Sakura was happy.
The money she had earned from their ridiculous number of D-ranks (three or four a day!) was more than enough for her to change her outfit, and as soon as she could afford it, she had. Her first real C-rank was as good a chance as any to pull it out.
Muted blues and greens, with off-white wrappings for her arms and calves, and a blue scarf that wrapped around her hair while still looking fashionable. The retired kunoichi in the shop she'd gone too had been so helpful when it came to picking things out – she wanted to take her career seriously, but she still wanted to take pride in her appearance!
She doubted either of her teammates would understand that. Sasuke, attractive as he could be, never changed his outfit – and she meant never. Naruto, his jacket well and truly dead thanks to their Forest of Death trip (thank kami!) still went out of his way to wear something neon and dreadful. Maybe they could kill the pants on this mission – surely sensei would get behind that! Shinobi didn't wear neon.
Though he did read those neon orange books all the time…
Well, however that worked out, she was all packed! Two changes of clothes, more than that in underwear, some socks in case they ever had time to rest and it was cold, two pouches of kunai, one of shuriken and a basic medical kit with bandages, soldier pills and some poultices and herbs. Not too much of the latter, that added a lot of weight, so she packed a small pamphlet on medicinal herbs for that region that had been included in the massive packet sensei had given her yesterday, and a scroll on chakra control exercises and one iryo-jutsu got stuffed into the pack as well.
She knew her sensei, there was no way they wouldn't have training time on this trip, and maybe if she brought stuff that she could work on, she'd be allowed to work on that instead of whatever awful exercises he came up with.
A girl could dream, right?
Then she also packed some ration bars and dried spices – she should be able to bargain her cooking expertise with Naruto's traps; he was much better at hunting than she was, even if he did bring back some disgusting things he claimed were edible.
She would never admit it, but the larvae had actually been rather good.
And, the most vital and valuable supply of all.
One bar of chocolate.
***===***pagebreak***===***
Sasuke was having a mild existential crisis.
He had broken a few kunai and shuriken over the course of their training with sensei when the man taught him to enhance his speed and force with chakra in anticipation of his sharingan activating (it would!) and hadn't had a chance to shop for more. He had already gone through his father and mother's stock and didn't have time to hunt through the rest of the compound and he needed more of them for this mission.
He'd delayed as long as he could, packing everything into a lightweight pack designed for genin who couldn't yet seal supplies away and ensuring he could carry it easily, but now all that was left was his kunai and shuriken deficit.
So he was standing in front of Itachi's room, a room he had avoided going in since the night of the massacre, and trying to think of another stash of ninja weapons that he could get to in the compound.
Unfortunately, he wasn't entirely certain where anyone else in the family had kept their stash and he'd never been able to bring himself to rummage through his family's echoingly empty homes to get supplies, even if he was using those supplies to train so he could avenge them.
He was shakily reaching for the handle of the door when he heard a crash outside and an unmistakable and ridiculously loud voice bellowing, "TEME! YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE US LATE!"
"Shut up Naruto!" Sakura barked, a thud and crack meaning she'd struck another blow. "We don't even know if he's here! Sasuke! HURRY UP!"
"Come on let's blitz through and find him!" Naruto cried, Sakura's shrieks of "Don't you dare that's so rude NARUTO!" following the dobe as he crashed through the door with a cry of victory, Sasuke hearing two pairs of almost-quiet feet padding up to him and he immediately looked over to catch them both in a glare when they got to the hall.
"Yo! Teme! What's up? You're usually first to get anywhere!" Naruto demanded, bright blue eyes concerned even as his face had a shit-eating grin on it. Sasuke desperately wanted to punch him – he knew it was Naruto's idea to go find him, he still had twenty minutes to get to the gate. So what if he was usually thirty-minutes early, he was just taking his time today there was no reason to be concerned for him he was absolutely fine!
"Woah – teme, you all right?" a hand rested on his shoulder, Naruto's expression now concerned as well. Sakura was hovering next to him, looking… much more professional in her new muted blue and green outfit, green eyes equally worried.
"I'm low on kunai and shuriken," Sasuke said shortly.
Sakura nodded, saying, "Yeah, you did break a lot trying to get that speed and strength enhancement under control this week. But there's not much time to buy any, not and test them for balance and stuff."
"Err… not to be insensitive, but… wouldn't there be plenty of kunai and shuriken and stuff in here?" Naruto asked, rubbing the back of his neck and waving the other hand around to encompass the entire Uchiha district.
Sasuke growled, but didn't take offense – the dobe was right after all, "I don't know where anyone else stashed their weapons and I didn't feel – I didn't dig through my relatives' things. So now I don't know where they stashed them and there's no time and – " he took a deep breath, biting down on the rest of his potential babbling, hard. He would not show them how deeply this was affecting him.
