Chapter Thirteen - Missions

At the training ground the next morning we performed our warm up exercises while waiting for Kakashi, who was again watching us from a large distance, even though he knew that I could sense him. Instead of grabbing him with the Flying Thunder God, I instead take the time to think and plan for the future.

'There's only a little bit of time before our first C-rank mission. I thought that I was gaining strength at a good enough pace. Kakashi proved otherwise yesterday when he took me down so easily. In canon, Zabuza was able to fight with Kakashi relatively equally. I doubt there will be anything that I'd be able to do to help… Even if I don't worry about Zabuza, knowing that everything turns out fine in the end, the Chunin exams are approaching quickly. If I keep going at this rate, there's absolutely nothing that I'll be able to do against Orochimaru, or even Gaara if he succeeds in letting out Shukaku. I need to start training harder. I've been holding back on using shadow clones to train so that I could focus on building up my chakra reserves. I don't have anything close to Naruto's crazy reserves, but I've managed to get to a point equal to an average Jonin. This will have to do. I no longer have the luxury of taking things slowly and I need to take full advantage of the potential of the bloodline ability that I created.'

Finishing my thoughts, I create my current safe limit of three shadow clones, which head off to do their own training. Turning to my team and seeing confused looks, I say, "I've decided it's time to pick up my training pace. A little known secret of shadow clones is that anything they learn transfers to you when they dispel." Seeing stars in Naruto's eyes, I quickly continue, putting an end to any ideas of hundreds of clones training, "Naruto, if you decide to do this, don't use more than four or five clones to start with. It's incredibly mentally taxing. If you use too many at once it could cause way worse than a slight headache."

Seeing the severity of the situation he nods and creates three clones.

Kayana seems dispirited as I turn to her and say, "You should have enough chakra by now to safely create a clone for training if you wanted to." She immediately lights up and creates a clone.

Kakashi suddenly appears before us with a body flicker and asks, "What are you sending out clones for?"

Naruto snorts before replying, "We decided to get some training done since you didn't want to show up on time to train us."

Completely ignoring Naruto, Kakashi turns to me.

Sighing, I respond, "As you showed me yesterday, I'm not strong enough. So I'm using Shadow Clones to pick up my training pace. The others just decided to follow along."

Kakashi nods and asks, "Well, looks like I don't have to train you guys then since you've got it all under c-"

Naruto interrupts with a yell, "No you don't! You're not getting out of teaching us! Teach us some cool jutsu!"

Kakashi sighs and hands us each a small slip of paper. "I guess I could do something about that. Put some Chakra into this paper."

Slightly shocked, I ask, "Chakra paper? We're going to start working with our affinity already?"

He shrugs and responds, "Might as well. You guys are already way ahead of the rest of the Genin. Even some that have been out of the academy for a while. The next step for you guys is continuing the training that you've been doing while adding in nature manipulation."

Nodding, I do as instructed and put a small sliver of chakra into the paper, smiling as it wrinkles up.

Kakashi eye smiles and says, "Lightning affinity, the same as me. I've got plenty of exercises and jutsu to go over. Naruto, your turn."

Naruto cheers and pushes chakra into the paper, causing it to split in half, then looks questioningly to Kakashi.

Kakashi answers the unasked question, "Wind affinity. I'm not all that great with it, but I do know of someone whose affinity is wind. I'll talk to them and see if they can give you a few tips. Lastly, Kayana."

Kayana nods and injects chakra, causing the paper to burst into flames.

Kakashi says, "Fire affinity. I'm pretty good with fire. It's the most popular affinity in the village as well, so there won't be any shortage of people to help if you need any more tips."

He picks up a leaf off the ground before continuing. "The first step in training your nature manipulation is doing to a leaf what happened to the paper." He demonstrates by causing the leaf to wrinkle with his chakra, mimicking what happened to my chakra paper.

Nodding, we all grab a leaf and get started.

Several hours pass before Kakashi reminds us that it's time to break for lunch and then do our first mission. Kayana managed to make the most progress with her leaf, burning around half of it. Naruto managed to cut his leaf almost a quarter of the way through, while I managed to wrinkle around a quarter of my leaf.

Walking to Ichiraku's, I ask Kakashi, "Sensei, why is it so hard to do this? I can do fire jutsu, but when I tried to burn a leaf, I had even less success than wrinkling it."

Kakashi ponders for a moment before responding, "You had less success with burning because your affinity is for lightning, which makes anything to do with lightning several times easier. The reason you can perform jutsu is because of hand signs. Hand signs act similarly to a pottery mold. When you perform hand signs, your chakra follows the patterns and manipulations that the hand signs dictate, filling the mold. Nature transformations are included in that design. That's also why you see some ninja that can perform jutsu with fewer hand signs. They can manually manipulate their chakra, without the hand signs that they're skipping."

Nodding, I decide to put it to the test with a transformation jutsu. Carefully molding my chakra, I transform into Kakashi. Turning to the real Kakashi, I see his eye twitching as he speaks. "Kid, just how good is your chakra control? Not even a Jonin could do that on the first try."

