Chapter 8: The meeting of the minds and cold feet
Previously on Naruto, the Deception gone awry:
Sarutobi knew that he had to concede the point once more, the Uchia had been considered the best thing since the yondaime by the civilian populace and some of the ninja, regardless of their opinion of the jutsu stealing clan before they were massacred by one of their own. And the other major clan heirs, who almost entirely were present in this one graduating class, were taught by their families to be able to protect themselves and their secrets from a young age. " Fine, I know what you mean. So then, we have to now decide how many hours of his service we can say he worked back tonight as you did technically enlist him in your investigation. Kami forbid that I let him use shadow clone hours as his own, he would be done with his punishment in a couple of days, and despite how harsh it has turned out too be from what you have told me he is coping okay thus far and it will be a good lesson for him in the future." With this statement, the two shinobi sat to negotiate further on the specifics of the agreement that had been done that day. What they did not know, was that at the same time in the slums of Konoha, another meeting was taking place, with the object of their discussion being an unwilling participant...
Location: Naruto's apartment, the slums.
Point of view: Naruto Uzumaki
Naruto was usually surprisingly bad at getting up when woken before he was ready for it, but returning to consciousness with a sword blade to your throat has a very awakening effect. Doing his best not to move in what could be in anyway remotely considered a threatening manner, he opened his eyes, shifting his vision to look over at the cloaked figure that was holding their katana to presumably pacify him. He spoke quietly, so as not to startle the intruder into acting rashly. " You know, if you are going to kill me, you could at least have let me sleep through it." He grinned at his own dark humour, his sleepy mind not registering that aggravating someone who has you at sword point was probably an in advisable move. To his surprise, the figure spoke back to him, in an obviously female tone. "To kill you was not the purpose of my visit Naruto-San, I merely wished to ensure that you did not over react to my presence upon waking and this seemed the most logical way for me to do that. After all, it would be hard for me to hold a proper discussion with you whilst trying to battle off hordes of your clones."
There was no humour, sarcasm or anything in the girls tone, though Naruto was still tempted to take her last comment as a joke and chuckle to it accordingly. She spoke blandly without a hint of emotion in her voice, leading Naruto to shake off his attempts at humour and instead go for the no nonsense approach in trying to negotiate with the girl, well as no nonsense as he could be. "So you are here to talk to me rather than attack me? If I promise to sit quietly and listen to what you say, will that be sufficient compliance from me to ensure that you remove your 'negotiation equipment' from its current resting place?" Nothing, not even a twitch, he was going to have to work a lot harder to elicit a reaction by the looks of it. After a moments pause she spoke once more, lifting her blade to rest against her shoulder as she stepped back from the bed. "That is acceptable as a deal Naruto-san, so if you would sit up and make yourself comfortable, I can begin." Deciding not to keep her waiting, he sat up, watching her closely.
It was at this point that he affirmed to himself that this was the same person who he had spent the evening chasing, and voiced this in order to be sure. "Are you the person who was spying on me earlier this evening? I think you are but just wanted to be sure." She nodded once " that is correct, and is actually part of the discussion that I wished to have with you. I work for part of an organisation, and we take a vested interest in ensuring that Konoha continues to prosper and grow strong. As you know of your tenant now, you will be able to understand why we have been keeping our eye on you all these years, doing our best to help you from the shadows when nobody else would." as she said this, Naruto's mind was cast back to his younger years, when those who would try and chase him or hurt him were either distracted, incapacitated or otherwise stopped from getting to him, well before his supposed 'carers' even tried to intervene.
He had always thought that it was Yugao or one of her ANBU that had been protecting him, but she had claimed no knowledge of it occurring, adding weight to the cloaked girls claim. Seeing that he was not going to speak again, the girl started speaking once more in the same monotone that she had used since the start of this rather odd interaction. "We also know of what you have been doing since the incident with the traitor Mizuki, your little addition to Konoha's populous was very cleverly done, even though with your childish goals for this you have not realised what you have uncovered with this move." that worried Naruto, after all, if these people knew of what he had been doing when even the Hokage had been kept in the dark, he wondered what other information they would be able to get hold of if they wished.
