Sealing Salientia - Chapter 47: Mission - Author: PenSmoke

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor make any profit from writing this.

Previously on Sealing Salientia: "Hello students. My name is Iruka Umino, and I have been assigned to be the primary teacher for the 5th years. Those who will be in that class please follow me to your classroom."

Konoha
Friday, November 17th, Year 74

He reminded himself that this was an important mission. There were people's lives at stake here, and life and death was around every corner. The Hokage had personally requested his talents for this mission, and he was told there was nobody better than him for it.

The shadows stretched out in front of him, darkening the room that he was about to enter. Peering in through the small square window set in the door, it was adorned with several pieces of furniture arranged neatly. He scanned it quickly for any hostile presence and was relieved to pick up no trace of any enemy shinobi. He had been ambushed in the past and did not want to recreate the experience.

He put his hand on the doorknob, with his other hand in his kunai pouch on his left leg. The muscles in his arm twitched, causing the wrist and knob to rotate smoothly on well-oiled bearings. A light click of the door being unlatched caught his ears.

He braced himself, for beyond this lay his mission objective. As he pushed open the heavy door, it shook lightly on the hinges, triggering a reaction from him. His eyes quickly caught the glinting light of wire as it caught and pulled from the movement of the door. Swinging his free hand around, he sliced the wire with the blade cleanly, but it was too late. The motion has already been transferred to start whatever mechanism was set in place.

Now in defense mode, he attempted to get into position to defend himself, but found one hand stuck to the doorknob and one foot stuck to a tile on the inside of the door. Using a burst of chakra, he attempted to free himself by blasting the energy into the sticky substance. Upon doing so, he found that the glue had been just a distraction to hold him for long enough to ensure the trap would connect. He looked up to see the weapon that had been deployed about to impact his skull, now far too late to duck out of the way.

*Bonk*

As the chalkboard eraser dropped onto his head and bounced off, it left a light white dusty imprint upon his hair that would be annoying to get out. He turned his head to the back corner of the room, where he could now hear laughter emerging. Huddled in the back corner was a boy who already had a shade of hair that wouldn't show the white chalky outline, laughing mirthfully at him.

"Naruto. Why?"

"Sorry Iruka-sensei! It's just too funny!"

The boy was holding his sides chuckling at the little prank and Iruka sighed. Naruto had been happy to see a familiar face as his teacher this year, as Iruka had often been over at the Senju compound, first to get help directing the ANBU Corps medical program. After that project had been deemed completed, he would come over just to visit occasionally, building friendships with the medical ninja as well as the white-haired duo.

And while Iruka had thought it could be fun to be assigned as a teacher at first, he didn't realize that this meant he would be the target of various pranks from pre-teen ninja trainees. That had damped his enthusiasm for this mission very quickly and had turned the classroom assignment almost into a prison for him. He spent hours and hours grading papers, judging skills, and writing reports, on top of his regular mission reports.

He walked to the front of the classroom, doing his best to clean the dust off of him. However, despite the best effort of his hands in attempting to remove the chalky material, the powder seemed to cling to him supernaturally. Upon hearing renewed chuckles from his student, he glared over at the boy.

"What did you put on here, Naruto?"

The white-haired boy burst out loud again, guffaws filling the room. After tapping his foot impatiently for a few seconds, he decided that the boy was going to be of no use in helping remove the offending particulate. Pushing a burst of chakra to generate some wind, he performed a small air bullet style technique that fluffed his hair wildly but seemed to remove the remainder of the powder.

Satisfied with this, he meandered over to his desk and set all of his carried materials down. After a quick inspection of his desk and chair to ensure that they weren't tampered with as well, he sat down and started on his morning preparations for class.

As Naruto's laughter slowly settled down, he glanced up at the boy. It was clear that the Academy's changes in how they processed students was having a clear benefit on all of the students in the upcoming years, but the class that he was in charge of seemed to have a plethora of talent above and beyond. He was proud to be a part of this classes development as he could tell these kids were going to grow up and be something special.

His frown deepened a bit. 'That is, if they make it that far.' His thoughts grew dark for a moment, though they rebounded when he thought again as to why he was there. He was going to teach them so that there hopefully wouldn't be complications in them getting to the point where they would be famous. He just needed to protect them.

As a few other students appeared in the classroom, he waved at them each, marking down attendance on a sheet in front of him. Naruto's laughter seemed to be infectious though, as shortly after entering, each student heard the white-haired boys laugh, then they laughed themselves. It was a recurring pattern, so much so that even the normally quiet Aburame could be heard with a light chuckle, which struck him as odd.

The bell rang to signal the start of the school day, which prompted Iruka to move to the door of the classroom. He opened the door and leaned outside to make eye-contact with the other shinobi that were waiting in the hall for a cue to enter. He knew several of them and greeted those he knew by name. His old sensei was amongst the group of ninja, and Iruka greeted him warmly. He noted the strange look that his sensei gave him, but dismissed it, thoughts elsewhere. Waving them into the classroom, he waited until they were all inside and lined up, before walking front and center.

