Chizuru finished her training session with her teammates, not deviating far from what they discussed the day before. They did their hour stretch when Kakashi arrived at eight on the dot, Kakashi then instructed them to do four laps around the training grounds, he joined in, and jogged at their pace alongside them. After the four laps, he instructed Hinata to do three more, and Chizuru to do ten more, while he and Sakura walked another lap and talked. Chizuru wasn't able to hear much, but she knew it had something to do with Sakura's training, so she didn't feel as though she should pay too much attention to it. After the extra laps, they set into push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and general physical workouts, with the common theme of Sakura doing the least, Hinata doing about double Sakura's load, and Chizuru doing a little more than twice as many as that. When they were done with physical exercising, Kakashi surprised them by grabbing out a small rubber ball. He passed it to Chizuru, who passed it to Hinata, who passed it to Sakura, who passed it back to Kakashi. When he got the ball again, he smiled from behind his mask.
"One point for me." He said.
"What?" Chizuru said dumbly.
"What do you mean 'what'? I got a point." He said, feigning innocence.
"How?" Chizuru demanded.
"You just saw, I got a point." He said, "Kakashi one, genin zero."
He tossed the ball back to Sakura, who passed it to Hinata, who passed it to Chizuru, who passed it to Sakura, who passed it to Kakashi.
"Another point." He said cheekily.
"Wait! Hang on, you only get a point if we pass it to you! Girls! No more including him, we'll get a point if we only pass it between ourselves!" Chizuru deduced.
"Aw... No fun..." Kakashi said downcast.
He passed the ball back to Hinata, who passed it to Sakura, and the three continued passing it between themselves. After ten throws, Kakashi ran in and caught the ball as Sakura passed it to Hinata.
"Three points team Kakashi, zero points team Genin."
"So it is a game of keep away! You cheat! Start the point count over now that we know that!" Chizuru shouted.
"No." Kakashi said simply, while passing the ball to Hinata.
Hinata caught the ball, and tossed it toward Chizuru. When Chizuru went to catch it, Kakashi came in again, and took the ball.
"Four-" He was cut off when Chizuru charged him for the ball.
"Enough of your shitty points!" She shouted as she threw herself at her sensei, aiming to get the ball.
"Now now Chizuru, just because I'm absolutely way better at this game than you doesn't mean you can throw a fit." Kakashi demeaned.
"I'll show you a fit!" Chizuru yelled, before poofing a few clones into existence.
Kakashi easily dodged the incoming punches and kicks from the girl and her bunshin, before he dispatched the clones with honed efficiency, and grabbed Chizuru by her arm. He held her off the ground with her arm behind her back, while he shook his head.
"You can't cheat like that, the game's between me, you, and your teammates, not fifty odd clones." Kakashi chided.
"Rules? What rules?" Chizuru shouted.
"You don't know how to play catch? What are you four?" Kakashi prodded.
"Fuck you!" Chizuru yelled, while struggling to free herself.
"Minus one point for Chizuru." Kakashi joked.
"Minus one!? Why!?" Chizuru questioned.
Kakashi stood there for a second, before he erupted with laughter. He let Chizuru go, and apologized in between laughs. When he was finished, he passed the ball to Chizuru.
"Alright fine, we will start the game over. On our way to the hokage's office to get our first mission for today, try to keep the ball away from me for as long as you can, while also sticking to just tossing it between the three of you." Kakashi said. "We should be heading out for lunch now, any requests?"
"Ichiraku!" Chizuru shouted, forgetting about her anger toward her sensei.
"I kinda want some dango." Sakura said.
"Uh... Ramen sounds good..." Hinata mumbled.
"Okay! Yakiniku Q it is!" Kakashi announced.
"What? But we had two for ramen!" Chizuru complained.
"Yes, but when including my vote we had two for dango as well, so we had to go with another option. We've all talked about going to Yakiniku yesterday, so why not do that today?" Kakashi asked.
"Alright, just be glad I like Yakiniku!" Chizuru said.
"Good, then let's get going, we still have to get to our two missions for the day." Kakashi finished.
