Chapter 9

Part 1\2 Rustling Leaves arc

A few days before Sarada's eventful day, another story begins –

"Oi! Long time no see!" A shout from across the street stops him in his tracks.

Iwabee turns to see and smirks. "Yo Inojin! Catch you later! I've got a C-Rank mission!" He barks, swinging the Jō he carries around – a long wooden staff.

"Sweet." Inojin whistles infectiously. "Good luck!" he waves.

Iwabee laughs. He loves being a ninja. "I don't need luck!"

"Yeah yeah!" Inojin Yamanaka shouts, unimpressed.

Iwabee marches to where his team meets up. He makes it and finds out he's the first one there.

"Oi it's a C-Rank! Unbelievable – how could they be late?!" He asks himself impatiently.

I've worked so damn hard to become a genin, for so damn long.

This is going to be everything.

Iwabee taps his foot, wanting nothing less than to rush off and do this mission right now alone if he has to, his late teammates be dammed –

"Hey Iwabee, you're here early."

Iwabee turns on the spot, fighting fire ignited. "Denki! Why are you so late?!"

Denki is quick to deny this. "Hey I'm not late, I'm right on time."

"Lies! I was here on time!" Iwabee huffs.

Denki sighs. "You do this every time, honestly."

Iwabee continues, pretending he can't hear him. "And why is Metal making us wait for so long?!"

"Slow down, would you? Sensei isn't even here yet." Denki declares tiredly.

"If Sensei isn't here yet, he's late. If he's late, it must mean that he is mortally wounded!" Iwabee jumps.

"He's not late." Denki points out.

"Maybe it's the mission, or he got attacked -!"

Denki grabs Iwabee by the arm to stop him as he's half ready to jump off the bridge and run in search of their teacher.

"Iwabee seriously –"

"I'M COMING UDON-SENSEI! DON'T! STOP! FIGHTING!" Iwabee screams at the top of his lungs, hoping it can reach poor, dying, scared, Udon-Sensei, wherever he is.

"Iwabee please, it's too early in the morning for this." Denki deadpans, behind him, someone was coming their way.

"Udon-Sensei!" Iwabee growls at the man walking towards them onto the bridge. "Something happened to Metal!"

Udon Sensei comes over to them, dressed in the standard flak jacket of Konoha shinobi.

"Ehhhhhh? Now it's Metal?!" Denki demands, shocked.

"Clearly!" Iwabee yells, imagining images where his teammate is in trouble. "Since he's not here! Since when is Metal ever late to anything?! How does that fit into being youthful?!"

"Metal is still not here?" their teacher asks calmly, looking around. "Let's wait a few minutes then."

"Come on! We need a rescue mission to rescue Metal!"

Denki says "Maybe he just overslept, that's all." logically.

And he's supposed to be smart!

"Metal wakes up before the SUN! To exercise! HOW could he have overslept?!" Iwabee demands, sure Metal's in some serious trouble right now.

"You're paranoid." Denki tells him, leaning back on the railing.

"Paranoid's one word for it." Their teacher mumbles. "Oh, there he is."

Iwabee looks to see the last of Team 5 running over to them at full speed.

"Ahhh! Sorry!"

"Metal what took you so long? We've been waiting for so long, you know." Iwabee demands, now that his friend seems completely fine, if breathless.

Metal seems shocked to the very core of his being. "I'm so sorry everyone!"

"We arrived five minutes before you Metal, don't worry about it." Denki says, glaring at Iwabee.

"It's just that I overslept." Metal says, looking embarrassed.

"Ha!" Denki calls, surprised himself that he was right.

"Until ten thirty?" Udon-Sensei asks, curious. "That's not like you."

