Thanks for waiting so long for an update. I took multiple summer classes and am now finishing up my senior year of school so I've been super busy! I've actually had chapter 20 written for about a month a half now, although when I finally got around to editing it (sort of) it was too long, so now we don't actually get as far as I wanted to this chapter and instead I should have an update for you sometime next week. This chapter is about 6000 words, so a little shorter then I was hoping, but the actual chapter was at about 15000 and had too much stuff missing so I couldn't keep it all together.
Please enjoy, thank you so much for the favorites, follows, messages, and reviews; they kept me going when I was drowning in school work and didn't want to write another word of anything fanfic or homework.
Sorry if you were hoping for straight battle in this chapter. Its more politics. Blah for some. Awesome for others. Regardless, I hope you enjoy getting to hear from team 7 again. I also have some side stories posted for anyone wanting more team 7/ Kage/ Shisui interactions.
Enjoy!
~linebreak~
We'd been running for only three hours with no stop before sensei motioned for us to halt. Naruto slammed into Sensei's arm and I skidded on my branch, not quite catching myself with enough chakra to stick properly to the trunk of the tree. Sasuke would've been more graceful had he not stumbled into my shoulder. Or, the leg of the hostage he was carrying hit me, but that was just as bad.
Altogether, his was the best stop however and I begrudgingly gave him points for it. Naruto, the most unbothered by the endurance required of the killer pace sensei was running us at, was almost instantly no longer bent over at his knees, instead standing up straight, his breath already more even then mine or Sasuke's. His hostage was also slung over his shoulders, head lolling from the body slam that Naruto had received, but the ninja seemed just as un-alert as he had the whole run.
I unconsciously thought of the scroll tucked in my thigh pack, of the brusque orders from sensei before we'd grabbed our packs and left on our journey back to the village.
"Sasuke, Naruto, you guys each grab a person. No, not like that, like this. Exactly, you want their legs swung over your shoulders— like so—so that their stomach is on your back like a scarf." He quickly demonstrated for Sasuke.
He had chucked the scroll at me. "Kage-chan, you're in charge of that. No matter what, you make sure it gets back to the village. They need a heads up on a potential invasion."
Then he pulled out a kunai, cut his thumb, summoned a dog, and started us running back to the village. Honestly, I felt a little overwhelmed with the amount of things happening.
Sensei's summon, a cute little pug that under any other circumstances I would've been all over, was leading the way and had circled back to the group.
"Group of enemies ahead." His voice was gruff. Pack-un or something like that. I couldn't remember, the introductions had been brief and quick before we'd begun our literal sprint back to the village. I'd still been reeling that sensei had given me orders that were essentially, 'abandon the team and become trash'. to worry about learning the dogs name. Although, I morbidly thought that I was misunderstanding them and it was more likely that sensei reasoned: should we be attacked, as the girl on the team, I'd be the most likely left alive. We'd all studied the statistics in the academy.
We'd covered the majority of fire country in these 3 hours—it had taken us a full day, from sunrise to sunset, to get out to our location in the first place. Already I could see the mix of Hashirama trees and deciduous trees that marked the unofficial border of leaf village and the rest of Fire Country.
"Naruto?" Sensei questioned. He looked tense and more then slightly worn out from the run, although I know it was mostly his focus on the surrounding that was stressing him out. There was a tense wariness around his eyes. For my part, I hadn't been focusing on the environment at all; enemy ninja were not my worry for now. Instead I had been pondering on the contents of the letter: was it real? was it fake? Were we meant to find it?
Naruto scrunched up his nose and mentally scouted out the area. There was a longer pause then last time; either these men were better at hiding their chakra signal, or there was something different about this group. I frowned hoping it didn't mean that the group was too large for Naruto to count.
"…Three?" Naruto sounded unsure. "Maybe two. But I think that's a third one?"
There was a pause while sensei thought something over. I continued biting my lip, ruminating on the 'possibly-fake-but-maybe-real orders' conundrum. What kind of lackluster fool didn't destroy orders upon leaving the village? Just about every A rank, especially for infiltration, required at least that much—and that was saying that you even got written orders. But then again, if it was so common, perhaps that was all the more reason why this was more believable. A fake plant wouldn't leave a set up with such an unbelievable set of orders.
