The next week saw us return to what most ninja would call a normal existence, for the most part. However, after two years of running one gets accustomed to the thrill of an adrenalin rush and old habits become hard to break.
"Hey brat, get back here!"
Their calls chased me faster than they did. The slow chunins set to watch this precinct of Konoha, not having gone on combat missions for a while, and being lax in their training had made them slow.
'They can't catch me.' I casually looked back over my shoulder to see them falling further and further behind. I came to a crashing halt though, as I slammed into something, almost suffered a case of whiplash from the speed at which my head slammed forward, trying to continue my early movement. Stumbling for a moment before regaining my balance I looked at what I had hit. A large man, of around 6'2, and built like a bear stood before me, dressed in regulation ANBU gear, the man had, rather appropriately, a bear mask covering his face.
"I'm sorry, Bear-san, I didn't see you there."
"It's rather hard to see what's in front of you if you are looking behind yourself... brat." His fist lashed out and struck me across the face, but before I went flying off from the blow, his hand opened and grasped my shoulder, yanking me back towards him. I braced myself for another blow, but instead he allowed me to hit the roof, knocking the breath out of me. While I was down recovering my breath he crouched down behind me and grabbed my hands, yanking them behind me and lashing them together. I didn't have to look to know that my hands had been tied using the chakra absorbing ties that all ANBU carried around. Bear stood when he was done, and picked me up and tossed me upon his shoulder like a sack of potatoes one could buy at a store. I looked up at the horizon, wishing to be away from the rules again, despite the fact that I knew that once I was out there I would long for the safety and friendship offered by this village.
"Thank you for catching the brat, we'll take him for here." The chunins had finally caught up and were showing their incompetence to Bear with their ragged breathing. He looked at them for a moment before replying.
"Hokage-sama wants him." With that he turned and braced to jump away to the next building. As he turned one of the chunin swung at me. Seeing this, my chakra surged to the seal that I now used to control my summon/transformation technique. I managed to stop the surge and only let enough through to the seal to change my facial features somewhat. I opened my mouth and caught his fist between my now sharpened teeth. Sinking my teeth into his skin I watched in amusement at the horrified look that was upon his face. I let go with a sickening squelching sound, and licked my lips clean of his blood.
"It's not nice to swing at a defeated man. Let's not keep the Hokage waiting Bear-san."
The sudden movement that followed almost made me lose what was in my stomach. I let my eyes unfocussed as we sped over the rooftops.
"Was it really necessary to drink his blood?" He asked me quietly.
"All blood tastes good to my summon, besides it wouldn't look good to show up in front of the Hokage with blood on my lips like I am some animal that was having a snack of raw flesh."
After that the only noise I heard was the roar of the wind as we sped across the village for the next minute. I closed my eyes to it all and entered a state of meditation of sorts, while not full meditation, as I was still conscious, to a degree, of the outside world, but my focus was within. Suddenly I found myself flying, no support from the man that had been carrying me just moments ago. I let myself go limp, totally relaxing all my muscles. I was glad that I was in the semi meditation state or fear would have tightened my body. It is said that an unconscious man can fall for over a mile and survive because the muscles in his body would relax to an extent that the bones can flex and absorb the shock of impact. Weather this is true or not I do know that one can fall a long ways and walk it off if one can relax. I felt wood underneath me at the same instant I saw a window frame appear in my field of vision. Flexing my legs I let myself roll and used my momentum and a flexed neck to flip onto my feet. At the same time I slashed the ties on my wrists using my bloodline sharpened nails. Landing lightly on my feet I didn't acknowledge the people in the room for a minute as I rubbed the welts that were starting to rise on my wrists.
'He didn't have to tie them so tight… this isn't the view out of the Hokage's window. This is…'
"Was it Hokage-sama, or was it the nefarious council that has summoned me?" I looked over my shoulder at the room full of people that seemed out to ruin my life, and the lives of my friends.
"Ah, don't speak so cruelly of us, we just want to help." Tsume replied, a teasing smirk on her face. The Inuzuka head was probably the only one person on the council who I would call a friend. Other than her helpful vote the only ones I can count on to be at least neutral vote were Shikaku Nara, Shino's dad whose name I don't couldn't remember for the life of me, and the old man Hokage himself, who despite the incredible fondness he held for Naruto and myself, would vote for the village, and would do so even if it meant that he and his family would have to die. He truly deserved respect for that.
"Eric Scydling, you are once again brought before the council on charges of criminal misbehavior. Do you have anything to say for yourself this time?" the Aburame head spoke.
I raised an eyebrow at the charge, "I wasn't aware that pranking was against the law."
Tsume let out a bark of laughter, "He got you old coots good there."
The Aburame head sighed. "Ever since you three have returned you have been causing a public disturbance wherever you go." He waved his hand at a corner of the room, beconing me to look there. I did and saw Tenten with her hands tied before her and Naruto trussed up like a wild boar, with his hands and feet bound together and a gag between his teeth, hanging from a pole held by to members of ANBU. I walked over to them and before anyone could lift a finger in protest their bonds were slashed. As I helped Naruto to stand I casually threw a challenge over my shoulder.
"Were we creating the disturbances or were the civilians creating the disturbances? I seem to remember the latter in all but my latest case." When I looked back at the clan heads, many of the ninja clan heads had a small smile on their faces. It was perhaps one of the worst kept secrets out there that the ninja and civilian councils didn't see eye to eye and often saw a decision made by the other to be a slight towards themselves.