Unfortunately, they had gotten decent enough at reading his nonverbal cues to rescue him from awkward conversations, which meant they could tell something was wrong.
"Neh – whose room is this then?" Naruto asked, nodding at the door, "There weapons in there?"
"Yes," Sasuke said shortly, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at the door.
Naruto shot Sakura a baffled look, but the pink-haired girl apparently understood and she winced, saying quietly, "That's… that's Itachi's room. Isn't it?"
Sasuke didn't reply, but judging by Naruto's mumbled curse that was enough to confirm it. "Right!" Naruto said brightly, fingers forming a familiar cross and the number of Naruto's in his house jumping exponentially – it was mildly horrifying. "We three get to the gate to wait for sensei, these guys will gather shuriken and kunai – need anything else Sasuke? We can probably find more than enough in the district to get you through the mission without using any of that asshole's stuff, yeah?"
The gratitude he felt for that was nearly sickening, but the two idiots he was stuck with just waited for him to finally nod, before they bounded out of the house to get their packs and wait for him to exit. Meanwhile, clones darted through the compound, hollering to each other to coordinate their efforts and already some were emerging from other houses with decent kunai and shuriken.
"Two of each?" Naruto asked, Sasuke nodding and then Naruto bellowed the request through the compound, various clones responding with, "Hai!"
"Mind if they sort through other stuff?" Naruto asked, and Sasuke hesitated – this was his family – but it had been years and he could barely walk through the entire compound without seizing. Maybe it would be better if… if he came back and all the useful supplies were already gathered without him hunting through bloodstained homes and jutsu-scarred streets to find them.
His teammates – idiots, still – watched him, waiting patiently, and finally he nodded. Naruto shouted to another clone and then the three of them were off, racing over roof-tops to get to the gate sensei had directed them to with ten minutes to spare.
He very nearly tripped and fell on his face when he saw that sensei was waiting for them.
***===***pagebreak***===***
This was working out far better than he had anticipated in even his wildest hopes.
Kakashi had packed in a matter of moments, he kept mission-ready packs in his apartment at all times, so it was simple enough to seal away one of them in a scroll and he even had the time to craft three more seals so when his little genin earned it, he could seal away their packs too. He'd have to teach one of them seals – maybe Naruto? It was his legacy after all…
Well, everyone could use the knowledge of storage seals, it was a damn shame so few people actually got into that study. He'd give them the basics and enough to save them some serious money when they got older and see if any of them took to it.
And if Naruto did… maybe he could push harder for his mother's legacy.
Anyway, being done so quickly meant he could go check on his students to make sure they were making decent progress. Sakura's new outfit was a pleasant surprise, he had been wondering how he'd be able to get her to stop with the red dress without getting dragged into clothing shopping with her, horror of horrors. Naruto had packed food besides instant ramen, serious progress, and enough trapping equipment that Kakashi was mildly concerned for the fate of the rabbit population in their assigned area.
Sasuke had… been unfortunately timed. He could almost hear the boy's mental argument as he surveyed a low count of sound kunai and shuriken, picking through what were clearly inferior specimens and rejecting them – at least he was able to force himself to do that much.
Watching him stand in front of Itachi's door had been… surprisingly painful. Itachi's room had been picked through, the whole damned compound had been picked through, but everything unclassified had been left where it was for the most part, it was Sasuke's property. He hadn't done much with it, not that Kakashi could blame him – it wasn't like he had entered the Hatake clan compound outside of his annual inspection for the groundskeepers – but Itachi's room was clearly an entirely different battle.
Just when Kakashi was about to go in and tell him he'd supply him with shuriken and kunai, Naruto and Sakura bounded up with their packs secured and started hassling him for being later than usual. He had listened in to their conversation and was this ringing sensation in his gut pride it had to be because they were learning and running with what he was teaching them holy shit he had never thought they'd come together this fast maybe there was a chance –
He left as soon as the clones arrived, feeling light-hearted and honestly hopeful for the first time since this disaster of a team had happened.
They just might actually make it.
Of course, he was so focused on how he was going to get them through this mission alive and safe and whole so they could continue to actually make it that he nearly forgot that he was technically early. He sighed as they came into view, realizing he had lost his streak.
But Sasuke's near face-plant was totally worth it.
***===***pagebreak***===***
Through a complicated series of calculations done one night when he couldn't sleep, Naruto had determined that the majority of his recent good fortune could be traced back to the Council that had pissed off sensei and was one of the biggest dangers to his life right about now. Which meant that his anger at their assholeness was being counteracted by the fact that thanks to them, his teammates were actually feeling kind of like teammates and their sensei was actually pushing them to be teammates – because he doubted this would have worked so well if there weren't the threat of political doom hanging over them – so he wouldn't be spending all his spare time coming up with a way to prank them.