And then again was it a plant? Were we meant to find this?
"Sasuke, Kage. You two wait here with Pakkun. Be alert. Naruto, you're with me." Kakashi motioned to Naruto to drop his pack and passenger. Naruto quickly did and then the two were gone, darting into the woods after the unseen enemies. Sasuke and I glanced at each other, then at the dog. Sasuke dropped the ninja from his shoulders, and stayed more towards the center of the grouping where both Pakkun and I could protect him. Without a word being said, Sasuke and I drew our weapons, just in case; Sasuke drew a kunai. I drew my new sword; although not entirely comfortable with it, I couldn't help but feel more attached to it after this morning.
The wakizashi gleamed wickedly in the light of day and I caught the pug glancing at it for a second before he turned back to the woods. I listened for—something. I heard nothing. Sasuke was just as tense, but also seemed just as clueless. Our hostage made no move. He was unconscious, knocked out from the combination of whatever drug sensei had given him as well as the seal sensei had thrown on his shoulders and his forehead. The seals on his upper arm/shoulder area I vaguely recognized from the academy; we'd never been shown it, but it was explained as something that would cut off all chakra flow. Meanwhile, I could only guess that the forehead one kept him in his knocked out state.
I eventually, accidentally—because I was trying to stay alert—went back to my musing. I hadn't been able to focus all morning. I couldn't help it. Now that sensei had further broken up the group, I was even more aware of my secondary mission: protect this scroll and get it to the village. But was it even a real scroll? Were we meant to find that group? To be tipped off about the invasion?
To be completely honest, everything about this was off. Everything seemed to scream zebras. That is to say, when you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras. Only in this case, zebras was invasion and horses was a false flag attack or a purposefully set up trap meant to set us against one of our allies from the previous shinobi wars.
BUT. No one, no one, knew where we were. Maybe dad, because he was Jonin Commander. But other then him? According to Kakashi-sensei, just the Hokage. And ambushing that party had been a complete surprise. Kakashi sensei hadn't expected anyone to be in the area, let alone a fellow Konoha team. Which meant it was a pretty shit place to set up a lure for a trap.
Not that an enemy would know that.
I was running around in circular logic. I had no answer. It was going to come down to trusting my gut instinct. Because everything about this screamed not an invasion, no matter what sensei said. It was to clean a layout of a plan with too many obvious flaws.
But my gut screamed that sensei's announcement of an invasion was right.
'It was going to be debunked in the village,' I thought grimly. 'but it makes sense.'
I tensed and my hand gripped the blade tighter, eyes sharpening on a movement in the woods, but then I recognized Naruto and Sensei. I relaxed slightly but not completely. Sasuke was just as tense next to me.
"It's them." The pug grumbled. I huffed out a breath and lowered my arm. Sasuke scooped up his passenger again. I glanced at Naruto, who only stopped to pick up his hostage before Sensei had moving again. He had a splash of blood along his right hand side—as a lefty, Naruto would get more blood splatters on his right hand side. It was only physics.
Naruto looked slightly shaky and more pale, but still like the same teammate that I had seen this morning. Although I was being a hypocrite, I knew Naruto; shouldn't I see a difference between an innocent and a murder? I hadn't with Sasuke but I figured that it was because I hadn't paid attention to the actual day his first kill had occurred. But, no Naruto still looked the same as always, just slightly upset. I shook off the voice in my head from my past life—the one that was still slightly upset with my own murder today— and let the running commentary from my new life take over once again.
I guess that meant all 3 of us had gotten our first kill out of the way. Wasn't team 7 precocious, knocking out milestones in the early weeks rather then waiting months like some teams?
And then we were running again.
By midday, we'd reached the main road to the village. Sensei slowed us down dramatically here, also moving to cover the face of our hostages. We kept up a respectable pace for ninja's but nothing like our dead sprint of the morning. While us genin were breathless, it was slow enough for sensei to explain the change to us.
