Hiruzen stood in his office as he watched the clock slowly tick towards five. That was the deadline for Jonin sensei to report back to him. It was also the deadline for all other missions to report to him.

So far he had only two appointments outstanding. One was several hours late, and the other was probably waiting somewhere to let all appointments finish.

With five seconds to go before the second hand ticked its way to him being too late, Kakashi walked through the door.

"Sorry I'm late; I walked past the Inuzuka compound on my way here and had to help retrieve a dozen stray dogs."

"Of course you did. Given the time let's skip straight to business Kakashi. Another failure of a team?"

He could have sworn there was a smirk under that mask.

"Pass. Although only just."

"Amazing. Skill evaluation?"

"The Uchiha is the most advanced of them, although that would be expected. The other two are civilian born; they'll have to be taught how to do things properly. They could be good though, if they can gel together properly."

"And the actual skill evaluation?"

"Not while he's in the room unannounced."

"How did you know that?"

"I can see the signs. That and you have a bit of paper on your desk with the words 'They passed' on it."

"He is very good isn't he?"

"He is."

"Come down Naruto."

In the darkest corner of the room, a roof beam was briefly wreathed in smoke and was replaced with Naruto.

"I know you like hiding, but if anyone else had found you you would be dead. ANBU don't take kindly to assassins. Still, a henge and additional shadows. Very neat. Even if they looked at you directly they still might not notice."

Naruto merely shrugged.

"Kakashi?"

"He's good, quiet and elusive. I only really found him by accident and needed the sharingan to confirm it."

"That good?"

"Some issues. He's a little too formulaic. No personal touches, just a basic flowchart approach to stealth. It works, it's a good strategy. But if someone works him out, he'd be in trouble."

"Good. Any comments Naruto?"

Naruto shook his head.

"Any report on your mission?"

"The genin have no stealth skills and are too direct. The sensei is a pervert, based on my research on the book he is reading, who despite appearances is very quick and clever. I'd expect nothing less from his reputation."

"Not all of us are stealth specialists Naruto, my genin teams looks to be more in the roll of an assault group."

That got a shrug.

"Can I go?"

"You are dismissed. I've given you an apartment in the city. Talk to people if you want to. I'll send someone to call for you when I have a mission for you."

Naruto nodded, walked up the wall and headed out to the roofs off Konoha as the sunset began blurring over the sky.

"Not one to mix words is he? He makes you look like a loudmouth Kakashi."

"True enough. What do you have in mind for him long term?"

"Probably ANBU black ops. He needs a little bit more training and to learn more about people. I'm going to have him trail teams when they start doing higher ranked missions, then let him decide where to go."

Kakashi shrugged and made to leave.

"Kakashi."

He turned around.

"You have a difficult team. It's the only team we force, the best and the worst. Be careful with them, and don't bias yourself."

"I'll try Hokage-sama."

A couple of weeks later

Naruto moved through the trees behind the team he was shadowing.

This team was going to be a pain to stay behind. He sniffed himself and made a mental note to properly wash later. The smell was beginning to get up his nose unpleasantly. He would endure it for the mission.

The girl of the team was a Hyuuga. That alone made him wary. When he had received his Byakugan several years before, he had been warned that the clan would likely want to murder him if they saw the eye.

That was because it meant that a main house Hyuuga had had the eyes ripped out of their face whilst they were still alive, preventing the Hyuuga seal from killing off the eyes. That alone made it nearly impossible.

The second was because the Hyuuga fighting style was incredibly well suited to killing people. Juuken strikes, difficult to pull off but deadly if managed, were able to disable a person's body inch by inch.

The fact she would be able to spot him through any genjutsu and see his chakra meant hiding from her was difficult. He had to hope his eyes had better range than hers did and that she didn't spot him.

Usually, he'd just try and stay in the blind spot of the Byakugan, but that too had held difficulties.

One of the group was an Inuzuka, and had a dog with him.

