Akira's POV
Kakashi woke me up as usual, this time with a blue teddy bear. Now two slightly decapitated stuffy's are sitting on my chair. I rubbed my sore puffy eyes, feeling like I hadn't gotten any sleep at all. Pakkun noticed my eyes and walked with me to the bathroom. He jumped onto the counter while I washed my face in a futile attempt to wake myself up and look like I wasn't crying all night.
'It's bad enough Kakashi knows, I can't let the others know too.'
"So kid, what happened?" Pakkun asked.
"Nothing. Just a bad dream. Come on Kakashi's probably finished heating the ramen." I quickly left the room and headed down the stairs. Pakkun didn't hesitate to follow, he does love breakfast after all.
"Morning." I said.
"Good morning." He placed a bowl of cereal in front of me, not ramen but it'll do.
It was one of the only things he could make without burning the place down. I knew he wanted to question me about the other night, but he seemed to be holding back.
'Idiot probably thinks I'm going to cry again.'
"If you're gonna ask about last night. You better hurry we were supposed to meet the others about half an hour ago." I said, while placing my spoon on my lip.
He quickly glanced at me before looking away, Pakkun who had been eating his own food stopped and stared between us.
"Yes well…" He turned to me before slowly asking. "Are you okay?"
I froze. He's worried? About me? I just thought he would be curious and interrogate me not caring how I felt.
I shook my head before answering. "Yeah I'm fine. It was just a nightmare. No big deal."
He looked skeptical. Even Pakkun was giving me the you-suck-at-lying look. "Akira, I'm not letting you leave the house until you tell me what's going on. Maybe I can help."
"No it was just a nightmare nothing big." I looked away and started walking to the door.
Until Kakashi blocked the door with his arm."I don't think it was just a nightmare. You wouldn't have screamed like that if it was your own imagination."
"How do you know? It's not your imagination now is it?"
"Akira. What happened?" He stared down at me.
I looked to the side, "Just bad memories okay. Can we drop it now?" I said in a small voice.
Kakashi dropped his arm and I left the house. I wandered to the meeting spot, I saw the others there and made my way towards them. Naruto and Sakura jumped up and yelled, "You're late!"
"Yeah, sorry. My dog got loose and I had to find it." I lied.
"Oh okay." Naruto went back to sitting in the grass doing nothing.
"Akira you have a dog? What type? Is it cute? Can I come over and see it?" Sakura began asking.
"Yeah I got a dog, well more of a puppy and I'm not sure what type he is. I guess you could call him cute but he'd probably bite you." I thought thinking of Pakkun.
"Aww but can I come and see him sometime?" She begged.
"Uhh…"
Luckily for me Kakashi appeared right when I needed him to. "Sorry I'm late there was an apple shortage at the store so…"
"Liar!" Sakura and Naruto yelled at him.
"Anyways, Kakashi what are we doing today?" He cast a swift glance at me and my eyes widened as I realized my mistake.
'I hope no one noticed.' I cast a glance at the others Naruto was asking Kakashi about the mission while Sakura was fawning over Sasuke. Sasuke on the other hand was staring right at me with a suspicious glare.
'Oh no. He noticed, of all the people he's going to be harder to trick. If only it'd been Naruto or Sakura they'd be simple. I have the worst luck sometimes.'
"Alright, today we'll be locating a missing cat. Distinguishable features: red ribbon on the right ear. Here are a set of radio communication devices. We'll be splitting up to look. Let's go."
We all took off on different paths, mine was the furthest away from Sasuke I could get. It took about 20 minutes to actually locate the stupid cat but after that catching it, it was a cinch. After surrounding it Naruto was able to grab it. Sadly for Naruto the cat didn't take to him. Actually Naruto got pretty beat up by the cat.
"Naruto stop picking on the cat." Sakura scolded as she tried to pick the cat off of Naruto's face. "Ow! It scratched me." She began to examine the fairly large red line that had appeared across the back of her hand.
While all this was going on Sasuke nonchalantly reported to Kakashi that we'd found the cat. I was about to ask him to help when the cat suddenly jumped into my arms. I stared down at it as it purred contently. Sakura made comments on how good I am with animals, while Naruto glared at the cat, Sasuke just walked off towards the Hokage's tower.
