Thunder and Lightning tore apart the sky as clouds churned wildly. Amidst the air a beast floated through the storm as if it was no more than a fish in an ocean.

Naruto's brow furrowed as he watched the creature's shadow play across the clouds. Before he realized what was happening the beast's amber eyes, shining, wete piercing into his soul.

Waking with a gasp Naruto found himself in a medical bed. The vision of a mouth collapsing onto him merely a phantom sensation.

"Weird dream." Mumbling he looked around, trying to figure out his location. As he slowly sat up he could hear a roar fading from his mind until he wasn't sure if he had even heard it.

"Yea weird dream, how peculiar."

Scratching his stomach he felt the tell tale trappings of hunger gnaw at him.

Popping his neck Naruto looked around the medical room he was in, noticing the absence of any others, he idly ran his tongue against his teeth. What would once illicit stabbing pain was a memory of yore. Hmming to himself he glanced at his own arm, "Yup, like usual, and now I even have an explanation for it after all this time."

He looked around once more, "Wonder where everyone is...?"

Tapping her fingers with one hand Kurai shuffled her food around with the other, spoon bouncing back and forth between the bits of broccoli inside the bowl. Her mind clearly else where she didn't even notice the small mess she was making.

"Kurai-sama, is the food not to your liking?"

The ravenette's eyes darted to and fro as she snapped back from her spacing thoughts. "Oh Nozumi-san, no its fine!"

A mistake to be sure she mused to her self as the young woman furrowed her brows in distaste.

"How would you be so sure you've not takin' more then a single spoonful since you got it. I watched!" Kurai's previous woes forgotten, she tapped her cheekbone in a gesture of thought.

"Oh really Nozumi-san, and pray why would you be eyeing me up so particularly?"

Smirking Kurai watched with amusement as the ROOT's very own chef blushed deeply. "I was not "eyeing" you up! You asked me to make you cheddar soup with broccoli, spiced up with diced chilis! You even said it was your favourite!"

Nodding Kurai leaned back from the table. "Indeed, you have, and relax Nozumi I was just teasing you. The soup was fiiine."

The brunette crossed her arms. "If that's the case then why not finish it? Surely its cold by now?" It seemed strange that she would be requested to make such a specific meal, and then watch it be left practically untouched. Something was off and she'd be damned if it was her cooking!

Kurai chuckled, "Think nothing of it Nozumi-san. I've merely a bit on my mind at the moment. Last few chapters of my life have been quite short, this is simply the first moment I have actually been alone to ponder." Nozumi nodded in understanding. Sometimes life could be sudden and catch you off guard. Certainly so in the life of a shinobi.

"Ah well atleast its not the cooking. I'd never live it down if I made a bad meal. I have to keep all of our stomachs filled and our souls full after all. I owe it to Danzo-sama for giving me a chance, let alone a home and family." To the public eye Konoha was a rather lavish and happy village, but if you looked through cracks enough you'd see it was a facade. Broken wallets and broken bodies. If you weren't a shinobi your status didn't really matter. If you questioned Sarutobi Hiruzen you either ended up dead, or worse. For some, it just took longer to see the vile that was the Sandaime Hokage.

"You were an orphan I take it?"

Both Kurai and Nozumi looked towards the approaching form of Naruto, said individuals cheek bulging slightly as he ran his tongue around his mouth.

Nozumi however nodded in response, "Yes Naruto-sama, my parents were part of the fallen that gave their lives to protect the village from the Kyuubi's rampage." A crestfallen gaze sat its self upon her face, eyes glancing away.

Naruto's stomach ever so slightly felt different from the emotions that he gleamed from the petite chef before him. Of course he knew it wasn't his fault, but the fact that the entity responsible for it was mere feet away from her, didn't lighten the mood regardless. if anything it stoked the fires of rage inside him.

His dearly departed mother came to his mind. What would life be like with her beautiful soul in his life. No, instead he was left with only a picture and whispered stories of her legacy. All because of the fox inside his gut.

"I'm sorry to hear that Nozumi, many people perished that dreadful evening. "

Wiping tears from her eyes, she nodded before bowing sharply. "Thank you, I think I'll take my leave for the moment...I need to collect myself."

The brunette turned quickly to Kurai, "Pease enjoy your meal Kurai-sama, if either of you need something Soba is in the kitchen for the rest of the evening."

Frowning Kurai stirred her food yet again before gesturing for Naruto to join her.

"So its spreading then?"

Danzo's face grew sombre as he leaned back in his chair, rubbing his visible eye.