"Oh no, I woke up at 5 AM sir!" Metal informs them, not noticing the looks of horror on all of his team's faces. "Which I don't need to tell you is madness! I'm in my spring time of youth! Waking up at 5 AM is to waste a precious hour of the day you could be exercising at! But last night's practice ran late, and I couldn't help it! So morning practice kind of ran longer too –"

Udon-Sensei stops him. "Metal, it's fine. You weren't late by much. Let's start heading out and I'll give you info on the mission on the way."

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

"Finally!"

Team 5 arrive to Konoha's front gates and Udon-Sensei gives the guards their permissions to leave the village.

While he does so, Denki turns to Metal.

"So why did your practice run late last night Metal?"

Iwabee didn't care enough to ask, honestly. The answer is probably a competition of wills of some sort between Metal and his father.

"Oh, Sarada-Chan finally passed the test and is now BURNING with the spirit of youth!" Metal's eyes actually shined.

Iwabee and Denki stare at him, blinking stupidly.

"What?"

"Now we can train longer and harder together!" Metal goes on, eyes sparkling more and more.

"Wait, Sarada is training with you and your dad?" Iwabee asks, wondering to himself when that happened.

"Oh yes, during late evening practices!" Metal nods. "Now that there are three of us we're even more excited to be working hard!" he shouts, and Iwabee can actually see Metal's eyes burning with the power of youth.

"I can't imagine Sarada excited about anything." Iwabee tells Denki, while Metal is shouting all sort of nonsense at nobody in particular.

"Be nice." Denki asks, but doesn't deny that he can't either.

"My papa is preparing a surprise for her, now that she's full pledged Taijutsu enthusiast! She's going to be so excited when he gives her a specially made set of Guy-Sama's rubber green over-all tights!"

Iwabee imagines Sarada in just that.

He snorts so loudly Denki has to step on his foot.

"I'm sure she will. I was happy when you guys gave me one." Denki says kindly.

"Oh don't remind me! You pulled it out a couple of missions ago and put it on right in front of the clients! It was so embarrassing!" Iwabee groans.

Not to mention, it looks super uncool.

But hey, not like I can tell that to my two teammates. I don't want to hurt their feelings.

"It was not embarrassing!" Denki huffs, getting angry.

"Hey! Let's go boys!" Udon-Sensei calls, effectively stopping any argument.

The three genin follow him out of the village and into the forest.

"Okay, your first C-Rank mission in a while. How do you feel?"

"Excited." Iwabee calls.

Finally! Finally! FINALLY!

"We're ready!" Denki says, determined.

"We'll make our hard work pay off!" Metal promises.

"Alright, listen up. A small village requested shinobi aid against a gang of local criminals making trouble for them since May. The village is on the border with us, and on the border of Sound, so they don't have much protection, which is why I have no doubt it took a lot for them to manage to afford us – don't let them down, these people are counting on you."

"Sir, yes sir!" all three genin yell with feeling.

"Good. There shouldn't be any trouble here. We need to capture all the criminals and hand them over to the Police Center stationed close by. Questions?"

"Sir, no sir!"

"Alright."

And the four jump from tree branch to tree branch, getting closer to their destination ahead.

Several hours later they're close to the small village.

The calming sounds of birds chirping accompanied team 10 on their journey to the border village. Green leaves and distant sounds of waterfalls surround them, the closer they get.

"This place is really cut off." Denki notes.

"It's a rural place; you won't find much technology here." Udon-Sensei says.

"It's really in the middle of nature, isn't it?" Iwabee looks around, not used to the lack of buzzing screens, and advertisements, and people busy at work.

"Our village is literally hidden in the leaves." Denki reminds him dryly.

Yeah but I live at the center, not the outskirts. I only see the forest when we leave for missions.

Iwabee, who grew up in a less than impressive household that never had the luxury to see much of the world, knew his friend, born to a rich family and probably got to travel all the time, wouldn't understand, so he doesn't try and explain.

Iwabee trained and worked himself to the bone for years to become a ninja so he could become somebody and see more places than his parents could show him.