When the group finished eating, they headed straight for the hokage's office to get their first D-rank missions. They were given a mission to pull weeds from a garden, and they completed it with ease, even when Kakashi prohibited the use of Kage Bunshin. After that, they took another mission, this time they had to paint a fence, again they completed it easily. Afterwards they all left for dinner, Sakura and Chizuru were going to eat with Kakashi, while Hinata headed for home, as her father told her that they'd be eating dinner together tonight. The next day they met up again and followed the same course through the day, but at the end of the day all three shared dinner with their sensei. The process repeated again, and again, and over the course of a couple of weeks they had fully dug into this new routine, by week three Kakashi even pushed up the schedule, and now they were doing a three hour exercise, as well as four to eight D-rank missions. Kakashi deemed their teamwork good enough to lift the ban on Kage Bunshin, and they began flying through missions. They were doing so many that the hokage actually had to start denying them access to some missions in order to allow the other genin teams a chance at doing some. By the end of the month they had eighty-eight D-ranks under their belts, unheard of for a month's work for a genin team, let alone a fresh genin team.
Kakashi expedited their training again by setting a new goal to work their way up to the second month's end goal in two weeks, to which they did, ending the second week with four hours exercise, and six more D-ranks, bringing their total to one hundred and forty D-ranks overall. Kakashi thought they were more than ready for a C-rank before he expedited their training, but now he was sure they were more than capable. And so, after a nice lunch at Ichiraku Ramen, they headed for the Hokage's Office for their first C-rank.
It was a simple mission, escort a caravan from Konoha to the capital, then return, at most team seven could expect bandits, but as of yet, two days into the mission, nothing happened. Chizuru was walking along the left side of the caravan near the back, Sakura was posted in front of her a ways down, while Hinata was on the opposite side of the caravan from Chizuru, and Kakashi took up post on the opposite side of the caravan from Sakura. They were guarding the four corners of the caravan, and swapped every few hours, when they swapped, they briefly reported to Kakashi, and got back to working. To say the least however, Chizuru was bored. She was beyond bored, to the point in which she was trying desperately to stay awake. The only bright side to it all was that Chizuru could see that the sun was starting to set, which meant they'd be setting up camp soon enough. As if spurred by her thoughts alone, the head of the caravan began to slow, and suggested resting for the night. Chizuru brightened up and went to converge with her team at the center of the caravan again, much like when they were swapping positions throughout the day. When they arrived Kakashi made to speak, but Chizuru beat him to it.
"This is sooo boring!" She whined.
"Now Chizuru, that's no way to treat a mission." Kakashi lightheartedly chided.
"This is barely a mission! I actually feel doing D-ranks would be more fun! At least then we would be doing more things in a much, much shorter time!" Chizuru shouted.
"You should know that doing C-ranks this soon after graduating is a privilege, even if the mission itself is rather... Tame..." Kakashi trailed off.
"Yeah, well I was hoping we'd get to at least fight someone! I mean c'mon! There is a full caravan, guarded only by a fresh genin team! Who wouldn't want to rob that?" Chizuru called out.
"A mission without hassle reflects greatly on our teams ability to get higher ranking missions." Kakashi explained.
"Yeah well a mission with hassle handled well reflects better!" Chizuru argued.
"You got me there." Kakashi admitted, "But enough of this, I think we should divvy out tasks already."
"Fine..." Chizuru muttered.
"Okay! Sakura, you're on water duty tonight, Hinata, you're on firewood duty, and Chizuru you're on food gathering." Kakashi said, "I'll set up camp, we'll eat, then we'll take turns with night watch starting with me. Any objections?"
His students shook their heads, then headed in separate directions to complete their tasks. When they converged again on their campsite, Chizuru got to work cooking the rabbits she caught. They ate in peace, and went to bed. Kakashi passed watch off to Chizuru, who passed watch to Sakura, who passed it to Hinata. When the sun rose the next day, they all packed up, and got ready to head out. The caravan was moving an hour after team seven finished getting ready, so in the meantime they decided to do some light training. The caravan set out with Hinata and Kakashi guarding either side of the front, and Sakura and Chizuru in the back. They were traveling for not even an hour when Chizuru noticed something off. She began to idly look around the forest they were walking in and she saw what seemed to be shadows moving back and forward, she looked up to the sun and thanked kami that it was time to swap information with her team, so she moved to the center of the caravan.
"Anything to report?" Kakashi asked as they neared the center.
"Nothing." Sakura said.
"Nothing from me either..." Hinata mumbled.
"Actually sensei, I thought I saw something out in the forest during my watch." Chizuru revealed quietly.