Obviously sensing his anxiety, the girl help up her hand in a placating gesture. "Calm yourself Uzumaki-San, your secret is safe with us, as I said, we see uses for what you have done even if you have not yet realised them for yourself. After all, consider it this way. You have just managed to infiltrate someone into the greatest and supposedly strongest village in the elemental nations, have gotten them into close proximity of one of the villages greatest assets, namely you, and no one has raised an eyebrow at it, meaning that if she was a proper infiltrator, she could carry out her espionage and sabotage operations without initial worry about being detected at all." Okay, he definitely had not thought of it that way when he came up with his initial plan to wow Sakura with his dating skills. When it was put like that, it did highlight how lax security in Konoha had gotten, especially as he had had no training in the subject at all. This did raise a pertinent question however, that he felt needed to be answered now. "But why are you interested in this, from what you have told me and with my experience of the chase earlier this evening, you are definitely not part of Konoha's official forces and that you do not report to the Hokage, so why would this security lapse worry you?"
That got a reaction from her, as her hands tightened into fists and when she spoke there was a hint of anger in her tone, the first emotion he had heard or seen expressed in the whole conversation. "Think what you will, but I assure you that you will find none in Konoha more devoted to the village than us!" this time it was Naruto who was doing the pacifying, he asks an honest question and nearly gets his head taken off for it. "Okay, I believe you lady, no need to get angry now. I was just wondering what this had to do with me then? It's not like I can change the security of Konoha. Why don't you just bring it up with the Hokage?"
She sighed to herself, shaking her head in the same way that one would do so when looking at a five year old who has been hopelessly naive, and Naruto got the feeling that what he had just said was a pretty silly thing to say somehow. "If only it were so easy for us to address the issue then we would not need to involve you in the slightest. The reason we need you is that the Hokage does not view us in the best light, due to the different ways that we think that Konoha should be protected from forces both internal and external. The use for your plan that we have seen, and would like for you to carry out, is to simply keep the ruse going until the end of the year, regardless of whether or not the plan succeeds, as this is the length of time usually given for a deep cover operative to complete their mission. Then, we shall present the evidence to the Hokage, which should hopefully be enough to force him to take preventative action against future possible attempts at infiltrations."
Naruto thought for a moment before nodding in agreement to the suggestion. "I can do that, I was planning on keeping her around for a while regardless as it would not be good for her to just suddenly disappear, people would just claim that I had killed her and hidden the body." not the sort of accusation he wished to particularly face a biased civilian court over. Another question popped into his head as the girl shrugged in a non-committal fashion to his previous statement. "If you and I are going to effectively be partners on this, as I imagine the fewer of you I know about the less risk for the both of us, how am I meant to contact you with updates and stuff?" she shrugged once more, stepping back further into the shadows of his room before replying. "Really Uzumaki-san? You should know by now that it's when I contact you we meet, you trying to arrange it will just end badly... Until next time." And with that she was gone into the darkness, silence pervading the room and unnerving Naruto slightly even as he cursed silently about useless traps that seemed incapable of deterring anyone from entering his apartment whenever they wished.
Time: 7:45 am
Location: Naruto's apartment
He woke up early the next morning, his mind troubled now by the events of the previous day. First he gets in a huge amount of trouble with the Hokage, then he gets held a sword point by someone who he had spent the evening chasing round Konoha, before effectively agreeing to deceive the entire population of Konoha for almost 4 months in partnership with an obviously covert organisation that did not work for the Hokage. He was fairly certain that most if not all of that would be classed as treasonable on some level or another. But there was not a lot that he could do about it now, and he had to be ready should Yugao agree to his request to go and have a look at the site where Umi was attacked yesterday, in the hope that he would be able to discover something towards the outcome of the attack.