"This place is calm, and nourishing." Metal seems pleased, and at ease. "I might train here when we're done, with Papa. This could be an excellent place to connect to the body. No! To the soul. No! To the –"

"We're close, don't make unnecessary noise." Udon says urgently, cutting them off. "If the outlaws are circling the outside of the village we don't want to alert them that we're here."

"Sir, yes sir!" the three boys whisper.

"Let's go." Udon says, and leaps forward swiftly, leading them.

When Iwabee sees five big, muscular, men surrounding one guy just as they're about to come upon the village, he's left with no doubt that they're the ones he's been sent to beat the hell up.

A sharp, mute, direction from Udon-Sensei tells them to spread around the group silently and listen to what they're saying before interfering, and so Iwabee and Denki creep up through the trees, as across the clearing Udon and Metal do the same.

"-We know the old man got 'em. How much stuffing do we need to beat out of you?" asks the tallest man, bearing an eye patch across one eye, sounding evil and like Iwabee will really enjoy beating the hell up.

Iwabee taps his Jō impatiently, ignoring Denki's eye roll; some aspects of being a shinobi never came easily to him.

"I'd say his body will serve as the best message, don't you think?" the silky voice sounds eager. Hungry. This man is lean and smiling creepily and makes the hairs at the back of Iwabee's neck shiver.

"I – Please, please, I didn't do any –" the younger man, who looks like a boy Iwabee's age from this close, looks panicked.

"That's right, you haven't done anything yet, shouldn't you be more useful?" grunts a fat, round, stubby looking man, spitting everywhere as he does. "You know where the treasure's at, don't you?" he spits impatiently, taping his fingers on the giant sword on his back.

The lanky creepy bastard leans down to grab the boy's jaw between sharp, merciless, knuckles.

"Let's loosen up your tongue, Sweetheart."

Thanks to his Ninja training Iwabee can almost see it in slow motion; the short knife pulls out of Creepy Lanky guy's sleeve, swooping to the boy's face.

Then it's stuck, an inch from piercing the skin, by Udon-Sensei's jutsu – the icy substance appearing out of nowhere to capture Creepy Lanky in place.

The boy scrambles away, taking his chance to run.

Tallest Eye-Patch is quickly forming hand signs for Earth Release and chucks giant rocks at Udon to break the jutsu's castor, preoccupied with maintaining his Frozen Snot Jutsu (Iwabee tends to forget the actual name of his Sensei's jutsu so he just calls it that).

Metal jumps up, "AHHHHH!" and kicks and punches all the rocks to change their projectile, not allowing them to come near Udon's direction.

Spitting Fatso swings his enormous sword around, running at Metal who looks almost tiny next to this man, but Iwabee blocks him from his Nakama by smashing the earth with his Jō powerfully, and Denki's quick Barrier Jutsu takes the enemy by surprise as soon as he steps up to cut Iwabee in half.

"URGHH! You shitty kids!" Spitting Fatso grunts, shaking off the pain from stumbling onto Denki's barrier carelessly.

"Leaf Shinobi!" Tallest Eye-Patch yells, and the two other guys slip by through the chaos and neither pair of team 5 can stop them, too busy with low-level criminals who happen to have more punch in them then they initially thought.

"I thought they wouldn't be shinobi!" Iwabee rages, using his anger issues to swing his Jō with all his might on the giant sword trying to break it, but it seems to be enhanced by shinobi seals.

Spitting Fatso lifts one meaty leg up, changing course to where Denki is crouched on the sidelines, and goes to kick him. Not wanting to imagine what a kick like that would do to his smallest teammate, Iwabbe swings the Jō to form a sharp end using Earth Release and grabs Spitting Fatso's other leg, bringing the heavy man down.

On the ground, Denki quickly sets a basic sealing jutsu to stop him from getting up in time to avoid Iwabee's offensive attack and Iwabee smacks down his Jō, attached to a big chunk of rock, right on Spitting Fatso's stomach with a POW! The power of the attack causes the earth underneath the criminal to shatter a bit, and turns Spitting Fatso unconscious.