Light snickering could still be heard through the classroom, and so Iruka stood there and waited until it stopped a few seconds later. "Attention everyone. Today, we will be authorizing your first team missions. These are going to be D-Rank missions to ensure that your teamwork is capable, you can follow orders as given, and that you have the appropriate abilities to accomplish tasks given to you. You will be split into various teams, each assigned to work with a chunin or jonin within the village."

He motioned to the assembled other ninja that stood nearby. "As you all should know, a D-Rank mission is classified as lowest-risk, meaning that there is almost no chance of contact with enemy shinobi. These missions typically happen inside the city, or within proximity to Konoha."

He could hear a murmur of excitement through the class. Kids were always so excited to get going on their first missions. He smiled lightly, thinking, 'If they only knew'. D-Ranks were a pit of drudgery that were basically just upkeep of the village. Konoha got to use their newest and least trained forces as super-cheap labor to help maintain the status quo. Iruka hadn't really ever agreed with the practice while he had been subjected to it but ever since he had been promoted, it was amusing to see the younger generation have to go through it too. He supposed that was probably the only reason the unseemly practice was still in place, the older generation had to do it, so they made the kids do it too.

He began to read out the lists of missions that had been given to him for assignments, along with the recommended shinobi-in-training for them. He had agreed with most of the recommendations but had one little change he was making now due to earlier events.

"First Team: Ino, Sai, Daichi. Your mission entails assisting the Konoha Clan Council with copying transcripts, filing records, and acquiring interviews with related people.

Second Team: Ami, Chouji, Neji. Your mission is assisting in the moving of stone from Konoha Quarry to the walls for repair work.

Third Team: Sasuke, Kiba, Lee. Your mission will involve cutting down some trees from the forests outside of Konoha and transporting the timber into town.

Fourth Team: TenTen, Kota, Shino. Your mission is to help repair Training Grounds 4, 6, 17 and 24 from general wear and tear."

He smirked a bit when looked down to read the last scroll, seeing the recommended name crossed out and a new one written in place. He wanted to have some fun with this, so he decided to phrase the mission to build up some anticipation too.

"Fifth Team: Your team will get the pleasure of helping to retrieve a very important object that is the personal property of the Fire Daimyo." Iruka looked up at the faces of those he hadn't called yet, as they were able to tell it was them through process of elimination. The kids looked hungry for the mission. Oh how he was going to enjoy this. "Naruto, Shikamaru and Sakura, I hope you enjoy finding Tora the cat!"

As expected, the crestfallen faces of the pre-teens, combined with the snickering of the rest of the room felt a decently valid payback for the little prank Naruto had pulled on him.

The kids slowly got up and filed out in order. The last group to go was Naruto, Shikamaru and Sakura, which he watched them slinking out with a feeling of satisfaction, while they were escorted by his prior sensei. Just as the door was about to close, Masuya Sarutobi stuck his head back in for one last word.

"Hey Iruka, I like what you've done with your hair."

This was accompanied by a loud "Eeep!" in the hallway from Naruto, followed half a second later by the furious pounding of footsteps away from the classroom.

Iruka glanced up at the man, confusion present in his eyes. By now, the older man had already turned to leave with his charges, chasing the kids as they rocketed out of the building. Iruka stood up and walked over to a window, catching his reflection in the pane. His hair stuck out at dozens of odd angles, looking a little like an upside-down and poorly made bird nest. Reaching his hand up, he felt the hardened mess and realized that the reason the chalk powder was so hard to get out is that Naruto had mixed it with glue. Combined with the drizzle outside this morning, meant that his hair had slowly solidified into this shape after he had used wind chakra to blow the chalk out.

The loud cry of "NARUTOOOO!" could be heard blocks away, bouncing off of the rooftops, echoed by the laughter of several kids.

Naruto, Shikamaru and Sakura all understood the mission, though it didn't mean that they were happy about it. In fact, Masuya Sarutobi found their collective griping to be quite amusing. He sat back on a nearby bench, bouncing his son Konohamaru on his knee, and playing with the boy while supervising the potential genin. He looked on with a smile on his face as they discussed various plans.

Shikamaru seemed to be taking the lead. "We need to first locate the target. The target was last seen leaving the residence of the Daimyo's nephew near the edge of the city. Determining whether we should be searching inside or outside of town is our priority."

Sakura chimed in next, "What about historical information? We know that this cat has escaped before, we could check to see if anyone knows where it was found by others who were tracking it. That could point us in a probable direction."

Masuya nodded along. So far, they were making sense. Gathering information to try and complete an objective as quickly as possible was thinking how a ninja should. He watched as Naruto seemed to relax backwards on his perch, closing his eyes. Curious as the what the child was doing, he watched closer. The boy's nose was flaring ever so slightly a few seconds apart. Checking the wind for a scent, normally a brilliant idea, would likely not work in this environment. Too many conflicting smells. Perhaps if the boy was an Inuzuka, he would have a chance.

Shikamaru continued, "I had already considered that. Tora is not often found in the same spots each time, and it seems somewhat random where he shows up."

Sakura gaped at the boy and Masuya was a little surprised himself. The pineapple hair pre-teen continued through their silence. "When we first heard of Tora and what a pain he can be, I took it upon myself to read the reports of him from the unclassified reports section of the Archives."