Once there we saw exactly why that poor cat ran away. The Firelord's wife was practically squishing it to death.
Naruto began laughing at it, "Stupid cat, that kitty deserves to be squashed."
"No wonder it ran away." Sakura mused.
"Naruto, why do you hate it?" I asked.
"I just don't like cats is all and they don't like me." He said with such finality that I knew better than to delve into the subject.
'He probably had some sort of traumatizing moment or something.'
"Now then, for squad 7's next mission we have several available tasks. Among them Babysitting the chief counselors 3 year old, helping his wife to do the shopping, digging up potatoes,"
"NOOO." Naruto groaned. " I want to go on a real mission. Something challenging and exciting not this little kid stuff. Come on old man." Naruto said while making an X with his arm.
"Hey Lord Hokage." I said gaining their attention. I called him Lord Hokage only because we were in a room filled with important council members. "Naruto has a point, can you give us an actual mission and not some demeaning chores."
"How dare you! You just a brand new genin with no experience!" Iruka stood up with his hands planted on the desk.
"I resent that! You can't gain experience if you don't go out and obtain it. So just give us a good mission already and we'll be on our way!" I yelled back getting closer to the desk.
"Yeah yeah. He has a point we shouldn't have to do stupid-" It was then Kakashi had heard enough out of Naruto and punched him upside the head.
'I'm so glad I'm now out of punching range. Poor Naruto first he gets punched then a face plant. That has gotta hurt.'
"Oh yeah! How about when you stop acting like a little kid then maybe I'll give you a C rank." Iruka taunted.
"I'm not a little kid got it?" By now I was right in his face, hands planted on the desk in front of him.
"That's enough you two." The Hokage intervened.
Kakashi walked over, picked me up by my cloak and I automatically assumed the 'Hunted Deer' position over his shoulder. It was then the Hokage talked about ranks.
'So Kakashi is really a high rank huh? Doesn't act like it.' As Gramps ranted on and on about the missions our group kinda tuned him out in favor of Naruto's lovely discussion about what ramen he's going to eat today. You can tell how desperate we were to get out of the lecture.
"Silence!" Gramps must have finally noticed that we all weren't listening including Kakashi.
"Oh, sorry." Kakashi said.
"Sorry? Why should we be sorry? He's the one lecturing us about boring stuff and we should be sorry. This should be a crime." I said still tossed on Kakashi's shoulder.
Kakashi punished me by throwing me up a little bit. Even a small jolt like that "kinda" hurt.
'Ah, that hurt. Damn you Kakashi. He knows I have these bruises too. What's he trying to do to me? Kill my chances of breathing properly. He should at least try and be nicer to the injured. Of course if he was nicer I would probably become suspicious of everything he did.'
"You always lecture me like you're my grandfather or something. But I'm not the little brat who used to pull pranks all the time. I'm a ninja now and I want a ninja mission." Naruto's speech was turned useless the moment he turned around and pouted on the floor.
I watched the shocked expression on Iruka's and Gramps' face turn to smiles.
'Well this is different than what I expected. Kakashi looks just as confused as me. He probably thought he'd be scolded or something.' Kakashi placed me back on the floor.
"Naruto wants us to know that he's not a brat and it seems Akira would like the same thing. They are former brats." Gramps said.
'Oh thanks, that makes everything better.'
"And they want a mission. So be it." Gramps actually gave in.
Both me and Naruto perked up. 'Is he serious? Even after we acted like kids in front of him he's going to give us an actual mission. Wait….there is always a catch, no matter how good a situation is, there is always that damn catch. Everyone else seems as shocked as us. Even Sasuke looks surprised.'
I looked at Kakashi. 'Typical, no emotion.'
"Since you are so determined. I'm going to give you a C-ranked mission. You'll be body guards on a journey." Gramps said.
"Really? Yes! Who? Who? Are we guarding a princess or some busy counselor?" Naruto was really excited not to mention really impatient. Sure I am too but I can at least hide it.
"Don't be so impatient. I will bring him in now. Send in our visitor." He directed to the people outside.