"There's too much scrutiny here. There a couple ANBU teams watching the gates and, of course, we have international visitors here for the Chunin exams. We cant come in at a run like that; it would make some of the foreign nationals— as well as the other villages—visiting very nervous."
He left out that we didn't want to tip off that we were holding on to the other villages ninja. Politics could be tricky like that.
And then finally, finally, the village gates were in sight. There was a queue a the gates, much longer then when we got back from Wave, but then again, the village was much busier and under heavier scrutiny at the moment. We joined the slow crawl of a line, Kakashi sensei eye smiling pleasantly at the chunin on duty when we finally got to the front, minutes later.
The guards eyed us suspiciously. Sasuke, Naruto and I were out of breath and still red faced from our run. All of us were covered in sweat and had some traces of blood on us, Naruto and I more then Sasuke. Not exactly the sparkling image the village wanted to present to its guests. Pakkun looked back at them, only making the image that much weirder.
"Team 7 returning from our B rank mission. Nothing of note to add." Kakashi blithely lied. I kept my face straight as I made eye contact with the guard. Sasuke scowled at the other one who was looking curiously at him. Naruto was looking curiously into the village and so missed the scrutiny.
"You're…weeks late." said the ninja on the left, a tall dark haired ninja with spiky hair and a slightly scratchy voice. He flipped through a pile of papers in his hand, eyes deftly making out information through some kind of simple code. "And it was a supposed to be an escort mission. Why are you checking in hostages? How is there nothing of note about hostages from an escort mission that is weeks late?"
The ninja on the right leaned over to read over his shoulder. "Yea, what the heck, we've had people coming to check on your return pretty much everyday for the past week and a half. It was checked in as as simple mission."
"Whoops." Kakashi's face didn't change, but his tone did. "Like I said, team 7 returning from our B rank. We can explain everything to the Hokage if its an issue. Now if you could kindly check us back in?"
The one on the right hesitated, and the person behind us in line groaned, another ninja. He looked exhausted and was holding up his teammate, a shinobi who grinned at us tiredly from the annoyed ones shoulder. The one annoyed one spoke up leaning forward and interjecting. "OH for fucks sake, it's Hatake Kakashi and his team. Something went wrong—-something always goes wrong. Just let them back in the village, so I can get back in the village."
"Thanks for that, Aoba." Sensei deadpanned. Pakkun barked out a laugh. All three of us held back smiles and the village guards shrugged at each other.
"Whatever, you'll need to turn in a copy of an exception waiver to the chunin on desk duty so that they can fix this check in later on." The one on the left said, waving us in.
Sensei gave a bright wave, and led us back into the village. I wanted to relax into the cheery noise, smells, and lights of the villages.
Before any of us had a chance to release any such tension, Sensei leaned down. "Mission's not over yet. Stay alert. We need to report to the tower."
We quickly marched to the tower, hostages still on Sasuke's and Naruto's shoulders. Thankfully I didn't recognize any of my friends on the walk over, only classmates and acquaintances. People that could be nodded and smiled at. And then we were at the tower.
The Hokage was sitting on the main floor, giving out missions; he didn't always. More often then not, it was a job delegated to chunin. But it was something that he tried to do when he had the free time, and with the extra villages in Konoha, the publicity probably didn't hurt. He looked surprised to see our team walk in, but not upset.
"Team 7 returns. How was your B rank?" He smiled congenially at us. I shared a look with Naruto, while sensei cleared his throat. The room, packed full of pencil pushing chunin, all quieted down at the Hokage's announcement and I grimaced.
"…It requires a debriefing Hokage-sama." After a slight pause at his non-understanding, Kakashi continued. "A secure briefing, sir."
Another pause, slightly more thoughtful. Then the hokage stood, his robes billowing out around him. "That's fine. My office, if you will." he led the way out of the now gossiping room.
Once we were safely ensconced in the Hokage's office, which was pretty sweet, his smiling face dropped. "Kakashi-san, you're back earlier then expected."
Sensei dropped into a deep crouch, one knee hitting the floor, one fist also hitting the ground, the other resting across his chest, his head bowed. "Hokage-sama. It behooved us to return to the village. We discovered evidence of a possible invasion planned on the village."