Naruto wasn't a fan of dogs. They were big, they were noisy, and they had a cunning intelligence seemingly tailor made to root out assassins. Like him.

So to avoid being seen, he had had to make himself smell like the forest. Which had involved breaking open some pine cones and daubing the stuff onto his skin. The smell was unpleasant. Although less unpleasant than getting a knife stuck into him. Again.

The final member was an Aburame. That meant bugs. He vaguely recalled meeting one of his former master's high operatives, an Aburame whose name he couldn't recall at that moment. It was an irrelevant detail for now.

Bugs would be attracted to the pine smell, so he had thrown up a small genjutsu to confuse them enough to leave him alone.

Of course, the bugs would be confused enough that there was an apparent blank where should be a tree, but it would take longer for the bug user to work that out. Then he would drop back out of range.

The sensei didn't appear to be a sensor, although he remained suspicious of her. She dressed weirdly. Almost all of the shinobi seemed to have distinctive traits.

The team was taking a scroll to the border with Suna, an ally of Konoha's. Or something like that. He hadn't really paid attention to it. He was just going to follow the team, kill anything he needed to, then get back to the apartment he had been given, for want of a better place to be.

The Root barracks wasn't allowed, now that he was a full shinobi of Konoha. He had slung the metal plate across his back, where he could reach it if needed and otherwise completely out of the way and where it could give off no reflections. Even if the cloak went, he had dutifully removed the shine from the metal and blackened it to lower the chance of it giving him away.

As far as he was aware, no-one in the block knew he was actually resident in the apartment. He only really moved when they were asleep or it was dark, and was very, very quiet.

It was comfortable and bigger than his old barrack room. And had a lot more light in it. He had immediately modified it to his specifications. The blinds were drawn, allowing only half light into the room. Every moving hinge had been oiled to kill off any noise, and various floorboards were now nightingale trapped.

Simply put, anyone who wanted to come in could be killed very, very quickly.

He turned his thoughts away from the apartment and back to the mission. He moved to a high branch and continued to watch. The team had stopped for a quick break, possibly running ahead of schedule as far as he could deduce.

They weren't tired; in fact the dog user seemed full of energy and excitement, his teammates more reserved. The sensei looked relaxed.

He studied the girl more closely.

The black and white Byakugan vision wasn't particularly good at assessing appearance, but Naruto could read body language. And lips.

'Reserved, shy. No big movements. Hmm, uses full honorific's as well, seems nervous but excited.'

His gaze moved to the dog user, who was bounding around with his canine partner as he talked,

'Brash, loud. Too loud. Offensively loud, I can hear him from here. Quite fast, very extrovert. All big movements. Keeps looking at the girl and smiling.'

His eyes caught the sensei.

'Telling him off. Hmm, authoritarian, but doesn't look comfortable. Similar to the Hyuuga girl. Not used to this. Defensive posture, possibly her fighting style, lack of weapons around. Nin or Genjutsu specialist. Clothing suggests possibly the latter. Kurenai Yuuhi. Confirm with eye colour.'

The Aburame he gave only a sparing glance before he realised he was getting nothing off him other than the fact he was the most proper ninja out there.

'Quiet, glasses could be more optimised though. No discernible body language and his back is turned. Looking back. Should be cautious of him.'

The bug user didn't seem to say anything, and the team was soon moving off again, moving at a 50% pace to reach the border river. He continued following, mentally preparing himself for any conflict that might occurs. An attack was unlikely, but still, it always served to be prepared. As he moved to a better position he slid the crossbow off his back and slipped a bolt into the firing mechanism.

He had studied the maps for the mission briefly, the word river was a stretch, it was little more than a stream. But it served as a boundary, so it had to be a little more grandiose than stream.

The Konoha team was now waiting. He suspected that this mission was a C-rank only because the document was slightly important, and more to just give them experience of field work.

Staying behind them, Naruto shifted himself onto a tree branch, throwing his cloak over himself to keep hidden, readied the bow, and waited.