That made sense. While he wouldn't have spent the time preparing in such a manner, knowing the Nara family as he did, it wasn't completely unexpected. The boy was smart but lazy, a natural consequence of which was that he would do a little work up front in order to save himself lots of work later. He watched as Sakura seemed to accept the fact and Naruto was still oblivious.

A quick elbow to the side of the snow topped boy seemed to rouse him from his activity. Shikamaru pulled back the joint and looked at the boy as he focused his eyes.

"You pick him up yet?" Shikamaru asked.

"Yeah, the bugger is lounging just over there. I 'm pretty sure he's watching us." He raised an arm and cocked a thumb at an area behind them. Masuya raised his eyes to the location and sure enough, there was a fat cat laying on a rooftop a couple of houses over. Mostly hidden behind some plants, it was just barely visible from their location, though nobody could have possibly seen it without looking intensely for it. It had dull brown fur, a bright red ribbon off the right ear and a marking of black fur on the forehead in lines. It was currently licking its paw and using it in the process of cleaning.

Masuya's eyebrow raised a bit. The boy certainly had some amazing sensory perception. While he had known that the cat was already there, he knew plenty of genin and chunin that wouldn't have been able to easily locate the cat. He wondered if it had anything to do with the boys' particular situation. After all, that was the entire reason he had agreed to go along with chaperoning kids on their D-Ranks.

His dad had wanted someone trusted to keep an eye on Naruto, especially given the Kyuubi chakra inside of him. Since very few people actually even knew of the situation involving Naruto's stomach, he got tapped, due to already being in the know from the night of. Besides, he was stuck in town due to being a single dad and was being supremely paranoid of letting his son be taken care of by others. So, keeping close to home with no danger missions would at least let him pay the bills.

He tried not to let his mind wander any further back to the events of the past, he had his own son there to take care of, in addition to the three brats. Speaking of, they were staring at him with a similar look of awe that he had felt, just not shown. He didn't blame them, Naruto had just shown at least chunin tracking skills.

"Well," Masuya declared loudly, startling the students, "You now have the target located. How are you going to catch him?"

Shikamaru glanced up at him. Masuya started to get worried that he wasn't going to have any fun on this mission with the smirk that he saw appear on the kids' face.

"What do you mean, sensei?" The dark-haired boy started to lean back and close his eyes.

"Do you have a plan to capture the cat? How are you going to accomplish the mission?"

Shikamaru completed his motion, basically lying down and only barely cracking his eyes to look at the overcast sky above. The boy spoke, "I only need three words to explain my plan. Shadow Possession, Success." He continued to lie there, while Sakura stood.

"Fine, you two lazy bums, I'll go over and grab the cat."

Masuya watched, slightly annoyed, as Sakura hopped from rooftop to rooftop to where the cat was. As soon as the pinkette had left the rooftop they were currently standing on, he had seen the cats eyes widen, but nothing else. The Shadow Possession had obviously taken hold and the cat was unable to move. The girl leaned down, picked the cat up and bounded back over.

"Now we just have to deliver it to the Daimyo's wife."

"Wait up Sakura! I have an idea. Shikamaru, you can hold the cat still for a while, right?" Naruto was beaming.

The boy reached into one of the pouches on his hip and unrolled a small sealing array. Poofing some supplies into his hands, a small assortment of sealing paraphernalia was organized on the bench he had just been sitting at. He grabbed a kunai and gave a look to the cat.

"Naruto," Masuya spoke up. "You do realize we have to return the cat alive and unharmed, correct?" The former ANBU Commander looked at the glint in the boys eyes, unsure of why he was grinning so much. Besides, he did not need the Madame of the Daimyo yelling at him for her cat ending up dead.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm just going to shave some fur off. Not going to hurt the guy." After he cleared a small area of fur, Naruto grabbed a brush and started to draw something on the upper torso of the cat. Masuya quickly understood what the boy was doing and dropped his apprehension. The boy was going to be a natural for ANBU Tracking with skills like this.

A small tracking seal later and Naruto quickly stored his things back away. "There. Now, if the cat gets out again, we can instantly know where he is at any time."

The cat looked severely distressed, eyes flickering back and forth between all of the humans. It continued to do so for the rest of their walk back to the tower to turn in the lost pet. Upon arriving at the destination, they went to the designated room, where they could see the cats' owner waiting. With the release of the Kagemane, the cat sprinted over to his owner.

As Madame Shijimi cradled her lost pet and it seemed to struggle to be out of sight of the three genin, Masuya collected the mission payments and distributed them.

Naruto cheered as he was handed the mission statement. "First mission, complete!"

Masya chuckled. "Nope. Not quite." He plopped down a small stack of papers, about twenty pages long, slowly separating it into 4 stacks of 5 sheets each. "Now it is time for me to teach you the real enemy of all ninja. Paperwork!"

AN: More progress. Wanted to do a basic setup of mission structure. Some more character building and dialogue, as well as prefacing a couple of things to happen in the future. Constructive Criticism welcome!