We all turned to face the door and in walked some drunken old man.
'This is the guy we're escorting. How important could the guy be? He's drunk, dressed in regular clothes and…'
"What the…It's a bunch of little snot-nosed kids." He said before taking a swig of whatever alcohol he had.
'he's rude too. I guess this is the catch. We have to put up with some drunkard old man insulting us all the way there. I should probably ask where 'there' is now that I think about it.'
Before I could ask where we were going the old man insulted us again.
"And you the little one with the idiotic look on your face. Do you really expect me to believe you're a ninja?"
'I'm guessing he means Naruto. And it seems Naruto doesn't get it.' I glanced at Kakashi and he shared the same look. 'Naruto you really are an idiot.'
Naruto laughed, "Who's the little one with the idiotic look on his face?" We all looked at him before lining up beside him. Turns out me and him were the same height.
"Me and Akira are the same height so it's gotta be him." Naruto said.
"No Naruto. You two have the same height but Akira is way cooler than you." Sakura yelled the last bit in his face.
Naruto turned to glare at me. 'Oh come on it's not my fault she has weird taste in guys. Wait…I'm a girl. Not a guy. This charade is messing with my head already.' I hung my head slightly in defeat. 'I'm becoming a guy…someone help me.'
"So that means…" Naruto started for the old man with Kakashi holding him above the ground. "I'll demolish you! Let me get him,"
"You can't demolish the client Naruto. It doesn't work that way."
"So what you're saying is after we escort him, he can demolish the guy?"
Kakashi glared at me for giving Naruto the idea. Lucky for Kakashi, Naruto was still yelling. The old man took another gulp of liquor.
"I am Tazuna, a master bridge builder and I must return to my country. I'm building a bridge there that will change our world and I expect you to get me there safely, even if it means giving up your life."
'Why would there be a need to give our lives to saving him? This is a C-rank mission is it not? And where is this damn country? I'm guessing I'm going to have to ask.'
"So does anyone else care to know where we're going cause so far I haven't heard a single word about the place besides they're building a bridge."
The old man turned to look at me, "Hmm." He seemed to be scrutinizing me. "It's the land of waves out on the coast."
"Well I figured from the name it'd have to be by the coast. No need to tell me."
"You should show some respect brat." He leaned over til his face was level with mine. His breathe reeked of sake.
"Why should I? All I see is some weird, drunken, bad breath old guy who insults my friend." I said through a wrinkled nose.
"Oh so the shrimp's your friend." He insulted again.
"You had better stop calling him names." My eyes turned from slightly mocking to a death glare.
'I dare him to make one more comment. He'd better watch his tongue.'
He seemed taken aback and got out of my face. He turned for the door. "Let's go. I gotta be back as soon as possible."
I continued to glare at his back as we walked out of Gramps' office.
"Alright team we'll meet up at the village gates. Tazuna would you mind meeting us there?" Kakashi asked. "Oh and Akira, stop glaring at our client."
Kakashi disappeared. Leaving the rest of us to walk home. We all went our separate ways. At least we were until Sasuke followed me half way home.
"What?" I asked.
"Why is it that you called Kakashi-sensei just Kakashi."
"I think that honorifics are useless and aren't needed. Now I have to go pack and I suggest you do the same." I walked normally until I turned down an alley then I booked it back home.
I knew he was following me though so I took different alley's to get home. I ran into a few neighbours who for some strange reason were trying to talk to Sasuke about random things.
'Odd, wonder why they did that? Oh well it gives me the chance to get away.'
"I'm home." I called into the house.
'It feels nice calling this home. I wish Kakashi had actually been my father. As weird as he is he seems like a pretty good guy.'
"Hello." He said from behind me.
I jumped a good foot into the air spinning around to face him. "Gah! Would you stop doing that?"
"No." He smiled. "Now go get packed. It'll be a long trip."
"Yeah, Yeah. Okay."
"And Akira try calling me sensei from now on. You don't want the others to get suspicious."
"I know. I slipped up. Be back down in a minute." I ran upstairs to my room and threw all the necessities into my pack. It barely filled half the bag.
'Well this makes things easier.' I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and left with Kakashi for the gate.