"Really? Any idea what it was?" Kakashi asked.
"I'm not sure, all I know was that it was alive, it could have been just an animal." Chizuru sighed.
"Well, what is your gut saying?" Kakashi asked.
"Oh! It's saying 'feed me'." Chizuru said.
"No... I mean... What did you feel when you saw the shadows... Or did you have a bad feeling in your stomach, not related to hunger, when you saw the shadows?" Kakashi asked.
"Oh right... Hmm..." Chizuru thought for a moment, then a light bulb seemed to go off as her face morphed into one of recognition. "Yeah I did. I had this... Like it felt, low? No it felt like it was empty but the empty went down... Or..." Chizuru trailed off.
"What you're describing, my cute little student, is a pit in your stomach. Whatever you saw unnerved you, maybe even worried you, which in the ninja world, can't be good." Kakashi said.
"Oh! Cool!" Chizuru said.
"Now that you mention it though, it does feel like something is off about today, so, we will return to the same posts this time, if what I think is going to happen will happen, well, then it'll be best to nip it in the bud before we move on." Kakashi said.
"Yes sensei." The three genin said in unison.
They returned to their places amongst the caravan, and Chizuru looked into the woods to find those shadows again, but she couldn't see them. They continued reporting every hour, and returning to the same posts, until the sun began to set, and the caravan had to stop for the night. They again set off and gathered supplies, Hinata on cooking and hunting, Sakura on gathering wood, Chizuru on setting up camp, and Kakashi on gathering water. They ate, got ready for bed and Hinata was first for watch. She woke Sakura for watch next, and Sakura woke Chizuru. Chizuru began her watch by hopping into a tree and summoning fifteen kage bunshin, all of which she sent out to patrol the area. She grabbed out a book on fuuinjutsu to read, but soon the pit in her gut returned. She closed her book and peered around the clearing, before summoning another ten bunshin. The bunshin set up a perimeter around the camp, with one of the points being hers to watch when suddenly bunshin's memories flooded into her.
The kage bunshin split from the tree Chizuru was sitting in and one of them traveled southwest, the same direction Chizuru saw the shadows. The bunshin was on the solo southwestbound mission, the other fourteen were split with two heading further north to scout, three others in solo missions going southeast, northeast, and northwest. The last nine were divided into three teams of three covering south, east and west. The bunshin on the southwestbound mission soon came to a stop when she felt a presence not far off from her location. Instantly alert the clone readied herself to relay the information back to Chizuru when suddenly the tree she was hiding behind was cut all the way through, luckily the blade narrowly missed the bunshin, and she leapt away. I can't reveal boss' kage bunshin no jutsu to the enemy, so I have to escape... The bunshin thought.
"Nice reaction girly, too bad you're in for a lot more than just that." A man called out from the forest in front of her.
He stepped out of the shadows and revealed himself, he was a tall man wearing the standard Kiri chunin flak, he also wore a Kiri hitai-ate on his head. The bunshin made note that he had nothing on him that could have slashed the tree, and readied for another to step in at any moment. When the other ninja finally showed themselves, it was in the form of a sneak attack from behind. The bunshin leapt away from the slash the blue haired assailant made, and twisted itself out of the way of the kunai the original man threw.
"You missed Chojuro! I guess we'll have to show you how it's done!" A new voice called.
The first Kiri-nin ran toward the bunshin and another one leapt down from the tree tops to engage as well, the bunshin dodged toward the blue haired Kiri-nin, Chojuro, and used his momentary confusion as to why the enemy was leaping at him to dodge an attack to throw kunai in his direction. The boy dodged and the bunshin was able to flee in the direction the boy left open with his dodge.
"Oh no you don't!" The first Kiri-nin called. "Yugeru now!"
"On it!" Yugeru called back, then flashed through some hand signs, the bunshin knew this wouldn't be good, so she decided now was as good a time as any, and threw some kunai with exploding tags toward the Kiri-nin.
"Noseki, Yugeru watch out!" Chojuro called out.
Yugeru cancelled his jutsu and Noseki tackled him to the ground as the kunai soared over their heads and exploded on contact with the trees behind them with a large enough force to topple them.
The bunshin escaped their view, and hid behind another tree before releasing herself to give the information back to Chizuru.