It took only 15 minutes for the Suna delegation to arrive. By that time, the Inuzuka had got bored, the Hyuuga nervous, the sensei annoyed.

For Naruto, it had barely been any time at all, his crossbow aimed in the general direction of the crossing.

The Suna team was fairly non-descript. Their sensei looked bored as the team made it to their side of the stream, where the vegetation was sparser and shrub like.

Byakugan deactivated for the moment, Naruto began to assess the Suna team.

'Nothing unique looking, clothing suited to desert wear. Genin seem...interested by plant life. Some weaponry amongst the genin. Sensei carries a fan. Interesting.

The Suna jonin waved to his Konoha counterpart, who waved back. He began to cross the stream.

Then there was a bit of a kerfuffle.

Naruto concentrated on the two sensei, which were now in the middle of a standoff. He read the lips to see what the conversation was.

"Aren't you supposed to disarm before you cross the border line?"

"Look. It's a C-rank. No-one is watching, no-one is going to kill us if we break the stupid protocol. Can I just have the scroll so I can get this bunch of bed-wetters home?"

"You haven't even identified yourself. You and your charges carry weapons into Konoha territory, and whilst we are allies, this is an afrontment. I know it's a C-rank, but you should be setting an example for the genin."

"Look bitch, I didn't ask for this."

"Tough. Back off, provide ID or I will take measures against you."

That made things interesting. Naruto turned on the Byakugan to check the chakra signatures. The Konoha team was fine, as were the visible teams, genin lining up loosely behind their sensei warily.

It was the second group of signatures that really made Naruto look again.

There were four of them, hiding in the earth off to one side.

'In the earth, doton jutsu. Another Suna team? Unlikely, the Suna sensei is rude, but only that.'

Naruto thought quickly as he had been taught as his head ran through a number of plans. He narrowed down the options to the ones he could do, then the ones he liked.

Within a second of spotting the hidden team, the crossbow was aimed straight at the largest signature, whose chakra was building slowly. Likely the team leader.

He saw with his normal eye the Suna jonin reach out and push Kurenai. Then it began.

The earth jutsu whipped across the stream at Kurenai, who moved very quickly to avoid it. Kiba leapt forwards, suspecting one of the Suna team to be responsible, only to be knocked back by the Suna Jonin.

Then the other ninja rose from the bushes.

From Hinata's viewpoint, she could see Kiba sprawling back as the Suna Jonin started shouting that none of his team knew that jutsu. Then her Byakugan caught the offenders, who were leaping out to engage the surprised teams.

Then a crossbow bolt slammed through the eye socket of one of the team, and he fell face first into the stream, bloody water splashing up around him.

A second bolt clipped the leg of another of the new arrivals, sending him tumbling to the ground.

By this point, the Suna Jonin had engaged another, and her sensei was flying through handsigns as the final member of the party made straight for her.

She shook as she prepared herself to fight, Shino moving in behind her as they had trained for, as a final crossbow bolt slammed into the man's heart. He fell, oozing blood onto the sand.

A moment later the final member of the ambush was caught in a genjutsu and blindsided by the heavy fan. His torso crumpled in a way that suggested he wouldn't be getting up.

She searched the surroundings for the crossbow wielder. There was someone moving away very fast. They were hooded and their chakra was heavily suppressed. But they were holding a crossbow in one hand and a Konoha headband in the other as they moved away. There was something wrong with their chakra. Heavily wrong. And devastatingly familiar.

The Suna and Konoha teams regrouped. The Suna jonin put his fan away.

"That was an unexpected bonus, now; let's see whose these people are."

He dragged the only living member of the ambush team up by his vest. The man was clutching his leg where the bolt had clipped him.

"Oooh, Iwa. What brings you out here?"

"Fuck you."

Kurenai joined the interrogation.

"Name. Rank. Serial Number."

"Fuck you. Uber-kage. 01101100 01101111 01101100 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010"

She slapped him and turned to her counterpart.

