Chapter Twenty-Two

It had been over a week and a half since Ken had left for the Chunin Exams — Naruto felt proud that he had finally gotten that name down — and he had finally sent a letter back to Konoha about his progress. Tomoko, or rather a shadow clone since the real Tomoko had to leave early for a mission, took her sweet time opening the envelope with a kunai and fishing out the paper. She silently chuckled at the sight of Naruto fidgeting as he resisted telling her to hurry up before she opened the letter and began reading.

"Dear Naruto," Tomoko read outloud, "I hope you've been doing well since I last saw you. Have you kept up your training? Knowing you, you've probably been badgering Tomoko for more, eh?" The two shared a laugh over how right Ken was.

"As for me, my team has passed the first two phases of the exams, and every member has been cleared for the third. This last phase is a tournament to be held for all kinds of rich and important people across the Continent. We have a month to prepare, to learn new skills, get better at our old ones, and to plan for our first-round opponents.

"I miss you, kiddo. I wish you could be here at the tournament to watch me. Above all else, I'm doing this for you. I just hope that I can make you proud.

"Be good,

Cousin Ken."

"Aw, yeah! I knew Cousin Ken would kick butt in this Exam!" Naruto shouted. His gleeful shouts soon devolved into chuckles. "And he has no idea I'll be there to watch this tournament, either. Man, won't he be surprised?"

"That he will, Kit," Tomoko agreed, glancing at the clock on her wall. "Hey, we'd better head out. Don't want to be late to meet your friend."

Naruto cheered and, as Tomoko had gotten used to lately, left her to her more sedate pace. Twenty minutes of walking found them at a civilian park. Upon arriving, Naruto burst into a great smile as he saw his playmate for the day, Hinata Hyuga, escorted by her caretaker, Ko.

Tomoko's shadow clone took a seat at a park bench next to the Hyuga and smirked. "Good day, Ko," she greeted warmly. Naruto and Hinata had played together several times since Naruto's eighth birthday, and the last few times had introduced her to the Hyuga escort.

"Ms. Sarutobi," was Ko's stoic reply.

Tomoko frowned at the response. "Would it kill any of your clan to show just a bit of enthusiasm?" she asked. "Or heck, to emote just a little? I'm pretty sure the village would survive."

"It is not our way, Miss," Ko replied.

Tomoko snorted. "Let's hope your pearl-eyed princess can break that mold." She smirked a bit. "If anyone can teach her how to emote, it's little Naruto. That boy wears his heart on his sleeve."

"I sincerely doubt the boy is so influential," Ko commented outwardly, though inside he felt a twinge of guilt. Until the dissolution of the Nine-Tails Secrecy Act, he had been among the masses who rejected Naruto because of his role as a jinchuuriki. He had even pressured Lady Hinata to avoid him, even after she had told him of Naruto's heroic attempt to protect her from bullies — the very incident that had led to his own appointment as her joint caretaker, escort and bodyguard. Though he had initially resented the role, he had quickly come to appreciate Lady Hinata's gentle nature and overall adorableness.

Tomoko's clone remained largely unaware of Ko's thoughts, even if the thread of sensory chakra she moulded to maintain her awareness gave her a hint to his true feelings. She shrugged it off and just basked in the warm sun and the sight of two children playing together even with utterly opposite personality types. While Hinata was painfully shy and generally quiet, Naruto was louder than anyone else and burned with friendly energy.

She couldn't help but notice, even as they were just playing, that they balanced each other, too. Hinata seemed to somehow reel in Naruto's unrestrained energy and impulsiveness, while Naruto urged Hinata to break out of her shell and try new things. At the same time, Hinata never tamped down Naruto's enthusiasm too much, and Naruto never pushed her toward things she was too uncomfortable with. It was a balance that seemed precarious, but they maintained it with unthinking ease.

As she watched the kids continue to play, the shadow clone idly wondered how her originator's mission was going.

Tomoko, the real Tomoko, glanced up to gauge the time by the position of the sun. A few hours past noon, which was actually pretty good time given the location of her mission. 'Or rather our mission,' she thought, casting a glance at the partner she had been assigned this task with.