Fuu shook his head in affirmative, Torune matching the action.

"As of the most recent report the disease has afflicted ten percent more of the population and half of that has succumbed to it."

Danzo narrowed his eye at nothing, as if spiting something.

"Damn you Hiruzen, you wretch!"

Danzo stood from his chair grabbing his cane and the dossier on the top ot his desk before exiting his office.

"What do you mean it doesn't look like a slug!? It totally does!"

Kurai gave Naruto a look of exasperation, watching the redhead gesticulating at his food. Instead she pointed at her shark like maw, "I think it looks like a fish personally."

Emphasizing her point, she snapped her teeth together at him.

Naruto sighed looking back at his bowl of food, "is it even safe to eat, I wish Nozomi was cooking right now." Poking his food you could almost hear it squelching unnaturally.

Almost biting into a forkful of his food, whatever it actually was, Naruto's attention was stolen by Danzo's figure suddenly standing before him.

"Naruto I have a task I believe you could take care of expeditiously for your next mission. The chin exams are coming up and I'd like to see you get more experience under your belt."

Raising a read eyebrow Naruto reached out a hand for the folder Danzo was clutching in his grasp.

"Shouldn't this be something you have Fuu or Torune deal with, seems something up their alley"

Hmming to himself a thought came to him. As a genin he needed a mission to be picked as a team and cleared by Kakashi so he could legally leave the village. How would they possibly get that lined up?

As if to read his mind Danzo beat him to the punch. "We have means to get Kakashi on board with this operation. It took a multitude of owed favors from his ANBU days, but he'll be accepting this mission later this evening as long as you're interested. Think of it as a test to yourself, you could save an entire village my boy, or leave it be and watch it waste away." The old man rubbed his scar across his chin, as I'd pondering something.

"This village in Kusa has a great deal of history to me and Hiruzen. I am all but certain this is the results of his machinations, just another attempt at being a thorn in my side."

Kurai took note of the scowl on his face at the mention of the sandaime. There was bad blood there, certainly.

Seeing the look on her face, Danzo waved her off. "You will not be accompanying them, two of my spies were recently found dead after failing to report back on a routine check in. I will be sending you and Kari to deal with this matter."

A look of annoyance crossed her features, crossing her arms. "I don't work for free Danzo, and I-" her words were cut off as Naruto tugged her ear in reprimanding fashion. Leaning back after Naruto whispered to her in a hurry, she let out a huff of feigned iritation.

"Fine."

Naruto having returned briefly to the folder, closed it and stood up before handing it back to the seasoned shinobi.

"I'll get it taken care of old man."

With a nod Danzo began to take his leave.

Before exiting the far side of the nearly empty room Danzo took pause. Turning his head one last time he looked at Naruto's back as the boy made to clean up his "meal", "Thank you."

Leaving the room at last, Naruto's shoulders sagged as he let out a sigh.

Things in Kusa were going to get interesting he reckoned.

One could hear the hustle and bustle as travelers and shinobi alike made their way in and out of the office like room designated the "mission room".

In said room, if one listened ever so closely they could hear the sound of Iruka Umino's teeth gritting as he watched another team come and go with their business.

While he'd be one of the first to admit the importance of handling missions was quite high, damn if it wasn't boring sometimes. what he wouldn't give to be out in the field again honing his skills.

His mind started to drift as his mind filled with thoughts of his future, he had once wanted to join the ANBU and claim all the prestige that game with, but he was pulled from his mental musing as the door opened once again as a shock of white hair was followed by Kakashi.

"Ooh what a pleasant surprise, Kakashi how are you?" Iruka sat forward as he tidied his table, following in his footsteps Kakashi's students all filed in after.

It had been a few months since he'd last seen his precious students, he noted the headband across naruto's eyes, causing his brow to narrow.

"Oh you know, here and there Iruka, if it's not a black cat, it's an old lady with groceries." Kakashi put his book away as he gave Iruka an eye smile.

The chunin chuckled with amusement as Kakashi poked fun at himself.

"What kinda mission are you four looking into today? Another d-rank or perhaps something more challenging. I heard you guys ran into quite the struggle in Nami no kuni?"

The moment he finished saying the countries name he could visibly see Naruto's shoulders tense for the shortest of moments. 'Is that perhaps the reason behind the eye cover?' Iruka wondered in speculation, not even remotely close though he may be, yet he disregarded it none the less as Kakashi rubbed his shoulder as he nervously laughed.

"You could say that I suppose..."

