Kitsune Mistress
Princess of Ikana
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and its respective owners.
Chapter 3: Campfire
Sasuke did plan to graduate and be as impressive as his older brother, but unfortunately, it took him an average amount of time to graduate from the academy.
He was placed on a three-member squad with his classmates Haruno Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto, the 4th Hokage's son.
Waiting in a classroom together to see who they were assigned as a Jonin-sensei, Sasuke gruffly decided to scope out the rest of the team.
Uzumaki Naruto was the son of the Hokage and the jinchuriki of the nine-tailed fox that protected the village and generations of his clan. It was known that Naruto's mom was his aunt by marriage. Uchiha Kushina was his biological mother by a marital affair, and her reputation had been ruined once that became public knowledge. To this day, she was trying to appear like a respectable mother to her twins, his cousins Touma and Reina.
Naruto had a basic knowledge of ninjutsu, lack of genjutsu ability, and just slightly above average taijutsu capabilities. He should have been first in their class, but everyone could tell he never applied himself, and that bothered a lot of his rivals. He decided to come in dead last on purpose, hoping others would treat him more fairly based on who he was as a person and not who's clan he came from.
Thinking about Naruto's background was pissing Sasuke off. He was in first place in the graduating class but it still wasn't enough to make him as impressive as Itachi. Distracting himself from his building anger, he turned his attention to their female team member.
Haruno Sakura… she didn't come from a prominent clan background. She was the child of an average civilian couple who was both Chunin rank. She had few friends, and most people talked bad about her because of her unusual appearance. She had unnatural bright pink hair and jade green eyes that sparkled with both mischief and innocence.
If it wasn't for her lack of taijutsu skills, she probably would have had a chance at beating him, especially with that brain of hers. Her analytic skills were impressive, and he bet she could keep up with Itachi's wit if she tried.
The sound of the door opening ahead of them brought him back to the present, and he turned like the others in anticipation of meeting their sensei.
A man they knew quite well entered and walked up to the podium to address them.
"Hello, Team 7. I'm Uchiha Itachi, and I am your Jonin sensei. Before we begin, can you please introduce yourselves?" he instructed, smirking slightly.
In shock, Sasuke stood up to confront his older brother, but he was cut off before he could protest.
"Let's start with you," Itachi announced.
Sasuke glared at him but complied.
"Uchiha Sasuke. Same clan and younger brother to sensei...I want to be an ANBU in the next few years…" he muttered to the room.
Itachi ignored his attitude and moved on to Sakura.
"Haruno Sakura…" She gave her name and nothing else, and Itachi frowned.
"Awe, come on Sakura-chan, you gotta give up a bit more about yourself…" Naruto tried to encourage her.
Itachi glanced at him before staring back at Sakura, who at that point turned bright red and retreated further.
Naruto sighed before going next.
"Uzumaki Naruto, the Yondaime's son...jinchuriki of the Nine tails. My dream is to become an ANBU and serve my father, and I want to get on the village's council and change some things around here. Uh, also I'm Sakura's best friend," he said cheerfully.
Itachi stared at both of them. Checking his list on a small clipboard, he glanced over Sakura's profile. She was said to be quite analytical and great with genjutsu. Hmm, maybe he would be able to see more in a different environment.
"Well, team, let's head over to training grounds 8. I want to see you in action before we ask for a mission. Your opponent will be me," he informed them, almost immediately getting to business.
Sasuke left ahead of the other two like Itachi predicted, and he frowned again. Their teamwork would need much improvement before the end of the day if they expected to stay genin.
With Itachi's blessing, they started their careers as genin, and Naruto and Sakura added Sasuke into their collective. Though he thought they were both weak in comparison to him, his first impressions of his new teammates slowly improved as they got to know each other better.
Months began to pass with mindless missions helping civilians, with various chores and random tasks. They began to wonder if they would go on a real mission.
Yondaime eventually yielded to the protests of the council, stepped down as Hokage, and passed on the mantle to one of the Sannin, Senju Tsunade.
Naruto was really grouchy that week, as he was mad at his dad for submitting to pressure. Without saying it, he also felt hurt that his existence was another stain on his father's already ruined reputation as a ninja.
Sakura had made an apple pie and decorated it with little Naruto pieces from ramen. Sasuke decided to not tease his new friend that week, and Itachi gave him a little extra training to keep his mind off of it.
Naruto thanked them all for this subtle support. He would be okay, but it awakened a new ambition in him. He would aim to become the Hokage one day and prove that the union between his parents was a worthy one, even if they had never gotten married or were an official couple.
Tsunade became the Fifth, and things, in general, began to change as she sought to modernize the village and wanted to quickly extinguish flames of treason and ancient feuds between the few remaining great houses of Konohagakure.
The Uchiha were encroaching on Nara land, the Hyuuga had an unsolved feud with the Yamakas, etc.
A month into her term, a small village nearing the border of Sand requested assistance with village protection as many children began disappearing without a trace, and they suspected the Hidden Village of the Sand.
To herself, Tsunade briefly thought of a well-known Kitsune, but officially she called on her genin teams and assigned them to various regions around the village to patrol in order to seek out who was responsible.
Team 7 was assigned their first C-ranked mission. It was information seeking, a low threat kind.