In any other circumstance, I think sensei would've tried for glib. His normal attitude was joking and irritating. But to break the news to the hokage? You have to know your audience and I must say, Sensei really got him.
Hokage-sama looked like he had been shot. He took a step back, then sat down harshly in his chair. Sensei stood up slowly. The Hokage turned away from us, reaching into his robes and pulling out a pipe as he looked out one of his enormous windows and out onto the village.
"Rat, Tiger." Two ANBU appeared in the room silently. I jumped. Naruto and Sasuke were less obvious because of the bodies holding them down from jumping.
"Rat, get Nara Shikaku here now. After, I want Inochi and Morino. Tiger, Bring these two down to T&I, get them prepped for a meeting with Morino. He's gonna see them after he'd done talking with me."
Naruto and Sasuke quickly tossed their hostages on the ground none too gently. Both ANBU nodded and then flashed away. The bodies quickly flashed away.
"Is there anything else you need to tell me?" The Hokage sounded weary as he asked sensei.
"No." Sensei paused thoughtfully before answered firmly.
I bit my lip, physically holding myself back from speaking. Kakashi sensei would have should have up— would have spoken up—if there was anything to worry about. But I couldn't shake the feeling.
His ANBU are gone. This was an opportunity. I had been thinking about it, and I knew it was going to get laughed at later—I knew that once they brought dad in here he was going to tear apart this letter as not being real. But—
"—Yes!" Sensei turned to look at me surprised, but I ignored him and kept my eyes on the Hokage. "I'm only a genin. I don't have the experience of my dad or your other generals or whatever. But this scroll—its real. Or at least, I'm certain we need to treat it as real. And I know that my dad wont believe it. That the info is too good to be true—that we would find something like this. But I'm telling you—I can't think of any situation where we find this scroll, just like we did, and its a fake. It just doesn't make sense in context…sir."
I finish a bit lackluster and without any real steam.
The hokage crosses his arms and turns from me to Kakashi. "What do you say Kakashi?"
Sensei looked at me again, then back to the hokage. "I think it's a real threat, but I defer to the experience of your advisors. I can only bring back the information that I discover." He answers slowly.
Already sensei is back to his normal self now that he had delivered the message. His shoulders are slumped and his face is more relaxed. His gaze has lost the tense edge that has been present the last few days. I notice that it has passed instead to the Hokage's eyes.
The Hokage nods again thoughtfully and then holds out a hand. Sensei turns to me and I stare at it dumbly before remembering that I'm holding the scroll. I blush and reach into my thigh pouch, pulling out the orders. They are dirty now. Slightly muddied and a little bloodstained, which is probably from my hands holding it this morning. But the characters are readable.
The Hokage keeps his face expressionless as he goes over it. It doesn't take that long to read it, so he clearly reads it multiple times in the five minutes it takes for my dad to arrive in the office. He walks into the room like it was our living room, clearly comfortable and not at attention like my team had jumped to. Dad notices us and shoots me a look, fond exasperation that says ' welcome back' and 'what did you do' all in one look. Uncle Inochi and Morino-san arrive a minute or two after him. Still the Hokage stays quiet, examining the scroll. Finally he speaks up.
"I hold in my hands orders from the Kazekage for a small subunit or chunin to meet with an existing and larger force supplanted within the Land of Fire. They are supposedly hidden within our borders as an invasive group. The infiltration group is apparently stationed near the Valley of the End, circling away from where Suna's geographic location and further from where most of our patrols run." The Hokage's voice is calm as he speaks.
I've already read the scroll. I don't react. Naruto twists at hearing it put in terms like that—I know he doesn't understand all the words but he knows enough to understand that it sounds bad. Sasuke looks like he's fighting a grimace. Its his natural look so I'm not sure if he even listened to the Hokage speak. I can't see Sensei from where I'm standing; somehow sensei ended up standing behind us.
It doesn't matter. The interesting people are the older ninja who just entered the room. Dad tilts his head at the Hokage curiously, then tilts his head back his eyes closing and a quick frown flitting across his face.
Uncle Inochi seems the most thrown, his face troubled, his eyes flicking between us and the Hokage.