Dispelling my transformation and scratching my cheek I respond, "Ehhhh, the only person I've seen that doesn't waste more chakra than me is the Hokage, but I'm tied with him."

Hearing my words, Kakashi trips, and face plants.

A few seconds pass before he's back on his feet and responding, "You mean to tell me that your chakra control is on par with the God of Shinobi?"

At my nod, he uncovers his Sharingan and says, "Transform again."

Knowing where this is going, I sigh and transform into him again. Laughing as his eyes widen like he doesn't believe what he's seeing.

He doesn't speak until after we get to Ichiraku's and have ordered. "Ayo, your chakra control is simply unheard of for someone your age. Adding that to the equally impressive amount of chakra that you have… You have amazing potential. All three of you do. I'm going to have to work on a rougher training plan than what I had already worked out."

After a quick lunch, we find ourselves in front of the Hokage for the first time as official ninja, listening to his words.

"Today you start your path as a ninja of Konoha. The first mission of your career is a stepping stone that you'll never forget. A mission that you will always look back at with fondness." He then turns to Kakashi, "Kakashi, do you have any particular requests?"

I get a bad feeling as Kakashi looks us over and replies, "Yes Lord Hokage, Team 7 has shown exceptional talent, skill, and amazing teamwork. I think that mission would be a perfect starting point for them."

The feeling only gets worse as the Hokage smiles, "Ah! Wonderful! It seems that luck is on your side today. It just came in a few minutes before you arrived." He turns and picks up a scroll from his desk before continuing. "Team 7, your first mission as Genin of Konoha is very important. Entrusted to the village by the wife of the Daimyo herself."

Hearing my fears confirmed, I ignore any other words the Hokage may be saying as I spread my senses to their full active range, which happens to cover the whole village, and search for a cat with a red ribbon on its right ear. Using the full focus and mental capacity of my enhanced mind I scour the entire village within the span of a few seconds. I finally find the damn beast in the farthest corner of the village, hiding in an alley.

The Hokage is cut off mid-speech as I disappear in a flash of red light, grab Tora the cat, and appear back in the office with another flash, a shocked cat in my hands, saying to the Hokage with a wide smile, "Unfortunately Lord Hokage, there must have been a mistake, that cat isn't missing, so we'll need another mission to be our never forgotten first mission."

With a defeated expression, Kakashi looks between the stunned Hokage and me before asking, "Can he even do that? Isn't that cheating?"

The Hokage just sighs before grumbling, "Damn, I've been waiting years to pull this mission out and give it to your team." Grabbing another scroll off his desk and throwing it to Kakashi he finishes, "Security detail at the civilian market. Dismissed." He then sits while lighting his pipe and waves us out.

As we walk out towards the mission location, I turn to Kakashi, "I will never do that mission. Never… If you try to get that mission again, I'll systematically hunt down and burn every copy of Icha Icha in the village."

Kakashi freezes, looking pale, as the rest of us continue forward. Naruto and Kayana throw me confused glances that I ignore.

A short, silent walk later, we reach the market and start our patrol.

The rest of the afternoon and evening is uneventful by ninja standards. A majority of any crimes are prevented just from the presence of someone with a headband. This is made even more effective with my senses. Any potential crimes I spot are easily stopped by making sure we are seen. The few idiots that think they can get past a few kids playing ninja are quickly apprehended and transported to jail with the use of the Flying Thunder God.

At the end of the day. Kayana reports to Kakashi, who had been sitting around reading Icha Icha, before we could head home, when I notice someone pulling out a bundle of explosive tags in the middle of the market. Frowning, I interrupt the others. "Explosive tags, center of the market."

Using the Flying Thunder God, I appear behind the unassuming man and strike out towards his neck, attempting to knock him unconscious. At the last moment, he ducks down, barely dodging my blow. Not expecting him to dodge, I'm caught off guard as he kicks backward making contact with my stomach, causing me to skid back several feet and knocking the wind out of me.

'Why would I think that someone who has access to explosive tags wouldn't have any kind of training. I'm being arrogant and not thinking things through again.' Mentally berating myself, I drop into my stance in time to block a palm strike to the center of my face.

I follow up with a punch to his elbow. Even though I was expecting the following crack, I still internally grimaced at it. The man with the now broken elbow doesn't even react and strikes out with a kick to my knee.

Shocked by his lack of reaction to his elbow being snapped, I'm barely able to shift myself so that his foot hits my shin.

Stepping back, he seems to contemplate for a moment after noticing the lack of damage from his kick.

He then turns and starts running away, only making it a single step before an arrow nails his foot to the ground.

Jerking to stop, he looks down, sees the arrow, then simply lifts his foot, pulling the arrow straight through. Not showing a single sign of pain.

Running off again, he makes it another step before colliding with an army of Naruto's clones. Finding himself surrounded, he proceeds to do what any sane person would do.

He takes an explosive tag, puts it in his mouth, and blows his head off.