The information transferred itself to Chizuru and the rest of the clones, and they began to converge on the camp again. Chizuru summoned another dozen clones to set up a wider perimeter, and leapt down to Kakashi's tent.
"Sensei." Chizuru said urgently.
"Chizuru? What's up?" Kakashi woke up instantly and sat up to see his student.
"We have trouble, I'm going to go wake up Hinata, you get Sakura, we need to discuss this immediately."
"Of course." Kakashi said, while getting up.
They went separate ways and woke up the other members of team seven before converging at the center of the campsite.
"What's going on, why are we awake so early?" Sakura asked.
"I sent some kage bunshin out to patrol when my watch started, and I got that same pit-in-my-gut feeling. So I summoned a few more to set up a perimeter around the camp, and then a few minutes later one of my clones dispelled themselves." Chizuru began. "The bunshin fought with three Kiri-nin, two of which were chunin, and the other is a mystery, he did have a large flat sword though..." Chizuru explained.
"Was it bandaged, and did it have two curved indentations near its base?" Kakashi asked.
"Yeah actually, how'd you know?" Chizuru asked.
"Not good, this mission just became a B-rank at minimum, and an S-rank if this swordsman is the real deal." Kakashi said, "That sword is a special weapon designed only for a member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist to wield, and now we are going up against him." Kakashi stated.
"A member of the Seven Swordsmen?" Sakura asked.
"Yes, and if they're who I think they are, we're going to have to get to the capital by morning, the caravan's comfort comes second now, and their survival is our top priority. Chizuru!" Kakashi called.
"Yes sensei?" She asked.
"Henge your bunshin into the caravan members and members of our team, they will act as a distraction, we will also need to take the goods and store them in storage seals, as well as store the caravan members in prisoner seals. Get as many clones on it as you can, we need to be fast!" Kakashi called.
"Alright!" Chizuru shouted then summoned two hundred bunshin to get onto the task, while the bunshin she had summoned before henged into members of the caravan, team seven, and some henged into animals and went back to being a part of the perimeter.
"Good, now get to stretching, we need to be limber if we're going to be running as fast and as long as we can."
The camp was now in a frenzy as the bunshin started packing everything, and everyone, away. After a few minutes the clearing finally emptied, all that was left were the henged bunshin and caravan wagons. The fake caravan began to set out on the road as the sun began to peak over the horizon, and the real team seven rushed off directly toward the capital.
Hokage's Office Same Time
Hiruzen was sitting at his desk attending to the paperwork of the day, when his office window opened, and in stepped his student Jiraiya. The old man sighed and put his work to the side as he prepared for the conversation he was about to have.
"Sensei." Jiraiya greeted.
"It's good to see you Jiraiya." Hiruzen said.
"Of course it is, it is always a good day when you can meet with the gallant toad sage!" Jiraiya showboated.
"I hope you came here to report, not waste my time Jiraiya." Hiruzen sighed.
"Waste your time?" Jiraiya questioned, "Is it really a waste of your time to meet with your favorite former student?"
"I guess not, but if there is nothing to report then you must leave, I have paperwork to get to." Hiruzen spat the out his most despised nemesis' name.
"Fine, I'll tell ya why I'm here." Jiraiya relented, before straightening his back and entering his report-making mode. "The handover of my spy network to Itachi has been completed, he has met all of the necessary contacts, as well as established himself as the new boss."
"Good, good. I will tell you now the kage bunshin Itachi left in the village for the purpose of doing D-ranks as well as the Yamanaka led therapy sessions with his brother have been fairing well, and I expect he sent with you a scroll with multiple imprisoned clones to take up the posts the old ones are at?" Hiruzen said.
"Of course, he was more than ready to send in the fresh clones, eager, if I were to guess, to see to it that he repair not only his relationship with the villagers, but also more importantly his brother." Jiraiya concluded.
"I would hope so, it's not every day you can mend a rift such as that, but it seems to be moving forward well." Hiruzen said.
"Has Tsunade's medic nin program begun yet?" Jiraiya questioned.
"Of course, right on schedule too, it seems that she piqued the interest of quite a few of our young shinobi." Hiruzen explained.
"Good. Kami knows she needed to achieve her dream if she was to begin recovering from her past." Jiraiya sighed.
"If there is nothing else to report, I'd say you're good to get going Jiraiya." Hiruzen spoke after a moment of silence.