"Hold him still. I think I can make him talk."

She flew through handsigns as she called the genin over.

"Let me show you a nice little genjutsu that I find useful in situations where you have to deal with a smartass. Hinata pay attention, you have Kiba to deal with."

He pouted as she blushed and meeped.

"Demonic Ilusion: Vision of Nightmare."

A second later, the man began screaming, trying to break the hold of the Suna Jonin, who smiled.

"Damn. He doesn't like that does he?"

"He shouldn't. Right now he's dying a number of interesting ways. Well, he thinks he is. He can't even break it."

She deactivated the genjutsu.

"Care to talk now? I hear Ibiki-san back in Konoha likes stubborn ones. They give much more entertainment."

"Yuziko Tayo, Chunin, IS78432."

"Wasn't that easy? Why were you here?"

"B-rank, capture the documents for the Kazekage regarding security protocol for the Ch-"

He started screaming as Kurenai reasserted control.

"Hold your tongue till you return to Konoha. I think I know what you were about to say. Hinata, seal his chakra as best you can. Shino, drain him to a safe amount."

"Hai."

She knocked the unfortunate man out, and turned to her Suna counterpart and passed over the scroll. The man shot her a cheeky smile.

"What? No protocol?"

"I think it's broken enough."

"Damn, you're more fun than I thought. Care to come out to Suna some time?"

The implication was obvious.

"No thank you, I'm a professional. I have a job to finish, so I bid you farewell."

"Good thing you had the backup hidden away. Thank them for me."

Kurenai didn't miss a beat.

"I will."

She walked away at a brisk pace, the unconscious chunin draped over her shoulder in an unladylike fashion. Her team scrambled to follow.

"Kiba stay quiet until we are at least ten minutes away."

He shut his mouth. She hadn't even looked.

The minutes were tense for the team as they made their way back towards Konoha, a days light travel at best. Kiba snapped.

"We had backup?"

Shino was the one to reply.

"No. We would have been told about such backup, it being logical. I cannot think of any reason why we would have unexplained backup."

Hinata swallowed.

"K...Kurenai sensei, I...I"

"Yes Hinata-chan? Don't be afraid."

"I looked for the shooter after the engagement ended. I saw a figure, a bit shorter than Kiba, carrying a crossbow with a leaf hiate."

Kurenai added that to her list of oddities. A crossbow using ninja shadowing a genin team on an otherwise trivial mission.

'Is this the person Kakashi mentioned over drinks awhile back?'

She halted her team.

"All of you scan the surrounding area as best you can and tell me what you can find. Shino, I guess you've already done this?"

He nodded as Kiba and Akamaru began sniffing and Hinata looked everywhere.

"There is nothing outstanding nearby, although it feels like something is out there. Something is confusing my bugs slightly behind us. It is very odd."

She nodded.

"Kiba?"

"Nothing but our team and the forest. Oh, and I think the Iwa guy wet himself."

"Thank you Kiba. I was trying not to notice that little fact. Hinata?"

"He's about 500 metres away from us, back the way we came. His chakra is...odd. He's moving back out of my range."

Kiba started running backwards, but Shino stopped him.

"Shino! Come on! We can find this guy easy!"

"It would be illogical to fight another Leaf shinobi. We have a captive and he is our main mission priority."

Kurenai nodded.

"Shino is right Kiba, calm down or you'll get yourself killed by rushing in too quickly. Remember the graduation test? My little genjutsu?"

Kiba shivered the horror of the genjutsu fresh in his mind.

"Try and move off again and I'll reapply it. And this time the dress will be pink."

That shut him up.

Some distance away, Naruto moved slowly back into sight range of the team. He had been spotted by the Hyuuga girl, and the sensei was now aware of what he was. That annoyed him. Then again, the leaf plate was a good passport.

He sped up, moving around the team to get towards Konoha faster. Unlike them, the main gate wasn't his usual entrance, he didn't have to sign in, and he didn't have a prisoner.