The next morning Hughes and Roy dragged Havoc to visit Tsunade. They were well aware that they were going to have to do some very serious begging and convincing to get her to allow them to take Havoc on the mission that day. When they arrived in front of her office, however, they heard screaming coming from inside. The voice sounded vaguely familiar to Roy and Hughes – it was young and somewhat whiny, and the only voice they could think of that fit into that particular description was Sakura. Havoc put his ear to the door and tried to listen.
"Can you make out what she's saying?"
Roy shrugged helplessly, and Hughes disappeared, presumably to spy on the scene from outside the window where it would be easier to hear. His ability to disappear whenever it was convenient was unnerving, and Roy and Havoc were left to listen at the door as nonchalantly as possible. After a few staring passers-by, however, they resigned themselves to leaning against the wall and catching what small bits they could. There was nothing better to do, and they couldn't leave for the mission without Sakura, or at least some third member of the team.
About five minutes later Hughes reappeared at their side, smirking. Sakura stormed out of the office, barely pausing to glare at Roy and Hughes, then stomped down the hallway and out the door. Havoc raised an eyebrow at the two of them, but they only shrugged and walked into the office.
Tsunade sat behind her desk looking vaguely frazzled and more than a little frustrated. She barely glanced at Roy and Hughes as they walked in, but watched Havoc instead. The three of them stopped in front of her, and she simply shook her head.
"I don't know what you two did to Sakura, but she just swore that she would never work with you, even if I killed her. I don't want to know what you did to her, but she wants me to tell you that she thinks you're both creepy, and she wants Mustang to stay away from her mother. Now, you'd think you've already caused me enough trouble today but I see you've brought someone else with you."
"We'd like to request that he be allowed to become the third member of our team."
Tsunade gave an exasperated sigh and looked as if she was ready to start banging her head on her desk at any moment.
"Just… fine. But I'm not training him. He dropped from the sky, he's yours. You know I don't have enough people to fill in the rest of your team anyway." She shook her head. "I don't understand why Sarutobi took you in, Hughes. You men are trouble. Just go downstairs and get ready. It's already late because I had to listen to Sakura. I hope you read the mission last night, because it's longer than usual."
Roy and Hughes masked their panic perfectly. Neither of them had read anything last night. Well, maybe Roy had skimmed the cover because it was sitting on his desk. He might have doodled on it… but he hadn't read it. They simply nodded and turned to leave.
"Wait, will you at least tell me his name?"
"Sorry. I'm Jean Havoc," he nodded to Tsunade, and followed the other two out.
Tsunade leaned back in her chair. She wanted to scream. No one was taking anything seriously anymore because everyone was convinced that neither Orochimaru nor Akatsuki would make a move for another two years. It was a silly fantasy, and she couldn't believe that so few people in the village hadn't been taken in to it. They probably weren't paying attention, but she could feel the movements starting already. Nothing was more effective than a year-early surprise attack on the village. She turned to the pictures of the past Hokages lining the wall, and silently called to them for help.
Downstairs in what was basically a locker room Roy, Hughes, and Havoc pulled on their thick cloth armour and assembled their various weapons. They passed the mission assignment back and forth as they got ready. Hughes was obsessively checking his equipment, Havoc looked somewhat nervous and excited, but that was no different from his usual state of mind before missions. Roy, whenever he wasn't holding the mission report and skimming through it, would snap his fingers and keep the flame between his index finger and thumb, then dance it across each of his fingers individually, spreading it evenly on each finger, then converting the energy to chakra. He imagined the trick was mostly useless, but he'd taught himself anyway. It had taken ages to learn, but he felt that the accomplishment in control was worth the effort. He was about to repeat the exercise with his left hand when Hughes nudged his shoulder. It was time to go. They were to patrol to the far west borders of the village. Many people had seen suspicious creatures in the forest near there and were starting to suspect that something suspicious was going on just outside the reaches of the village. It was an all-day surveillance, and they were to do what they could to gather any and all information relating to it. Normally a mission assignment like this would barely be more than a page long, but this one was three. Though seemed to say nothing extra, the length of the report told the group that they were permitted to go well outside of the mission's outlines. It couldn't be written directly, but they were to spy outside the village on the groups Tsunade suspected of causing the unrest at the borders.
The three walked to the outside of the village, Hughes and Roy doing their best to explain to Havoc what he'd need to know. In hindsight, it had been a stupid idea to force him to come along on his first mission so soon, but having scared Sakura away rather permanently they assumed they'd had no other choice. All of the other jounin and chuunin were out on other missions, presumably of the same type in different border areas. Luckily the three of them had been sent to an area that hadn't seen much action in recent days. They hoped that it would remain the same, at least for a while, as they ran through the trees. At first Roy and Hughes led Havoc through the treetops, but his balance was still awkward and eventually they moved to the ground. It was noisier, but Havoc made up for it by cloaking them in a genjutsu. It was better than worrying about him falling from the trees and ending up injured before they even got anywhere. As their pace slowed over the miles, Hughes considered hiding Havoc's cigarette's from him. He was doing a good job hiding his shortness of breath, but he wasn't travelling at half the pace Roy and Hughes were used to. It was a wonder he didn't have a smoker's cough, considering he averaged two packs of cigarettes a day. They continued on.