Kizashi Haruno was his name. He was a genin in his early thirties, something that was a little more common than most people realized, especially in peaceful times. Many shinobi who were products of such times and lacked sufficient ambition to rise up the ranks spent several years as an active-duty ninja until one or both of their teammates became chunin, then retired from active duty and pursued ninja-oriented civilian careers — in his case, he and his wife mass-crafted simple sealing tags to supply ninja shops. At the same time, any who took this route remained part of the reserve ranks and were expected to come to the village's defense in the event of an invasion or other similar event, such as the Nine-Tails Attack.

Kizashi and his wife were both semi-retired reserve shinobi who only took the occasional mission to maintain their experience and keep their instincts somewhat sharp. And the large payout for a short-term mission probably helped.

"So ... Ms. Sarutobi, was it?" Kazashi asked between somewhat labored breaths. They had been moving at a brisk pace since nearly dawn, and his lack of consistent missions probably explained why he was having trouble compared to her.

"Tomoko is fine, sir," she replied lightly. "That is, if you don't mind me calling you by your name, too?"

Kizashi laughed despite his mild fatigue. "Not at all!"

"Great," Tomoko laughed, glancing at a road sign to judge their location. They were approaching the range of their targets, and so she began moulding sensory chakra and expanding her awareness. When they got closer, she'd know. "Did you want to discuss the plan?" she asked.

"No, I think I've got that down," Kizashi assured her. They had spent the first hour of their journey hashing out how they would approach the mission, and Kizashi had been remarkably straightforward on his true skill in battle. After discussing that, they had decided that Tomoko would take point while Kizashi offered a support role that aligned with his particular skill set.

After a bit of subterfuge.

"Actually, I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions," Kizashi continued. "You are close with young Naruto Uzumaki, yes?"

"I am," she replied, choosing to answer that question a bit murkily. Even after her uncle had very publicly dissolved the Nine-Tails Secrecy Act and shamed the villagers for their treatment of Naruto, a vocal minority still refused to let go of their hatred for him.

"How has his development been since he found his clansman?" Kizashi asked. "From what I hear, the boy is in excellent hands."

"Ken has been doing his best to train Naruto," Tomoko replied. "And I'd say it's paying out in spades." Tomoko's eyebrows rose as something Kizashi had said clicked in her mind. "If you don't mind, who has told you about Naruto?"

"My daughter Sakura is in class at the Academy," Kizashi explained. "She's a bit smitten with that Sasuke boy, and Naruto's sudden challenge to his skills has not escaped her notice."

"Smitten? At age eight?!" Tomoko asked incredulously. "When I was eight, I still thought boys had cooties! What is wrong with this generation?"

Kizashi laughed at her reaction. "Poor choice of words, I think. Maybe 'admires' is more accurate. She is much too young for romantic thoughts, that doesn't come until at least double digits. But she is certainly drawn to the Uchiha boy, as are many of her female classmates." He shuddered. "I can only imagine that puberty will make that a nightmare for all involved."

Tomoko couldn't help but laugh. Ugh, she remembered those strange years. Just coming into her growth, and her hormones, as she graduated and was placed on a genin team. She was lucky neither of her teammates, both male, had ever appealed to her. She had heard many stories over the years of genin team love triangles. They usually ended in death-related tragedy.

A few more minutes passed before Tomoko caught the feeling of civilian-level chakra signatures at the edge of her sensory range. She held up a hand to signal Kizashi, who broke away from the road and into the trees for his part of the plan. As for Tomoko herself, she relaxed her body language and used the Transformation Technique to disguise her shinobi clothes as something more typical of a young woman traveling between towns and walked onward.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, the group of chakra signatures drew closer before surrounding her and emerging from the trees on either side of the road. They were a collection of rough thugs each armed with crude clubs or large chains. And every one of them was wearing a lecherous grin.

This was their mission. Konoha had been contacted by the heads of a few local villages about a gang of highwaymen who had been harassing the locals and stealing their wares. After several weeks of repeated attacks, it had become clear to the villages that these guys weren't just going to move along, and so had ordered this mission.