This would be helpful towards his original plan, the one he had devised initially before all these complications got added to it, as if he did find something Umi could then come and thank him at the end of the academy today, which would be a good way to introduce her to the rest of the class so that they wouldn't find it weird when she just appeared as they started dating. After thinking on his problem for another ten minutes, he finally decided the best he could do was to go along with the plan as it was for now, and that if the scary girl appeared again and asked him something unreasonable, he would throw himself at Yugao's mercy and explain everything to her then.
This line of thought made one last glaring consequence of yesterday spring into his head and he sighed dejectedly as he thought it through and came to a conclusion. He was going to have to send some clones to the library of all things. Naruto really didn't like the library, he was much more of a 'get out and do it person', but considering his currently self designed traps weren't cutting it in the slightest, he was evidently going to have to up his game somewhat in order to try and reduce the number of intruders that he received every night. Before he could think upon the matter any further, there were four loud but rhythmic knocks at the door, making him curse quietly for getting distracted and not creating some clones to go off to the library when he first thought of them.
Thinking quickly he called up his chakra whilst he grabbed some food. Half a dozen clones burst into existence, one running off to the door whilst the others transformed into various animals and left through cracks in walls or through windows, making sure to stay out of sight. He heard his clone open the door as he was halfway through his last cookie. "Hi Yugao-chan, the boss won't be a minute, he's just finishing breakfast. Are you here about our request, or is Jiji going to try and steal even more of our money?" there was silence for a moment before a proofing sound and Yugao's voice calling into the flat. "Naruto-San, what have I told you? You really need to improve your manners now that you are a ninja. And you shouldn't be mad with the Hokage, it was you that hid your money troubles from him after all, so he wasn't to know." Naruto rushed to the entrance as she continued speaking, appearing at the door as she spoke once more. "And in regards to your request, the Hokage has approved for you to do an unranked mission to investigate the caravan attack site, though he has insisted you be back by noon, so that you are not late for your graduation at 2." graduation? That had not entered Naruto's mind with all the work he had been doing over the last week, was that really today?
Shaking off his confusion as to where all the time had gone, he instead grinned apologetically at Yugao. "Sorry Yugao-chan, the clones are a bit rowdy at the best of times. Also, I apologise, you have been doing a lot of things for me over the last 24 hours, I will make it up to you I promise." he then thought about what she had said a little more. "So it's just me then? Or are you sending along someone to keep an eye on me?" Yugao's face softened slightly at this and she reached forward to ruffle his hair slightly. "Not with you as such, I will be at taking you to the western gate where we will meet the chuunin due to patrol the area where the attack took place, she will lead you there, then continue her patrol of the area whilst you search. She will in effect be in charge of you during this time, so show her proper respect and report anything you find to her during or at the end of the search. Now are you ready to go?" he nodded eagerly, grabbing her shoulder as she went through a string of handseals, and then in a burst of speed they were gone.
Arriving at the gate, Naruto found a tall thin young woman with long black hair and a chuunins flak jacket on over typical ninja fatigues that fitted her loosely enough to allow for free movement but not too loose as to become a liability in a taijutsu battle. "Naruto, this is Himako, she will be your effective leader and point of contact on this mission, here is a personal radio for each of you to keep in touch with each other with, I must be getting back to my duties now." handing each of them a headset, she disappeared in a swirl of leaves, leaving the two of them alone. Himako's smile was one of the most fake that Naruto had ever seen, she was obviously not happy with him in the slightest, though whether that was because he was forcing her to do extra work on her patrol, or whether it was to do with what he contained, he couldn't be quite sure, and didn't really want to find out. He bowed deferentially, before properly introducing himself. "Hello Himako-taichou, thank you for helping me with this, I won't be any trouble I promise."