Iwabee shares a smug look with Denki. Their teamwork sure has gotten better.

"DENKI!" Metal's voice breaks through the air, unfamiliar in its utter horror, and Iwabee's heart sinks all the way to his stomach, chill clutching to him like a disease.

Where is it?

Where's the danger?!

It's over in two seconds. By the time they've all blinked, Udon-Sensei has Creepy Lanky tightly sealed on the floor, disarmed, inches behind Denki.

It takes a second longer to digest and analyze, even to Iwabee's trained mind.

At some point Creepy Lanky must've gotten out of Udon's jutsu, and managed to reach all the way to Denki without his presence being detected at all until Metal noticed, in a split second before the tragedy would've occurred, and screamed just before a jagged short deadly kunai stuck itself through Denki's skull. It took less than a split second for Udon-Sensei to flash over and subdue the threat.

"Shit." Iwabee breaths, staggered. "Shit!"

I should've sensed him creeping closer. We both should've – we're fucking ninja!

Metal hurries over, the side of his face bruised.

"We've got three of them, two managed to get away and we have to assume our presence here has been spread to the rest of the gang members and they'll be better prepared in the next altercation." Udon-Sensei pushes up his glasses. "Denki, alright?"

Denki looks shook, chest beating up and down visibly. But he nods, even though not one of his teammates is fooled.

"The enemy seems to vary in levels of threat, in my rough estimation, between Genin and Chunin." Udon-Sensei says analytically, critically looking over the battleground.

The fight changed it, what with both Iwabee and Tallest Eye-Patch guy using Earth Release for their attacks and Udon's Jutsu leftovers on the scene.

Tallest Eye-Patch guy is face down on the ground, immobilized by means Iwabee can't identify.

"Well, you wanted a C-Rank mission, and you got it." Udon-Sensei tells them dryly. "It was a surprise that the enemy turned out trained, but not entirely unpredictable. You do, however, need to remember this and be extra cautious during this mission."

Somberly, having almost lost one of their own, all three boys nods and says tightly "Sir, yes sir."

Udon nods and throws Creepy Lanky over his shoulder. "Metal, grab him." he directs, towards Tallest Eye-Patch guy. Metal, who carries heavier weights around just for fun five times a week, easily does so.

"Iwabee, Denki, try to carry that one together, will you?" he gestures to Spitting Fatso, lying on the ground at their feet.

Denki grimaces and starts putting lightning seals on their capture.

"Closest Fire Police Center is stationed nearby, and they've been informed of our mission here beforehand they'll be expecting us to bring in the criminals to them, it shouldn't be far."

And with that, they head out.

"Metal, you should see if there are Medic-Nin at the Police Center." Denki mutters, head bowed as they make their way slowly.

Metal seems to be blinking back tears. Despite being so strong and resilient physically Metal has always been the most sensitive of the three boys, and seems unable to shake what happened off. "I'm fine… a few of the rocks got through."

"Right," Iwabee growls. "what are some rocks to the face when you're Metal Lee." He calls approvingly, trying to somehow lift his teammate's spirits.

Considering I suck at this sort of thing I really hope it'll be enough.

I hope I'm enough.

Guilt hunts Iwabee as they make their way, carrying and half dragging their cargo.

If his arms are slightly trembling as he walks, nobody comments on it.

He can't even imagine what would happen if one day he'll let one of his teammates die.

God, I hope I'm enough.

That day's mission never left Iwabee's memory, even as an old man, simply because it was the first time their team has ever almost lost one during action. The very first time, Iwabee nearly lost someone important right before his eyes.

The first, but not the last.

"Hey!" Udon-Sensei yells from up ahead.

"Let's deliver these guys quickly.

We still need to meet our client."

-End part 1\2-