"Hey there, little lady," one thug leered. "Whatchu doin' out here all alone?"

"Traveling," Tomoko said shortly, aiming for an anxious tone but mostly coming off as sarcastic. But who could blame her? She could understand why any number of untrained farmers and traders would fear these guys, but a chunin of Konoha? To the likes of her, they were a big fat joke.

"Well, maybe us big, strong men could be persuaded to provide an escort," the apparent leader said with a wide grin. "For a small fee, of course."

"What would you have in mind?" Tomoko asked, idly noting that the rest of the thugs were steadily closing in.

The head thug looked her up and down — his gaze resting a little longer on the illusion of the bag slung over her shoulder and on her chest — and his grin widened. "I'm sure we can work something out," he sneered.

Tomoko didn't have to fake the grimace of revulsion that she answered with. Not a second later, she heard four distinct soft thuds, like something hard being lodged in dirt. Her chakra sense picked up the erection of a ninjutsu barrier, just the signal she had been waiting for.

"Counter offer," Tomoko said, dropping the Transformation to reveal her shinobi attire and grinning widely. "I'm gonna cut your head off while your friends watch, then I'm gonna kill all except one of them. That last guy I'll just maim." As she spoke, Tomoko leaked a bit of killing intent that made all of the thugs back up in sudden dread. And like clockwork, each of them backed into the barrier Kizashi had erected. Tomoko giggled lightly and unsealed her naginata.

"Just so we're clear, boys, I'm not trapped in here with you." Like lightning, Tomoko swung her naginata, the blade coated with Wind chakra to be sharper than any razor, and the head thug's head slid off his shoulders and fell to the ground, followed by his body. "You're trapped in here with me."

For his part in the mission, Kizashi focused on maintaining two barriers. One to prevent any of the highwaymen from fleeing, and another much smaller one around himself to protect him while his focus was on keeping them up. While Tomoko had distracted the group and lured them into a smaller area, he had snuck around and thrown four kunai knives with seal tags attached to the tops in a rectangular pattern.

Each of the tags were crafted as receivers from the fifth tag in his right hand, absorbing the chakra he was channeling into the transmitter tag and spreading it into a solid faintly-blue screen between each of the four receivers, the walls rising between each corner before gently curving inward to meet in a round roof. The chakra was spread rather thinly, the resilience of the barrier more like a chain-link fence than a brick wall — but would be more than sturdy enough to keep these untrained jerks inside while Tomoko took care of them.

An identical set of kunai with tags was erected around Kizashi himself, each one less than a foot from him and linked to the tag in his left hand. The smaller area to cover meant this barrier would be much more hardy and serve well to protect him should there be an ambush from stragglers or scouts.

Kizashi looked up at the sound of a sharp whistle, the signal to lower the barriers, to find Tomoko standing within a scene from hell. Out of the nine thugs that had been trapped in the barrier, one was still alive and weeping in fear with a shuriken in each leg while all of the others — all dead as stones — were being cremated. And in it all, Tomoko stood resolutely, neither happy about the carnage nor depressed.

Sometimes missions just turned out that way.

Kizashi released a breath and stopped channeling chakra in order to lower the barriers. As soon as they were gone, the remaining highwayman yelped and tried to crawl away but Tomoko stomped on his ankle to pin him in place. "Okay, here's what's gonna happen," she said, her voice harder than steel. "You're going to tell me if there are any more of you around and where I can find them. I will know if you lie, and for every lie you tell-" she unsheathed a kunai, "-you'll lose one finger."

"Captain, take it easy," Kizashi said hurriedly, placing his hand on her shoulders and ever-so-gently nudging her away from the terrified thug who smelled like sweat and now urine. "Why don't I try first?" he added. Tomoko waited a moment before huffing in irritation and striding a few paces away before planting her naginata blade-first into the ground and leaning against it with all the nonchalance in the world.

"Look, man, I'm going to be honest," Kizashi said sitting on his haunches before the terrified thug, "I don't think I can keep her from taking your fingers. She's way stronger than me, much less you." Kizashi glanced back at the burning corpses behind them, the scent of charring meat and wet ash making him nauseous. "For your own sake, you'd better do what she asks. Because if you don't, you're in for a world of hurt."