And Naruto was stoked. He had been bugging Itachi for a while now to take on some real missions.
Itachi reminded all three of them that fighting other ninjas wasn't always part of the job and that intel-gathering was still quite important and would test out their sleuthing skills.
After getting dismissed, they headed off separately to prepare for tomorrow's mission.
Itachi told them to meet at the main gates at 6 am sharp.
As they neared the village, Naruto began telling the other two of that time when he was kids and others were spirited away.
The other two got a bit of a chill, but Sasuke wasn't worried. The fox from his childhood wouldn't be able to get near him being so close to the Jinchuuriki. Sakura quietly wondered if children who escaped her clutched the first time could be taken on a second attempt. She also kept close to Naruto.
Quietly noticing how his teammates kept very close to him, Naruto sighed. They were all probably wondering about that kitsune, and only he could keep her at bay.
With this being their first mission away from the village, he silently wondered what the plan was for when he wasn't present and there was no protection for their children or the Uchiha clan.
Hmph, maybe his mother still had a bijuu-ridden aura and would be able to mask his absence until he returned…
Itachi split off from his students and began checking well-known spots where other nation's ninja could be hiding out. Any that were found would have wished that an ex-ANBU captain hadn't been given a genin team.
Arriving at the village, they agreed to split up and see what they could find out, and agreed they would meet back up around sunset at a given location, Sakura pulled out a map for Naruto to see, since she knew he would get lost and not be able to find them later on.
"It's really easy, the clearing with a small waterfall flowing into the northern river," she told him, pointing in the general direction...
"Hai, Sakura-chan," Naruto grumbled. He wasn't a little kid anymore; he would be fine.
They split up, and Sasuke took to the eastern part of town and began eavesdropping on various conversations.
People were fearful of who was going to be next, but they were also reluctant to offer support to those who had missing kids.
There wasn't much information given in daily conversations between the village that the team didn't already know. Meeting up at the rendezvous point, they debriefed and saw that no one had gotten any useful new information.
Disappointed, they went back into the nearby forest and set up camp. They hoped Itachi-sensei had more luck in his survey of the perimeter of the entire village.
Darkness fell over them in the next hour. They unpacked dinner and huddled around their campfire.
"All I heard today was my child, my child… the number of children missing is going up as of late. One village started blaming the kitsune mistress, or so they called her…" Naruto grumbled, upset they didn't find out anything.
"Kitsune… Mistress…" muttered Sasuke.
Sakura was quiet. She thought back to that time where Itachi-sensei had rescued her from the river where the fox spirit had almost taken her….
Glancing at Sasuke's expression, she could tell he was a bit haunted as well. Had he met her before?
They both already knew that Naruto probably did, as he had wandered out of the village's gates. When he was younger, Naruto often got into arguments with his father, and he took off to hide. When he cooled down he would return home and apologize to his dad after realizing he was just looking out for him.
Naruto volunteered to take the first watch and let the others crawl into their sleeping bags and rest for a bit.
He set up a nearby tree with a good elevation for surveillance of the overall area.
Nothing happened during his shift, but when he set to climb down to awaken Sakura, he noticed glistening silver eyes in a nearby bush. He tossed a kunai into the bush.
Alerted, the lady arose from the foliage and stared him down with a wicked gaze before she recognized him, and her expression switched to anger as she hissed loudly and threateningly at him.
"Oiii, you old hag, you better tell me where the children are! Only you and your kind would have stolen as many as you have," he shouted at her.
The noise awoke the other two, as Sasuke and Sakura appeared at his side to back him up. They both gasped, recognizing the lady from their childhood as the rumoured and feared fox spirit that particularly liked Uchiha children. She grinned at Sasuke, knowing he was one that she loved, but then frowned suddenly.
Sakura threw a few explosive tags at her with such precision that one sliced her cheek before the fox growled and fled the area. When the smoke dissipated, she was completely gone, or so they hoped…
Agreeing that the threat may not be over, they stayed awake back to back to cover all their blind spots.
Dawn approached on the horizon when Itachi arrived back at camp. He looked a bit tired but unharmed and alright.
"Did something happen, Team?" he directly asked, seeing they were all exhausted.
"Sensei, the kitsune is responsible for the children, we encountered her last night, and we scared her off after she encountered Naruto," Sakura reported.
Itachi was secretly glad that they weren't forced to fully assault the kitsune, for he wondered when she would probably attack due to the nine tails being present.
"I believe you, but unfortunately I don't see any concrete evidence on you in your encounter, and I'm sure the townsfolk wouldn't agree that spirits were involved. Remember, we were hired to catch the culprit, or find good information leading to the culprit…" he explained.
The three looked dejected because if the kitsune wasn't coming back by now to counterattack them, they suspected she was gone.
A/N: Yes, this is late. I'm aware, but I have been trying to catch up on my word count in my NaNo project as I've hit my first bump. I'd also like to thank my Beta Cherry, for looking this over and helping me edit. (I'm sorry for the slightly worse than normal quality. The stress is pretty high this week and trying to keep my promise on fanfiction updates that I had already planned this month. I'll be back on track once I finish writing two more chapters for two separate fics and it will be okay.)