"Anyway it has been decided that you three will get one more chance. Blow it and you will be banished again." This time it was Hinata's dad, Hiashi that spoke. "You will each be given a mission as a way to vent some of that energy you have, when you return you will enter the chunin exams. We will see what will happen from there."
"And the mission rank?" I inquired.
No one spoke for a minute, until Tsume responded in a sad voice. "A rank."
'A rank? That's the level of missions that elite jonin and ANBU go on! Do they really expect that we will survive?'
The Third waved his hand. Another hand placed itself on my shoulder and guided me out of the room, following Naruto, Tenten, and their own ANBU escort.
"Nice entrance." Bear's voice whispered into my ear.
"That doesn't mean you can just drop someone." I hissed back. It was quiet for a moment before he responded.
"There are four things you need to be a good fighter. First, eyes; you need to be able to understand the situation. Second, feet; know where you are and how the terrain will affect you, know yourself and how you fight, know your position. Third, heart; have the courage to go on no matter the odds. Fourth, power; being able to dish out better than you receive in every encounter. Your friend Tenten has excellent eyes and Naruto has awesome power and courage for someone his age. You, however, have the best understanding of feet I have ever seen, with the only possible exceptions being the Hokages I've met and a few members of ANBU. I wanted to see how you reacted to that situation and you handled it much better than I thought. That doesn't mean I'll forgive you for slashing my ties. You will have to pay me back for them."
His hand tightened on my shoulder as he said this and I knew that if I were to try to skimp on the money I would regret it.
Suddenly his hand forced me to the right, into and open doorway and forced me to sit down in the chair that wasn't occupied by one of my friends. In front of us was Ibiki, sitting behind a desk. On our side of the desk were three manila foulders, each one filled with papers.
"We have talked with your sensei's on this one and they have all agreed that you three are competent enough to handle this. Understand now, if anything escapes this room, all three of you will be executed on charges of treason, even if only one of you squeaked. Now recently the Daimyo has heard mutterings at his court of civil war. With the help of our spies we have traced their sources back to four men. Your mission will to be to assassinate these four men."
With that he each handed us a folder and continued as we looked inside the folder we had been given.
"You three must know this, until you step back in this room with the signet rings of these people you are not Ninja of the Leaf. You are merely hired assassins. No names hired by jealous rivals. Read and memorize the information within the folder you have been given. You will be working by yourself. You will stay here for the rest of the afternoon. Before leaving you will burn the folders. At dusk you will be blindfolded and lead outside the village and pointed in the direction of your target. When you have completed the assignment will arrive at the specified location and will be escorted back within the village."
With that he stepped out of the room followed by our escorts. The click of the lock echoed in the room. I looked down at the open folder in my hands, then at my friends. Tenten's face was pale, almost a deathly white, and she looked frightened, staring at her hands. Naruto looked… shell-shocked, his brain looping on one thing, repeating like a skipping CD.
"You guys," I started knowing that they didn't like the idea of killing.
"Shut the hell up! Do you think that we want to hear another lecture about how easy it is to kill?" Tenten shouted, "How easy it is to take another's life? To end someone's existence?" She broke down crying and that seemed to snap Naruto out of his mental skipping. He put down his folder and hugged her crying form, attempting to ease her mental anguish.
"Thought that last one is controversial, that isn't what I was going to say. Do I really seam that much like Zabuza-sensei to you that you would accuse me of being heartless? Just because I am ruthless on the battlefield doesn't mean that I am that way with my friends." I sighed, and rubbed my face with my hands. "Think of it this way. An assassins job is to end a life so another might be saved. There is no war as bloody as a civil war. When a nation turns on itself, when ideals clash, families will fight each other, brother against brother, father against son, mother against daughter… Civil war brings more heartache, more pain, more death, more destruction than any other war. Do you know the death rate of the Third Shinobi War?"
Despite their seeming indifference of my words, they both knew that I knew they were listening, as shown by the calming of Tenten's crying and her answer.
"It was about one in five, right?"
I nodded. "The bloodiest of the great wars left a death rate of one in five shinobi. Ninja make up less than five percent of a nations fighting force. We make up less than one tenth of a percent of a nation's population. Civil wars have been known to kill up to one in ten of everyone."
Tenten's crying had stopped but she didn't look entirely convinced. Naruto however saw what I was trying to convey.
"So we must kill to save."
"Yes. Our job as shinobi is to be the shadows. Always present, always watching, waiting to eliminate any threat to the people we protect. That is where we differ from bounty hunters. They kill for money, we kill to protect. Like any army, we kill to protect, whether it be those close to us, or ideals that we live by, we kill to protect. "
I returned my attention back to the papers in my hand and set about memorizing what was printed on them.
Name; Akane Chosokabe
'Wait, four men?'
I flipped through the pages before coming to another name.
Name; Ino Date
'Great, I have to kill two women, just my luck. Damn you fox for taking all the luck in this village and giving it to Naruto! Lucky bastard.'
AN: This was going to be one long chapter, combined with the next one, but it started getting rather long and I wasn't even half way done with the chapter, so I looked for a stopping point and that was it. Sorry it took so long to update, my muse decided it was time for vacation without telling me and only just got back.
Please review.