"That was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be," Tomoko said, peering through a spyglass at the ramshackle camp the last thug had led them to.

"To be fair," Kizashi replied, "I would have been terrified out of my mind if I had been in his place. And I'm a relatively seasoned ninja." He glanced at Tomoko, a woman about a decade younger than him who was no doubt far stronger than he could ever bring himself to be. "If you don't mind my asking, was it necessary to burn their corpses?"

"It's better for the environment," Tomoko replied. The mission had made it clear to leave none of the confirmed highwaymen alive. The band of thieves had taken numerous lives themselves, in addition to thousands of ryo worth of supplies and belongings. And what the client wanted — or in this case clients, plural — the client got. "And it also really amped up the intimidation factor." Her eyes seemed to shine a little. "Fire scares everyone."

Kizashi shivered a bit and then peered through his own spyglass. The last of the highwaymen had specified that his team had been one of three who all menaced a different part of the area. They moved their camp frequently and knew the area well enough to avoid standard patrols, which is why they had never been caught.

He'd also told them with fear in his eyes and voice that their overall band was led by a ninja.

Tomoko thought back to the rappa-nin Team TAK had encountered just over two months ago and moulded sensory chakra to expand her awareness. She counted out roughly twenty chakra signatures, each one the candlelights of a civilian. But in the center, in the largest tent, was a much larger signature consistent with someone trained in the use of chakra. Judging solely by the amount and potency, she determined they were a seasoned low-tier, probably an older genin or fresh chunin who had defected from their village.

"You know, if you wanted to test yourself," Tomoko noted, "I think you could handle the leader. I could work on the rest of them and give you a chance for a kickass story to tell your daughter."

Kizashi mulled that over for a bit. He had never been comfortable as a frontline fighter, much preferring a support role on missions; it was one of the reasons he had never been promoted to chunin. His taijutsu was average at best, his marksmanship the same, and the only nature transformation he had ever learned was for his affinity to Fire Release. And even then he only knew a handful of C-rank techniques.

But the image of his little Sakura's beautiful green eyes lit up with awe as he told the story of how he had fought and defeated a villainous rogue ninja all by himself really was tempting.

"Alright," he finally agreed, preparing his weapons and barrier tags. "How do we approach this?"

"Just make your way through the chaos," Tomoko replied, forming the hand seal for shadow clones and conjuring a dozen staggered dopplegangers. "I'll distract all of them and give you the chance to hit him. If you need help, just say so."

With that, Tomoko and her shadow clones scattered and skirted the edge of the treeline to attack from numerous directions with a chorus of battle cries. Kizashi chuckled upon realizing that she was drawing as much attention to herself as possible to give him as clear a shot at the leader as possible.

Kizashi bolted from cover and darted his way between fights, Tomoko and her clones dominating the area, and took a spot right next to the entrance flap of the single ninja's tent. "What's going on out here?" a deep voice shouted, revealing a heavy-set man about the age of Kizashi himself with an iron bo staff hanging over his back — the missing nin. Curiously, he wore a bandana with the character for "tsunami" on it in place of a village headband.

At the very last moment, the nin seemed to pick up on Kizashi's presence, which provided plenty of time for a sucker punch that sent him reeling. It may have been underhanded, but they were shinobi. If they were fighting fair, they were doing something wrong.

Kizashi followed up with a quick combo of straight punches, all of which were sloppily blocked by the missing nin before sweep kicking his legs out from under him. Or, at least, that was the plan. His maneuver only made the heavy-set deserter stumble and chuckle darkly.

"That's not gonna work on all this muscle," he boasted, gesturing to his physique. Kizashi lifted an eyebrow at the fact that the man was far more round than square, his muscles apparently gone to seed. It was probably only his use of ninjutsu that kept his men in line through fear.