"Alright sensei." Jiraiya shrugged, then left through the window.
Forest in Hi no Kuni
The Kiri-nin landed in the clearing where the caravan once was and began signing to one another their findings, thoughts, and plans, when they seemingly decided to move toward the caravan. A bunshin had been watching them from a safe distance, and dispelled itself to alert the other bunshin. As the Kiri-nin neared the caravan, a group of bunshin henged as the full team seven, with Kakashi being replaced by a generic Konoha-nin, as to not tip the Kiri-nin off too much to the trap, landed in between the caravan and the Kiri-nin.
"Konoha-nin! We request that you stand down! We have no quarrel with you, and we will not harm the merchants, as we are only here for one object!" The head Kiri-nin, Yugeru, called out.
"Likely story." The bunshin-jonin drawled out.
"Please, we do not seek to worsen relations with Konoha, we just wish to retrieve an artifact that is rightfully ours." Chojuro pleaded.
"It is our job to protect the caravan members and the caravan's goods, so I'm sorry but we will have to decline." The bunshin-jonin apologized, while getting into a defensive stance.
"I see. Then we are sorry for what we must do." Yugeru said.
The two groups leapt at each other at that, all the while more Chizuru-bunshin were closing in on the area. The Kiri-nin were forced to fall back when the bunshin team seven threw a massive amount of explosive kunai flying their way. Although none of the kunai hit their mark they succeeded in pushing the Kiri-nin into one of Chizuru's traps. The trap activated and a hail of kunai flew from within the trees toward the Kiri-nin, they dodged, but activated another trap in the process. This time the trees surrounding the group exploded at the base and began to fall toward them, again forcing them to dodge. Once out of danger, the Kiri-nin leapt toward the bunshin team seven to fight them. When they cleaved into the team, and the team dispersed, the Kiri-nin was immediately thrown into high alert.
"They sent clones to fight us?" Noseki questioned.
"It would seem so, we don't know where they'll come from now, so be on the lookout." Yugeru ordered.
The Kiri-nin cautiously advanced toward the caravan, and, upon arriving, found it deserted. They began searching the caravan for their goal, but soon realized it was not there. When they converged in the middle of the caravan, they sensed a presence nearby, and got into defensive stances.
"You're not getting out of this unharmed I hope you know." Another bunshin called out to them, again disguised as the plain looking jonin.
When the Kiri-nin checked their surroundings in more depth they noticed they allowed themselves to get surrounded. Roughly fifty bunshin, all henged as team seven with a plain jonin, surrounded the Kiri-nin with kunai and shuriken drawn.
"I see." Was all Yugeru said.
The clones leapt into action and begun throwing their kunai and shuriken at the Kiri-nin, occasionally tossing a kunai with an exploding tag into the mix. The fight didn't last long, as the bunshin weren't necessarily strong, especially considering the fact that Chizuru had yet to learn real jutsu, but when it came to an end, the Kiri-nin looked worse for wear, and the bunshin were pretty much all dispersed. The last one dispersed when she saw the Kiri-nin turn tail and flee.
Chizuru finished her explanation to her sensei just as they reached the gate to the capital, to which he eye-smiled at her before they walked into the city after telling the gate guards their situation. Kakashi congratulated his team, and they decided to head toward an inn. They ordered enough rooms for the caravan members, and began distributing their prisoner seals to Chizuru bunshin. When the caravan members were all placed into their rooms to sleep, Kakashi ordered his genin to prepare for the trip back. They set out almost immediately.
The travel time from the capital to Konoha was roughly two days at the speed they were going, and they made it there without hassle. After Kakashi reported to the hokage a successful B-rank mission, they were given a three day break from training. When the break ended Kakashi took his team once more to get a C-rank mission from the hokage's office. This time their client was there in the building to meet them. When he was ushered into the room by the hokage's anbu, he looked the team assigned to escort him, and put his two cents in.
"This is the team meant to escort me? That one there is shorter than my grandchild, and he's probably half her age!" He complained.
The group of young shinobi looked on in anger at their client. While Chizuru silently reached for her kunai pouch. The hokage saw this and rushed to ease the situation before it got out of hand.
"Now now Tazuna-san." Hiruzen chided, "Were you never taught that insulting the shinobi hired to protect you is, and will always be, a bad idea?"