Though, maybe if he worded it right, he could sell it to sensei as a team-building exercise…
Sometimes, he impressed himself with his own brilliance.
They were two hours out of Konoha – and probably a fair number of miles, given the pace sensei was setting as they raced through the trees. He would bet that they'd continue this pace for two more hours, then either stop for a brief break and continue slower or stop for some training and not move any further today. Either way, two more hours would bring them to Sakura's edge as far as maintaining this pace went, but four hours of this run was nothing to scoff at, especially considering how shitty her endurance was just out of the Academy.
Of course, she was much better with tree-running than he and Sasuke were, so she was probably expending less chakra, but she would still tire first. They just had greater reserves and endurance than her at the moment.
Sure enough, two hours later she was seriously struggling to maintain the pace and sensei dropped down to a more leisurely jog through the trees, rather than a panicked oh-shit-we're-about-to-be-eaten sprint.
Though, judging by his complete and utter lack of being out of breath, Naruto had a sinking suspicion that their recent pace hadn't even been close to sensei's actual oh-shit-we're-about-to-be-eaten sprint.
Well then, they'd just have to get faster.
When all of them had cooled down and regained their breathing patterns, he finally dropped down to a stroll, and then all the way to a stop in one particularly fine specimen of Hi no Kuni giant tree and sat down on a wide branch, waving them to take seats nearby.
Sakura sat down further out on the same branch, quickly collapsing into her stretches. Sasuke jumped to a slightly higher branch and sat closer to sensei and the main trunk, while Naruto decided to hang upside down from a branch across from the teme – he needed all the chakra control practice he could get. "Neh, sensei," he asked, "What's shore-patrol like? Border patrol we got some lectures on… that I don't really remember. Shore like that?"
Sensei sighed, probably because Naruto admitted to not paying attention at the academy, again, but explained succinctly, "Shore patrol is a type of border patrol. Border patrol duties are to check on outposts, permanently manned and mothballed, and search for any undesirables. Bandits, pirates, smugglers, enemy ninja – the last are the most worrisome. Shore patrol, particularly along the Wave stretch, is the least likely of all to encounter enemy shinobi. However, smugglers and pirates are a concern here, and we must be on watch for them – the more wealthy operations can hire missing-nin, so stealth will be vital, as well as speed."
Naruto nodded, walking around his branch so he was standing less entirely upside-down – the blood rushing to his head was making it hard to concentrate.
"And the message delivery? When will we be doing that?" Sakura asked, finishing her stretches and folding her legs under her to sit more comfortably.
"That will fall at the end of our shore patrol – Keitaro is a port town which has the most dealings with Wave and concludes the section we've been assigned. We're going to the far end of the shore, closer to Noodles, then cutting up and over to Keitaro. That mission, Sakura, will be yours to plan and execute."
Sakura-chan looked startled, then determined – a much more dramatic expression with her scar.
Seeing her scar brought up another concern of his, "And Sakura's scar? How are we going to explain that?"
Sensei gave his evil eye-smirk and said, "I don't know Naruto. That's your job to figure out."
Well damn. Ask a question, get the answer you seriously don't want. Sakura was eyeing him suspiciously so he beamed at her, reassuring, "Don't worry Sakura-chan! I'll make the story something epic!"
"Dobe," Sasuke snorted, smirk on his face reassuring. Naruto hadn't liked the shocky, shaky Sasuke he and Sakura had stumbled on in the Uchiha compound, and really hadn't liked the quietly, disturbingly grateful Sasuke that had emerged after his offer to search for kunai and shuriken. Thankfully for their status quo and his own peace of mind, after a clone had bounded up with two pouches of each weapon the Uchiha had regained his equilibrium and they started their first C-rank with familiar jibes and taunts.
It would have been weird without them.
"Not so fast Sasuke," sensei sing-songed – it was creepy. He always did that when it was something deviously awful that was coming, could anyone blame them that they cringed and leaned away from the man?
No. No one could at all.
"You my dear student, get to plan out three potential ambushes – one for small-time smugglers, one for active pirates, let's say three ships, and one for land-based bandits. Missing-nin included, of course. I'll pick some from the bingo book for you."
Sasuke groaned and Naruto wanted to cackle – he had definitely gotten the best end of the deal here. Score for Uzumaki!
Of course, that meant he'd get the crappily complicated assignment next time, but he'd savor his victory while he could. The others would do the same, after all.
A/N: Wow guys - thanks so much to the people who've been reviewing this fic! The response has been overwhelmingly positive and just THANK YOU so much! It's definitely pushed me to work on this fic more, so you're really helping yourselves here (shameless hounding for reviews, check!)
But seriously, thanks. This response level is absolutely amazing! I can only hope this story continues to please.