Rather than reply, Kizashi flicked through hand seals for a Phoenix Flower Technique to spit a barrage of fireballs at his opponent. In reply, the other nin drew his iron bo staff and spun it in a tight circle, the length of metal flickering with Lightning chakra that flashed in bursts to disperse any of Kizashi's technique that got too close. Kizashi sighed and unsealed a seal-tagged kunai for each hand before rushing to engage.

The next few minutes were a blur of action and reaction as Kizashi lashed out with his weapons while dodging and blocking his opponent's own attacks. As he did so, he planted his tagged kunai in the ground as surreptitiously as he could. Finally, his breathing ragged from over five minutes of continuous life-or-death conflict, Kizashi jumped back, scattering another batch of seal tags in his wake, and channeled chakra into a receiver tag. When the missing nin tried to follow, he struck the barrier and stumbled backward.

The missing nin growled and stood back up, only to hear the sizzling sound of primed exploding tags — an entire pack of them.

Kizashi braced himself as the pack of explosives detonated, the force of the explosions enough to tear his barrier to shreds. But it had been enough to contain and direct the collective blast and still leave him none the worse for wear. Kizashi tentatively removed his hands from his ears to find a circle of charred earth and viscera where the rouge nin had been.

"Wow," Tomoko commented, all of the other highwaymen defeated or dead by now. "And you thought I went overboard."

Kizashi decided to remain silent as he considered the ninja he had brutally defeated. A genin who had defected from his village, no doubt hoping to find a sense of superiority among those untrained in chakra manipulation. He briefly wondered how many others had fallen into such a trap over the years. And deep down, he was thankful for his wife and daughter who kept him from ever considering such a thing.

It was well after midnight when Tomoko finally stumbled into her door. After they had gathered enough proof of their successful mission, it had taken nearly eight hours to get back to the village. As team leader, the mission report was her responsibility. And she was silently grateful that she could wait for the morning to deliver it.

Her shadow clone looked up from a book and smiled before dispersing itself, the memories of the day flooding Tomoko's mind. She smiled warmly, the images of Naruto looking so happy and so adorable with little Hinata acting like a balm on her fatigued soul. Then her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she stumbled forward, barely catching herself on the wall.

She took several deep breaths and tried to push back the flood of mental fatigue that came with the memories. The clone hadn't been on a mission, but she had taken care of Naruto for over twelve hours straight, and that kid's energy made that trying on the mind at times.

"Tomo?" Tomoko looked up, her breathing still ragged, at the sound of Naruto's voice to find him dressed in his nightcap and pajamas, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "You're home," he acknowledged with a tired smile.

"Just got back, Kit," she said with a tired smile. "And I'm wiped out, so go back to bed. I'll see you in the morning."

Naruto nodded and wandered back to the guest room, smacking his head into the door frame before he closed the door. Determined to take her own advice, Tomoko locked her bedroom door and peeled out of her clothes, deciding to save a shower for the morning.

But as she collapsed onto the bed and started to nod off, something remained clenched in her hand. A sky-blue headband with the character for "tsunami" that she had salvaged from the crooks' camp.

One that was identical to the rappa-nin from Team TAK's C-rank.

Cahpter twenty-two! I actually really liked writing the worldbuilding for this one! Hope it was a fun read!

*It was nice to give Ko a little more depth here.

*Almost every single detail about Kizashi and adult genin is completely fabricated by me. WE never got much information on how many ninja are in each rank, but it was stressed early in the series that becoming a chunin is fairly tough until you've got several years under your belt, and making jonin is far harder. It seems kind of wasteful to have people going in and dropping out as chunin, so the Genin Reserve was born in my brain!

*The "smitten" bit was a bit of ragging on some of the fandom, not to mention modern culture. We need to stop encouraging romance in children! They're not developmentally ready - science proves it! - and it leads to longer-term issues in life.

*Yes, Tomoko's line is from Watchmen. It's an awesome line!

*Yes, the mission got a bit graphic. But they're ninjas, people! Violence is a part of the life. It tried to tone it down as much as I could while still showing that YES it was brutal and terrifying.

Hope you all liked this peek into Tomoko's life. If you did, leave a review - your opinions are always welcome. Until next time, may your inspiration flow freely!