2. Your Mission, should you choose to accept it.

The mission didn't seem like much, in fact, it was probably deceptively simple, Sasuke thought. He was used to looking underneath the underneath. You couldn't trust what your senses told you, because the world was really a screwed up place. It was either fuck or be fucked up. Sasuke was simple like that. Deceptively simple.

Sasuke had it in him to kill a man. It wasn't something that Naruto or Sakura possessed. But seeing your entire clan massacred by your older brother would do that to you. Your mind becomes completely simplified to survive. You see things in black and white. And just shades of red, blood red.

And Uzumaki Naruto wasn't really paying attention to what Kakashi sensei was saying as usual. Baka thought Sasuke. He was going to have to answer all of Naruto's stupid questions later on. Naruto really irked him more than he let on. Naruto didn't fit into Sasuke's life at all. He couldn't categorise Naruto. He wasn't a fan girl like Sakura or Ino. He wasn't one of the others like Shikamaru or Shino. He wasn't just someone strong to fight like Gaara or Lee had been. He was just†Naruto.

He was loud, he was annoying, he talked too much, he complained too much, he showed off, he wore an incredibly loud ugly orange jacket, his very existence irritated Sasuke. He made Sasuke feel something other than the dulled angry red hatred for Itachi that kept him going each day. And Sasuke didn't like this feeling one bit. Feelings made things complicated. And Sasuke didn't do complicated.

Suddenly this new mission seemed almost intolerable. Nothing but the three of them to get on each others nerves, no Kakashi to jump in and stop the in-fighting. Nothing like being stuck together for what was going to be a long 3 weeks. But life goes on, and it was just one of those things that had to be done. Hn.

Cheh! This was gonna be easy thought Naruto. Just spend 3 weeks patrolling the border area of Wind Country and Snow Country. How hard could it be? Maybe they could fit in some skiing while they were there. Then I'd show Sasuke how the pros really ski. Mmm, snow and ramen!

Sakura had a vague feeling of unease that she couldn't put her finger on. That slight sickly nausea just in the pit of your stomach, nothing serious, but just queasy. She felt the same way as Sasuke. This mission seemed too simple. True, it was their first independent mission, but Kakashi never did much on their supervised missions anyway. Something was definitely up

Team 7 were going to become true shinobi now, Kakashi thought to himself, as he watched them depart after he had briefed them. This was different from the chunnin exam when there was an end goal to work towards. This mission was just them on their own. To learn what it was to be real shinobi, no more playing ninja, boasting about becoming hokage, or thinking that you could really be an avenger, or being hopelessly infatuated with an unattainable boy. This was it team 7. I'm sure you can handle it.