Himako snorted and a thin smirk covered her face as she looked at him once more. "That's what we all thought when you graduated at last, it took me hours to get all the glue and feathers out of my hair, and that uniform still has splashes of orange on it." Ahh, so that's why she didn't particularly like him right now, another consequence of his little plan that he hadn't thought of before enacted it. Reflexively he reached back with his left hand and scratched the back of his head whilst grinning in what he hoped looked like an apologetic manner. "Gomen, Himako-taichou, I imagine you aren't the only one annoyed at me for that one, I just needed to blow off some steam after being told something really bad, and at least I made sure the glue was water soluble?" She looked thoughtful at this and Naruto expected she assumed that he had been told about being the container of the kyuubi. She spoke after a moment, her tone a lot less accusatory this time. "Well, if the news was what I think it was, I can't blame you for being upset with a lot of us. Besides, from what I hear, you received more than a big enough punishment. So, I will put it behind me, and make sure that the others know why you did it if you behave yourself this morning and listen to the orders that I give you."
Naruto nodded rapidly, if it stopped her being so passively aggressive towards to him, then that was not a bad deal in the slightest. With this affirmation, she turned away and walked out the gate, nodding at the guards as she passed them, neither of them Naruto recognised, but he followed quickly as she broke into jog down the road, before jumping into the trees on the left hand side of the road a moment later, Naruto cursing at the increase in pace before jumping after her as quickly as he could. Forty agonising minutes later, Naruto dropped from the trees to the side of the road, his face red and his breath ragged and shallow. Himako dropped from where she had stopped and grinned not a little vindictively at him. "You need to work a lot on your speed Naruto-San, whilst acceptable for an academy student, as a genin you will be expected to be considerably faster than you are now." Naruto didn't respond for a minute apart from looking up at her like she was crazy. He had effectively just performed a forty minute sprint at his top speed, which would not have been possible if not for his insane stamina that he had gained as a container, and even that had been pushed to its absolute limit with that effort. Any of his classmates would have been left in the dirt long before now, so she was either a very harsh taskmaster and judge, or his graduation were well below par where it mattered.
Choosing not to get involved in what would be a pointless argument, Naruto instead managed to wheeze out what he considered to be a pertinent line of enquiry. "Is this the location of the attack?" her grin was a little unnerving as she replied. " this is about two thirds of the way to the destination, but you looked like you needed a break, we continue in ten seconds." his heart and face plummeted, another twenty minutes like that? There was no way he was going to survive that. " I was only joking Naruto-San, this is the location, we removed the burned out carts so that they did not affect people's willingness to travel this road. You really should have seen your face then." This had to be revenge for his prank, Naruto grumbled as he glared at the now giggling chuunin who was enjoying torturing him far far to much for his liking. After a few seconds she stopped giggling and straightened up. "But on a more serious note, the investigating chuunin found the burning wagons here, and a trail leading that way, to the west of here. The problem is that the trail vanishes after a half mile or so, as if the bandits just vanished into thin air, and despite searching the surrounding woodland, they were unable to find any further clues as to their location on passage. She paused for breath and looked him in the eye. "I don't know how you expect to do any better than they did with this, but I wish you the best of luck Naruto-San, I will be back in three hours to return you to Konoha, be ready by that time. If you need to report anything to me before then, I will set the radio Neko-taichou gave me to channel three and you can report it through that." and with that she was gone, back into the trees, leaving Naruto by himself to observe his surroundings.
To both sides of him were the famous Konoha woodlands, created by the Shodaime and maintained by Konoha to this day, as a natural defensive terrain that they flourished in fighting in. The trail was easy enough to spot, broken branches and disturbed foliage pointing the way for pursuit. Using the correct handseal, Naruto called on a good portion for his pretty much only useful technique. "Kage bushin no jutsu!" in an eruption of smoke over a hundred Kage bushin appeared around him. "Right, you guys know what you are doing, follow the trail until it disappears, then fan out, search areas in sections, no crossing over. The clones saluted then ran into the woods with a cheer, they would find something, there were too many of them not to!