team Kakashi continued on to Nami no Kuni, leaving behind them the forests of Hi no Kuni (Land of Fire).

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"You what?", an irate midget in a business suit said, glaring at a man sitting, relaxed, on a couch. "How could you fail, it was a team of genin and their babysitter of a jonin. How could your 'Demon Brothers' possibly fail against them? I paid you to get rid of that bridge-builder, not dawdle all day here, relaxing on a couch."

Before the short man could react, a ridiculously large sword was at his neck. "Don't worry, Gato. I'll have them taken care of.", the man on the couch said.

"Just make sure that you do.", said a shaken-up Gato. "I don't want any more failures."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. With the same sword now resting on your shoulder, I'll cut off their heads. There's a reason I'm called the Demon of the Bloody Mist, Momochi Zabuza."

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Wow, that one took forever. I'm not sure what happened, it was a fairly short chapter. For some reason, it just sat at the 2,000 word mark for a while. I've been pretty busy this past week (and a half), and haven't had time to update, or something like that. I think I'll stick to weekly updates from now on, since I'm working on a third story, and a possible fourth one in the works, but I'm going to try to limit the amount of stories I'm working on at one time, so I'll probably cut it down to two or three.

Anyways, it's getting kind of late for a weekday (if you consider 3:00 am late, as opposed to early), and I need some sleep, contrary to popular belief.

(SHAMELESS PLUG WARNING.) Look for an update of my other story, Hanyou no Yoko soon. (Thinking of changing the title to Hanyou no Kitsune.)

Review, or the Giant Fox of DOOM™ will get you.

Bitshoptyler out!