Iruka caught the tone in his voice however and moved to diffuse the tension that was building.

"Hmmm well no matter I'm sure whatever the experience, it was enlightening and tempered all of your abilities further. Always remember I'm proud of the three of you."

Sakura blushed at the praise, Sasuke looked away to the floor. Yet Naruto was the only to reply as he nodded.

"Thank you Iruka-sensei."

While there were certainly many in the village that Naruto wished to see the life strangled out off, Iruka wasn't one of them. In all his time as a student Iruka was ever the fair one, never giving in to cheating him on tests or exercises.

He was a fair and kind hearted man, that only wished for his students to excel in this life of strife, murder and money. Hearing positive reinforcement from him was always welcome and refreshing.

Shuffling scrolls around as he moved specific ones far out of their abilites, Iruka looked up at Kakashi. "Is there anything particular your looking to train them on, or a new place to see?"

Kakashi scratched his chin through his mask in feigned thought.

"What all do you have that is from out of the village lately?"

Nodding in understanding Iruka tugged a box of scrolls over to him from the edge of the desk.

"Well, we have three, there's one for a Nara clan delivery to Taki that is due in 2 weeks, we have one for an annual departure to the Valley of the End for repairs and up keep, apparently there was a fight there recently and some restoration of Madara Uchiha's statue is ne-" Iruka wasnt able to finish his sentence as Sakura became particularly excited at the notion of visiting the famous wonder.

Stepping in front of Kakashi to get his attention she started to plead to her sensei. "Kakashi sensei please, please I've always wanted to visit the battlefield of the shodaime and Madara Uchiha!"

Kakashi chuckled as he look at his star struck student. "Maybe Sakura, lets hear what else he has."

Iruka continued at Kakashi's words, "as I was saying, the site is in need of some maintaining, nothing too terrible, but it is out of the village. "

"Suna recently had word that some angry konoha traders are disputing a sale of goods that went wrong, and one of their ox was apparently either maimed, or even out right killed. Though the information is a bit sketchy and mostly harmless, Suna said they believe a konoha nuke-nin might be at the head of it all. Just a rank and file chunin we had by the name Jotaro Ito that left a year ago."

This one got Sasuke's interest like a fish to irresistible bait.

"Kakashi why don't we go after the traitor? It would be a chance to prove myself."

Kakashi titled his head in thought before looking towards Iruka. 'None of these are the descriptions me and Naruto are looking for.'

"I'd be careful Sasuke, confidence is a slow and insidious killer..."

Sasuke grunted at Iruka's admonishing. "I know but nobody knows how good they truly are until they prove themselves."

Iruka hummed at the notion, "That might be true enough, but you can't prove anything to anyone if you run heedlessly into fighting just anyone and anything. I taught you better then this."

Sasuke to a small step back at the comment. "You're...you're right Iruka-sensei, sorry."

Iruka waved it off, "I understand wanting to better yourself, believe me, I do. But don't rush yourself. You have a magnificent sensei, take his council and flourish."

This time Kakashi laughed as he rubbed the back of his neck, "You flatter me Iruka, but I'm just an ordinary Jounin!"

Naruto never wanted to smash his head in more then in that moment. Fortune favored him in it's sick way, for no one noticed him roll his eyes.

"Getting back to the topic at hand though, We have three more. Alas the first is one I'm hesitant to hand out to your team."

Unfurling the scroll, Naruto could feel the stamp of Kusa at the bottom as Iruka placed it on the table.

"Recently an illness has beset itself upon Kusa and it's associated villages, while Kusa has managed to ultimately contain it, they believe it to be weaponized. A group was sent to investigate the first village where a now declassified project was taking place that was intended to curean illness that's caused back local flora indigenous to Kusa. This is a C-rank but you'll be working alongside a single squad of ANBU specializing with biological diseases and such."

One might question why a mission being handled by ANBU would ever be assigned to genin, joining sensei or not.

Sakura did just that, "Why are we able to accept this if a squads already handling it? That doesn't make sense."

Iruka nodded in understanding. "It's because while Bear and his squad will more or less be doing the heavy lifting, you're team will be delivering much need aid in the form of perishables and medical supplies."

Building up chakra Iruka released a seal attached to the scroll, an even larger scroll slamming down on the table.

"While Kusa has apparently handled the disease well enough, they have asked us to provide them with any possible aid. Things may be iffy between Kusa and Konoha for the most part but they have declared that aid from us would be returned with a renegotiation of our current treaty between us, favouring our end far more then it originally did."

