Disclaimer – See chapter 1, I'm too lazy to copy/paste.
A/N Got a few reviews rolling in, just thought I'd address them. Ta for hint about anonymous reviews, and yeah, it's is also going to be a romance, but it's going to be built on the action, so I considered it an action/adventure but in hindsight that was a fairly stupid move. Mistake corrected, on with the story.
Chapter 4
The rest of the night had come and gone fairly uneventfully for team seven and their impromptu new member. And so, bright and early the next morning, Sakura, Sasuke, Hinata and the one and only Uzamaki Naruto find themselves waiting at a certain bridge, watching the water flow under them.
Morning gives way to noon and Naruto is left wondering why he always gets up so early every morning if Kakashi-sensei is always going to be late.
Probably because the day that I am late, he'll show up on time
Hinata is looking worried despite Sakura's and Naruto's assurances that Kakashi is always late. She raises her hand to tap Naruto on the shoulder for the twelfth time when a sudden rush of wind brings everyone's attention to the top of a gate.
Sure enough, Kakashi is there, smiling wanly.
"Sorry I'm late. Jiraiya-sama lent me a advance copy of his new book to pre-read, and I got a bit caught up in it."
"Liar!" accuse Sakura and Naruto in perfect unison. They hmph theatrically, causing Kakashi to grin wider under that mask of his.
"Anyway, back to your mission. This is a B rank mission. The fifth has looked over the information you guys obtained earlier and determined that the best way to defend Leaf Village against this external threat is to assassinate the warlord behind it all."
"So basically, we've got to kill the guy we took this information off?" interjects Sasuke. Kakashi nods.
"While the mission is B rank, we don't expect too much in the way of hard opposition. It's a high rank mission because it threatens the village."
Kakashi pauses for a second, to make sure that everyone understands. Before he can continue, Hinata hesitantly raises her hand.
"Umm… why do you need me if it's not expected to be a tough mission?"
"A good point. Basically, it all comes down to operating procedure. I've been assigned to a different mission and because I can't oversee these guys, a medical ninja is required. You're the only one who really fit the bill."
Hinata nods.
"Here's the mission briefing."
Kakashi's eye rolls into the back of his head, as though he is trying to remember something. It floats back down and he begins.
"The target is Shigeru Shinbo. He is a skilled samurai and is guarded at all time by his best warriors. We have no reason to believe he has employed any shinobi. For the next week he will be examining his forces and trying to shift them into place for the attack on Leaf from his main fortress, which you infiltrated earlier. Once he is dead, it is expected that the will of his soldiers to fight will fail and they will begin to desert, as the majority are mercenaries. It is vital you eliminate the target within four days, as that is when he will launch his attack. Have you got that?"
Naruto looks a little bit lost, but the rest of the group nod in confirmation. Kakashi glances at Naruto, but he wasn't really expecting Naruto to digest all that information at once anyway.
"Very well," he concludes. "Good luck."
And in a puff of smoke, the copy ninja disappears, leaving the four children on the bridge to their own devices.
"We'd better get ready to go," says Sasuke, smooth as ever.
Naruto grunts in agreement and the two girls simply nod their heads.
"We'll meet at the village gate in half an hour with all our stuff then," finishes up Sasuke, before turning his back to the group and walking off. Sakura raises her hand and opens her mouth to yell out something, but no sound comes out.
Sasuke-kun… Perhaps I shouldn't push you
Half an hour later, the four ninjas meet up just inside the Leaf Village's massive gate all wearing plain, travel-worn backpacks. Sasuke merely nods to the rest of his group before signing them all out with the gatekeeper.
The first day's travel is fairly uneventful and made at a relatively slow pace as the group don't feel like needlessly wasting their chakra. As a result they only manage to cover ten kilometers in the first afternoon. Eventually they choose a secluded glade just off the road to set up camp, and begin to formulate a plan for the assassination.
"So what's the plan?" asks Naruto as he pulls the billy from the fire and adds a couple of packets of instant ramen to the boiling water.
"We were about to come up with one," replies Sakura in a kind of pissed off manner. "Here's how I see it. Once we get to the castle, we sneak in before dawn, stay as a group and hide somewhere in his chambers before swatting him down with a couple of shurikens in the back."
"That'd be too slow," grumbles Naruto through a mouthful of ramen. "Why don't I just summon the boss toad on top of the castle?"
"It's a waste of chakra and seriously lacking in subtly. We'll leave that as our 'we're totally screwed' plan. Sakura's is nice, simple and clean."
Naruto pouts. "You're just jealous 'cos you can't summon frogs"
Sasuke responds with a voice loaded with sarcasm. "Oh yeah, I'm sooo jealous that I can't summon a useless creature."
"Just wait until I summon one on your head and you get stuck in its arse!"
Naruto clenches his fist and waves it in Sasuke's face. Sakura looks at Hinata and rolls her eyes in exasperation.
"Will you two shut up? Naruto, we're not going to summon toads unless we're backed right into a corner, okay? It's too damn conspicuous. So shut up and let us get back to the planning."
Naruto, looking suitably chastened, flops back into a sitting position and continues gulping up ramen. He offers the bowl to Hinata who grabs a pair of chopsticks from her cooking set and begins to eat with him.
"Anyway, that's pretty much the plan," continues Sakura. "Once we've taken him down, we're going to have to deal with his bodyguard and get out."