Morino just smiles and cracks his neck.
Theres is hardly a pause before the questions begin.
"How credible is the information?" Inoichi opens with.
The Hokage frowns. "Kakashi?"
"Found on the subunit of chunin sneaking into fire country. No guarantee its good intel, Just stumbled upon them while on a training trip with my team." Sensei's voice is steady.
Bizarrely, the emotionless voice sensei takes reminds me of the innumerable lessons I have completed with my dad, doing practice scenarios and case studies of past decisions he had made. I glanced at dad and his lip twitched even though his eyes were closed, making me feel better for the comparison.
"Any identifying markers, insignias, clothing—"
"Nothing." Sensei cut off Morino before he could get going. "Just the letter. I brought two of them back. The leaders, so that you could interrogate them. We met another group on the way back in; same deal with clothing so we eliminated them. No need for more prisoners then we could carry."
"So its settled then." Morino shrugged. "We'll interrogate them; if they say its true, then we know its true."
"They could lie." Inoichi frowned at him. "They could say that its not true and there is no attack."
"Or they could lie and say that there is an attack and they are from the sand village." My dad finally choses to speak up. "Just because the information matches up to what we want to hear doesn't mean its right. This isn't right. Suna isn't in a position to launch an invasion right now. This could be used to weaken our relations with Suna."
Inoichi nods his head in agreement. "Besides interrogation takes time. Without a willing participant, getting valid information could take weeks, if not months, as well as multiple people to interrogate. If we have people camping out in Fire Country, we don't have weeks. "
"So we send a scout out." The Hokage played the devils advocate. "Examine out the canyon. See if there really is an invasion force waiting there? What is the downfall?"
"Giving up the game." Morino frowned, shaking his head respectfully at the Hokage. "No one I've interviewed has mentioned anything like this—but if they were too low, or if this is a newer plan, then they wouldn't know about it. We can send someone to find out. Just to be sure."
Dad shook his head. "No, you're not getting Ibiki. This isn't just about the intel not matching; I'm not saying that you've had a few bad interrogations Morino— I'm saying nothing about this adds up. Hokage-sama" Dad turned to the stoic man who has barely spoken up.
I wondered why no one had said anything about the three genin who just stood here openmouthed watching everything, but said nothing to draw attention to ourselves.
"Hokage-sama—" dad continued, and I watched him shift from my dad, lovable shogi champ, to the Konoha Jonin Commander. "Suna doesn't have the money to pull off an invasion. We've been pulling missions from them for months. Years even. And even if they did, this is diplomatic suicide. They will never recover from an attack on foreign diplomats. No one will hire a village of ninja who brazenly attacks them—besides the fact that the Kazekages own children are here in the village—all three of them. Surely he would've held back at least one of them. Nothing about this makes sense. An invasion is the last thing that would be profitable to Suna. This is a set up by another village."
He paused then frowned at the scroll. The hokage handed it over to him and dad stopped to read it. "I think…" He paused again, clearly re-reading it. "I think that this is a trick from another village. Some kind of ploy to split our alliance with Suna. Relationships have already been tense for months now. This will only further soil them. Either the scroll is not real and Suna is being laid to blame, in which case our ties to them become even frostier over words. OR, another village is planning some kind of attack and wants Suna to take the blame."
Dad pauses, his fingers tapping out a pattern on his upper thighs before he speaks again. Morino and Inochi are eying him respectfully, while the Hokage is remaining stoic. "We can take precautions. But if we send a few teams—because we cant send a single team to deal with a potential invasion force— to check out the Valley of the End, we leave the village unprotected from general unrest. We let the village seem unprotected and overall its a great weakening of our overall defense. Overall we can take internal protections up a great deal, but I think worrying about an actual invasion is overkill on an already overworked shonobi force. Especially is this a planned attack by another village, trying to blame Suna. Weakening our villages defense is the last thing to do right now. "
"Inoichi? Morino? How do you feel about this proclamation?" The hokage looked curiously at the other two. They stood up straight.