Sakura ruffled her perfect hair in exasperation. None to happy with the idea of having such an important mission on her shoulders. Meanwhile Sasuke was instead quite interested.

"Well team what are your thoughts, I'm partial to this one myself. The village could use more allies and this would promote more trade between the two villages."

Reaching for the smaller scroll underneath, Naruto perused the contents before 'looking' at Iruka.

"It doesn't say what our task would be specifically besides delivery on arrival. Just that we'd be helping. Helping with what?"

Iruka pointed further down the scrolls text. "While they did say that for the most part everything is safe, there are a few villages that haven't been checked up on yet. They asked that you do this task so they can focus on the larger aspects of their territory and running damage control."

Kakashi lightly pulled the scroll from Naruto's hands before giving it a look with his lone eye. Rolling it up he nodded to himself. "We'll take this one. You three haven't ever gotten to see another shinobi village, let alone a tour through more or less their whole territory. This would be great for you three." To this Naruto nodded, and Sasuke just shrugged.

Sakura however pouted as Iruka stamped some papers before filing them away.

"Best of luck you three, stay safe out there. Make sure you bring everything you need, but not too much. Don't forget your rations, oh and don't-"

Sakura interrupted the scar faced man, "We know, we know sensei! We won't!"

Sagging back into his chair Iruka laughed lightly. While it had been months since hed seen them last, it had been years that he'd spent getting to know them and essentially raising them into the young adults they were becoming.

With a nod to them, team 7 left the mission room.

Storm clouds sagging, full with water, one would be hard pressed to see anything in front of there face. Amidst this deluge the sounds of foot falls in mud could be faintly heard as a young woman with black hair, almost darker then the night she found herself out in, ran from tree to tree.

Squinting out from her cover she looked around before rushing from cover. Her breathe faint, visible with each exhale, in the cold. She slammed into a tree, having thrown herself to cover. A kunai zipped through the air, so fast as to cut the rain visibly, but apparently not fast enough to surprise the young woman.

Sliding around the tree, blood was faintly visible before being washed away. Grunting she lifted her self off the ground in a sprinting form. Hurdling over a dead tree she landed on wet grass, a bolt of lightning streaked across the pitch black sky.

The light revealed a coverless stretch of grass which disappeared off into a ravine, and if one were to glance back to the tree line they'd find four figures dressed in black, the only contrast being their masks. White as bone.

Exhausted, wounded even, the woman grit her teeth as she ran the distance Kunai stabbed into the ground, and passed her figure as she ran for her life.

With only a small stretch of land left she could hear it, rushing water.

Muffled by the blankets of rain dropping on there heads she could also hear the orders being shouted back and forth between the four.

"She's going to try and jump, kill her already!"

Feet already leaving the ground, the lady in dirty, wet, clothing fearlessly propelled herself into the chasm below.

"Lightning Style: Land Fall!"

The words, however muted by the rain, were still quite loud.

But nowhere near as loud as the thunder that followed the massive bolt of lightning that pierced the woman's back and shot through her stomach mid air.

Eyes wide with horror, her body struck the waters surface before the raging torrent devoured her whole.

The four figure cloaked by darkness reached the cliffs edge, gazing down into the once again pitch black of night. Trained eyes seeking out any sign of the woman's corpse. The tallest of the four made a gesture with his arm out.

"Spread out, follow the water and find me her body. If we fail to recover the asset, he'll kill all of us."

The three accompanying figures nodded, and were off without hesitation, disappearing with the use of Shunshin.

Tugging on a strap to a canvas bag Kakashi nodded in approval at his trusty travel bag before looking over his team.

"Ready team?"

With a trio of confirmations, copy-nin Kakashi Hatake turned to their present company. Four members of ANBU stood before the three genin. The largest of the group nodded.

"We are as well, we should begin moving with haste however, a storm is building far north of Konoha and it's heading towards Kusa and Iwa. If we're fast we should be able to lead it into Kusa."

Kakashi looked in said directions before turning to the bear masked man. "At your go."

Bear turned before motioning to his squad as they shot off into the trees, "Keep up team 7."

Sakura's eyes widened at their speed before noticing her team's absence as well, stumbling she hoisted her pack, before stuttering in surprise as she leapt into the tree tops as well

."W-wait for me!"

Went back through chapters, and did some touching up, hope y'all have enjoyed what I've written so far. If you have, or haven't leave a review and tell me your thoughts.

Also yes, I am very aware alot of you don't appreciate me blinding Naruto, too bad :)