"Hey hey! Wouldn't it be better if we took them all out at once? That way none of them could possibly raise the alarm."
Sasuke looks somewhat awestruck. Naruto coming up with a sensible idea?!
"We will if we can, but we don't know how many bodyguards there are. There might be too many for us to all take out at once," says Saukra slowly, carefully running through both her and Naruto's ideas for any flaws.
"Hey, that won't be a problem," says the fox boy with a wide grin. "Don't forget about this little move"
Naruto quickly crosses his fingers in front of his nose and begins to expel chakra.
"Kage bunshin no jutsu!"
And another Naruto pops out next to him.
"I can use my kage bunshin to create as many of me as we need for this. Although, considering just what a master ninja I am, we probably won't need too many." Both Naruto's grin and then the clone pops out of existence, leaving Sasuke more awestruck than before.
Two good ideas within five minutes? That's got to be some kind of record
Sakura just looks at Naruto and nods. "That's the plan then. Hinata, what do you know about the layout of the castle?"
"Mmph." Hinata downs her current mouthful of ramen and pokes the chopsticks into the remaining mess of noodles.
"A fair bit. I'll draw out the floor plan."
Hinata grabs a stick and spends the next couple of minutes scratching away at the dirt.
"Finished," she says and steps back to survey her handiwork. Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura crowd around her.
"Front gate here… Main hall here… This is the audience room… And these are his chambers," says Hinata as she points out each of the architectural features in turn with her stick.
Hinata plows on before the others can get a word in.
"Without someone else creating a distraction, the best way to get in would be to get in the moat and get into the castle basement. The stairs from the basement to the ground floor are here…"
Hinata points to a bit of dirt on her diagram.
"From there, we can sneak through these tunnels here… and here… and ambush this Shinbo guy in his antechamber."
"Sounds good," says Sasuke. "Did you get any info on the guards locations and watch times?"
"Sorry, we didn't."
"It probably wouldn't matter much anyway," mumbles Sakura thoughtfully. "They would have had to have changed them after our last little foray."
Sasuke grunts in acknowledgement. Naruto's face splits into a huge grin, then he bursts into laughter.
"Of course they did! But it doesn't matter, we'll go in really early and catch them with their pants down!"
With that, Naruto turns away from the pack and plops down into the dirt. He grabs the billy containing his and Hinata's noodles and begins stuffing his face. Sakura shrugs and sits down on the opposite side of the fire. Hinata looks at Naruto and a slight blush stains her cheeks as he motions her to finish the rest of their ramen.
Sasuke just stands over the map, staring into the fading light.
The next day, the group turns up the pace a bit, taking to the trees where they can. Late in the afternoon, Sasuke calls them to a halt above a couple of samurai who are having a chinwag over a couple of glasses of sake. Their heraldry identifies them as some of Shinbo's soldiers.
"Where'd you find this stuff man? It's pretty good."
"I kind of picked it up from the warlord's stores when no one was looking. It's not bad, isn't it?"
The pair continue drinking in silence for 10 minutes. Sasuke, who is getting annoyed by the lack of interesting talk, crouches down in preparation for a leap to the next tree…
"Hey, what do you think of the missing-nins the master hired?"
… And fights back the twitch reflex to make the leap.
"Meh. A waste of money. He's only got them because he's afraid Leaf will come after him again… Hell we could take on anyone Leaf throws our way."
Naruto's fist clenches hard enough to draw blood from his palm. Sakura places a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to dissuade him from revealing himself. It works.
"Yeah, that's true. Although I don't know why he wants those devious bastards working so close to him though… They're swarming the forests like insects."
A sober silence fills the air. Sasuke decides he's heard enough for now and takes to the air again. The others follow suit, staying hot on his heels as the Uchiha ninja scoots through the forest canopy. At dusk, they reach the edge of the forest and Sasuke calls it quits for the day.
The group quickly prepare their campsite and begin to discuss the new development.
"So what should we do about the ninjas?" asks Hinata in her quiet voice.
After mulling over it for a few minutes, Sasuke responds
"I think we'll just work hard on trying to stay under the radar. If we get caught we'll just deal with it as it comes," replies Sasuke finally. He then sits down on a convenient log and chews away at some salted fish he brought along.
There appear to be no objections to the plan, and after a quiet and quick dinner, Hinata and Naruto turn to their well concealed tents, leaving Sakura and Sasuke by themselves in the dark.
"Sakura, we should go to bed soon. We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow, and it starts early."
Sakura turns to face Sasuke. Her eyes roam over his face, looking for some hint of compassion on his features. Eventually they drop and Sakura sighs heavily.
Does he care for me at all, or was he just blowing me off?
Sakura turns tiredly and mumbles some kind of affirmative. As she completes her turn, a heavy object plants itself on her shoulder and prevents further movement.
Sasuke pulls his hand back slightly and draws Sakura slightly closer to him.
"Take care tomorrow. I don't want to see you hurt," he whispers. Wordlessly, Sakura nods and she feels as though a huge weight has been lifted from her shoulders.
Sasuke-kun, thank you for caring
A/N – I actually had all the chapters up to five already written, which is why I seem to be updating at a rapid pace. Once I hit the next chapter, expect things to slow down. Also this is going to be short fic, as I lack the attention span to finish off large ones, so don't get too disappointed when it stops at the 7th or 8th chapter.