"I agree. None of my intel indicates anything otherwise. Something of this nature would take a while to plan. I would've caught wind of it eventually by means of someone. To have not heard anything in regards to Suna means that this is probably another village trying to sour our relationship." Inochi is firm in his announcement.
Morino nodded in agreement, but more slowly. " I agree, but more because of the logic of it. I can see the intel shifting. I deal with interrogation. Sometimes people manage to hold it in out of loyalty to their village. Sometimes I just get people that don't know nuttin'." he grins at the Hokage but I have a feeling the line is for our sake. "But the logic is solid. Suna can't afford to piss off a major village. They're barely holding on to a major village status themselves. "
There was silence and the three men looked at the Hokage expectantly. He quiet, and something about felt expectant. I could see the confusion blooming on the older mens faces and I realized and I realized he was waiting for me. I didn't say anything, feeling the moment close. If I said nothing, if I let the moment pass, it meant I was convinced that these three men were right and the scroll was right. It meant that the Hokage had let Team 7 stay here to be convinced about the scrolls authenticity. And if I didn't speak up, the Hokage had no need to voice any other opinion.
I sighed. This was so bothersome. I coughed, drawing everyones attention to me. "I think the scroll is real. And even though it makes absolutely no sense, I think that sand is planning an invasion on our village."
The Hokage maintained the grandfatherly look, but seemed to grow more intimidating. "Please explain: I have some excellent sources telling me to not trust this intel. Why should I listen to a genin?"
I looked at him, incredulous that he was going to make me argue alone, with no backing. "Because it makes sense!" I whined.
Dad let out the most annoyed sigh in the world, obviously getting ready for the circular logic I was about to engage in. Inoichi looked at me curiously and Morino just smiled extra creepily.
I was tired, covered in dried blood, sweat, and felt like shit. I matched his grin, tugging my teammates forward. "We were just on a training retreat." I announced to the room at large.
After a slight pause, I looked at the Hokage. "How many people knew where we were, sir? Two? Three, tops?" Not waiting for his answer I trudged on. I turned back to my dad. HIs sharp eyes met mine, no longer closed or eying the ceiling.
I imagined this was one of our practice case studies. I ignored how much the Hokage intimidated me, or how weird it was to be profiling a situation outlaid in front of my teammates. I focused on my dad and ignored everyone else. I pointed out the facts. The weird bits that were making me have a 'gut feeling' in the first place. I used every bit of knowledge that been bouncing around my head the whole run back to Konoha.
"No one knew where we were. No Konoha teams were in the area. In the weeks we were out there, we ran across no body. No other teams. No enemy teams. No civilians or towns. A horrible place to lay a trap like this. It would take forever for a Konoha team to find out that Sand is setting up an invasion this way. On top of that—anyone who did find out would immediately discount the information. The orders for an A rank mission still being on the body? No destroyed? Even though the team was careful enough to make sure they were wearing no insignias, no village markers, no identification?" I paused thoughtfully. "Its off. It would throw anyone off. Its a tell."
"But all together? For all of that to happen together? Theres no chance that such a thing could be coincidence. Or if it is, it was the damn luckiest one on earth. Or, we have an even bigger problem and the Hokage is a double agent for Iwa." I try for some levity. Dad lets out a slight snort, but still keeps his eye on me seriously.
"Why attack a village when you have no money? Why now?" Dad asks me and I look at him, grateful that he is treating this like a training session as well. I close my eyes thoughtfully for a moment before popping them open again, having already considered the different aspects earlier.
"It's symbolic. It's not about 'winning'. Its about a show of power. About hurting the village and getting back at you and breaking your spirit. Showing every other village that they not safe even in their homes, even when they have the 'protection' of diplomats in their borders. Its a last ditch effort. They know that they won't get missions from diplomats anymore, but they're hoping that we won't either because we cant protect them. Which means that Konoha is 'weaker'. And that means that Sand and Konoha can go back to fighting over the scraps of missions."
As I verbalize my thoughts I realize that I've finally pieced together my gut feeling. This is a terrorist attack. An ideological attack— mental warfare on Sands behalf. There is still probably more we're missing. But I'm able to start building a profile now.