The area along the eastern border had at one time been a hotbed for Orochimaru's plotting, but he had retreated farther into the neutral territories between villages after his unsuccessful attack on Konoha. Most assumed he was now training Uchiha Sauske for the purpose of taking over his body and commanding the power of the Sharingan. They had no doubt that there was also some perverted sense of revenge involved against the members of Akatsuki, specifically Sauske's brother Itachi, on the part of both of them. Akatsuki was a group of untouchables. They were all missing-nins, but they were recognized as too powerful for even a squad of Anbu to bring down alone. On top of that, they always moved in groups. All was quiet along the eastern border on this day, but despite the quiet Havoc reinforced their concealing jutsu. It was all he could do to help, knowing that if they were in a real fight he could do little aside from hide in the trees and watch. He was used to using guns as weapons, and there were none of those here. It was a scary culture of up-close fighting and deception. A real battlefield in the middle of real wars. The sort of thing only Roy had really seen.
They surveyed everything within a mile radius of two points along the outreaches of the eastern border where the strange creatures had been seen. They found nothing, though, barely even any signs that humans had been in the area at all. It was almost too untouched to be abandoned, like someone had taken great care to cover up something that had gone on there recently. There was no sign of genjutsu though, and very few people were likely, or even capable of taking the time to fix even broken tree branches. They noted what they had seen and returned to the village. The surveillance continued like this for several months, and the trek to the missions soon became a sort of game. Hughes would disappear outside of Havoc's genjutsu, now high in the trees, and try to find ways to break it. Havoc's attention was remarkably hard to break, even when Roy tried from within the genjutsu. They found that he was only able to extend the illusions about 20 feet before they broke down, and they were much more effective concentrated in one area. Hughes had even talked Genma into showing Havoc how to handle a sword properly, since neither he nor Roy had ever taken the time themselves. Havoc had complained at first, claiming that Genma scared him, but the two learned to get along once they got to know each other, and Havoc found that Genma was, in reality, a very good teacher. He managed somehow to cut back on cigarettes to less than a pack a day. His justification was that Konoha tobacco was stronger, but Roy and Hughes knew he was doing it to keep up with them. They admired the amount of self-discipline he showed when it came to his training. It was almost like he was living out a sort of dream he'd had, or at least Hughes imagined that to be the case. Perhaps Havoc was still rebelling against his mother, though it was ironic that in a way her ability to maintain her strange spiritual delusions was somewhat reflected in Havoc's skill with genjutsu. It wasn't rare for Hughes to wonder if it was actually connected somehow.
Despite their busy schedule, Roy still managed to set aside a little time each day for research. Hughes often wondered if he ever bothered to sleep, but somehow he was able to continue on without looking even vaguely tired. He only made one more attempt to contact Hohenhime through the gate, this time catching him much later in his timeline than before. He'd talked to Al since their last meeting, and again since he had seen Havoc with Al. He was nearing a very dangerous part in the history of his world, and he told him it would be best to avoid contacting him again, but to watch out for energy fluctuations between the worlds and be prepared to take advantage of it. Something big was coming.
Things on the eastern border remained suspiciously quiet. It had been nearly two and a half months since the three had started their daily survey of the border when a group of Jounin, including Kakashi, returned from a deeply secret mission to the outskirts of the Akatsuki hideout. They hadn't, according to the reports, moved at all in months outside of errands for goods and supplies. They had clearly come across something interesting, and were squirreling it away until the ideal time arrived. A second group returned to the village about a week later with even more startling news. Orochimaru, in his new body, seemed to have swallowed his pride and was returning to Akatsuki with Sauske in tow. It wasn't clear if they were preparing their revenge, or if they were after whatever it was that Akatsuki had discovered and were ready to make amends in order to get their hands on it. There was a lot of speculation about what it could be that Akatsuki was protecting so closely, but one thing was certain – Tsunade had been right about them not waiting to make their move for another three years. With Orochimaru on the move, it wouldn't take long now for the other shoe to drop.
At a meeting soon after Tsunade gathered all the ninjas of rank above chuunin together and gave the order. Surveillance was to continue as usual, but slowly concentrate closer to the Akatsuki hideout, and watch out for any indication of what they could be trying to build or create or research. They were to make the missions as covert as possible, while groups on the borders continued searching as usual, making more "noise" to detract attention from the more important movements. Within a week they would close in, hopefully catching the group off-guard. It was a risk, but taking down the two largest threats to Konoha in one place when they weren't expecting it was a gamble Tsunade had decided to take. A few messengers were sent out to other villages for help, though not much was expected. Orochimaru was largely considered Konoha's problem, and most other villages were blissfully unaware of Akatsuki's activities. They also expected many of the villages to want to take advantage of the now-weaker Konoha. They wouldn't attack outright, but there were still many villages that were jealous of Konoha's practical monopoly over the job offerings of the nobles. Anything that would get the village down was to their advantage, and they knew that Konoha had been able to take fewer and fewer jobs lately. The entire continent seemed to tense. Word had gotten out, but the information was left horribly unspecific. It looked to most villages as if Konoha was trying to hold another chuunin exam to regain their dignity, and the notices were ignored. What mattered was that they knew Konoha was up to something. If war broke out, they would know what to do.