"A symbolic attack isn't something that we can predict." Dad mumbled thoughtfully. "But it doesn't explain the target. Or how we didn't hear any kind of planning about it. Something like this requires a large scale of information being passed along. How did we hear nothing?"
"The Chunin exams." I said immediately. The thought popped into my head. Everyone in the room is looking at me. I flush embarrassed. "As a target, I mean."
"Look, I could be completely wrong and off the chain about the scroll. And then I can be embarrassed about this whole thing. But if I'm not, then this whole thing is an ideological warfare. And that means this is about the spectacle. Which means its not going to be a sneak attack. Its going to be something big and explosive. Its going to be something that everyone can see. If theres going to be an invasion, then its going to happen at the Chunin Exams. We probably didn't hear about it because its so suciadal that Suna's higher command didn't even inform its general shinobi populace until the last possible moment—they knew how crazy it was and how likely it was to fail, so no reason to have the info leak on a plan bound to fail. "
The room is quiet, and I realize that Inochi and Morino are speaking in hushed voices behind dad.
"Okay." Dad said. Everyone including the other two ninja fall silent. The Hokage, looks to my father.
"You believe the situation?"
"It's a possibility. And planning for it is within my ability without affecting the villages defenses, so its worth taking care of incase the possibility turns into a reality." Dad is back in his Jonin commander mode, and the Hokage nods at his answer.
I blinked. And swayed. Naruto put a hand on my back. I was already forgotten. Dad continues speaking, giving the Hokage an idea of what can be done for the village.
"I can work with one day. Planning for a possible invasion on the day of the exams is only slightly different from overall village defense. I'll set up a patrol pattern of ninja on the day of the exams as well as the hours before and directly after. I'll also set perimeters on the guest accommodations of the VIP's in the village. Most ninja won't get their requested day's off to watch the exams, which will annoy them, but if there is an invasion, will make sense to them after the fact. If there isn't, then tough shit. We can also clear the paths to the shelters for civilians now. Lets make sure that they vendors in the roads are all within regulation so that nothing blocks fleeing civilans. And lets also make sure that this is only on a need to know basis. S Rank secret. The less people that know the less that can give it away. Ill work on more details."
"You're cleared to do whatever you feel is necessary. You have my authority." The Hokage granted. Dad nodded. I feel my eyes go wide. "Morino, Inoichi, your prisoners have been prepared and are waiting in T&I. Let me know if you get any information. Doubtful though it may be that you will find anything in the limited time… Better to try and not succeed then the reverse. Team 7…The issue of your training trip is still not solved."
We all blinked cluelessly. Sensei sighed. "We took the trip for a reason, remember?"
I tried to recall, I really did. Complete blank.
"OH!" Naruto was the first to get it. "The grass ninja-datebayo!" I nodded my head in agreement. The snake sannin. Forgot about him.
"Being that you as a team are still targeted—" Naruto and I looked at Sasuke with raised eyebrows and he turned his head away annoyed. "—your wandering around the village would not be ideal."
"Oji-chan, Kaka-sensei makes us wake up really early to train. I was glad to be back in the village. Are you saying we need to leave again?!" Naruto wasn't shouting in my ear. We'd nearly broken that habit from being so silent in the woods. But he was being very excited in my ear and that was pretty annoying too. So I decided to throw in one of my brilliant plans.
"Hokage-sama, if I may, Naruto is more then welcome to stay over my home. The Nara compound is safe enough, especially once my dad gets home." I turned my head to my dad, who nodded his head in agreement, although I wasn't sure if it was to Naruto staying over or to the compound being safe. Probably both."Kakashi sensei can walk us back over and he can drop Sasuke off with Shisui as well. And if Shisui isn't home then Sasuke is more then welcome to stay over as well. We just spent weeks camping out in the woods together. What's one more night."
The hokage smiled at me. "Thats a very kind offer and solves all our problems. Are you sure you don't mind the imposition?
I grinned back at him wryly. "To be completely honest, I don't care who sleeps where, as long as I get to knock out soon. I'll crash on that couch over there, if its the safest place for me in the village. I just really need to sleep."
Sensei knocked me on the head for saying that, although I'm not sure if its because it was considered rude or because he also laughed.