Team 7's meeting of their new client, Tazuna, had gone about as Kakashi expected. Team 7's fake personas had worked like a charm, and even the Hokage gave Kakashi an almost imperceptible glance. Kakashi returned the look with a confident eye smile. This only earned him a slightly longer glance.
Kakashi could be a royal pain in the ass (which he was totally proud of), but even he didn't mess with Hiruzen...too much. It would be bad for his health, really.
Hiruzen knew exactly what Team 7 was capable of. Kakashi had given covert reports directly to the aged Hokage, hidden behind heavy silencing seals and shuttered windows. Not even the old man's guard detail were in the room. No one knew what Team 7 was worth but Kakashi and Hiruzen. And Kakashi revelled in it.
Shortly after departing from Tazuna, the team met up at their training ground. Kakashi leaned up against a tree. "Thoughts?"
"He's lying," Naruto said flatly, crossing his arms.
"Oh? Sakura?" pushed Kakashi.
Sakura rolled her eyes at him. "Nervous behavior, eyes avoiding ours and darting down and to the left when we talked about bandits. He was also sweating more profusely than he should be for the mild weather and the lack of exertion, despite the fact he's been drinking for likely most of the day. He pushed too much about our ability to protect him, even if he did buy into our act. The mission is probably higher than a C-rank because it probably involves other ninja."
Kakashi eye smiled. "Well done. Now, why can't we go back to the Hokage and get it properly ranked and a suitable C-rank instead?"
Naruto huffed. "Because the old man already knows there's something going on. Plus, it would look bad if we accused a client of lying without proper proof to back it up. It also wouldn't help our business to turn him down for a supposed C-rank. Not to mention we can't afford to send extra ninja on every mission we're suspicious of, both due to finances and manpower."
"Meaning?" The silver haired jounin turned to Sasuke.
Sasuke's eyes widened slightly. "This is a test. It's to see if one, we notice what's wrong, and two, if we can handle the unexpected.
"Bingo." Kakashi grinned. "Knowing all that, what are you going to do?"
"Pack accordingly," muttered Naruto, squinting towards town as if already mentally running through a supply list.
"Be more alert," added Sasuke. "We're potentially dealing with other ninja, ninja that might go up in rank as we progress."
"Medical supplies, body storage scrolls, proper prisoner bindings, and set up a few plans of attack and defense," finished Sakura.
Naruto paused in his mental list. "Sensei?"
"Hmm?"
"If you can summon animals through seals and then hand signs, can you summon people?" Naruto scratched his cheek. "I mean, if we can, why aren't we just sending prisoners directly to T&I? It would save us a lot of trouble if-"
Kakashi interrupted him with a rather maniacal sounding cackle. "Naruto, have I told you how much I love how your brain works?" He eye smiled at his genin. "I have somewhere to be. Meet me here thirty minutes before we're supposed to be at the gate. We'll go through some last minute checks. It never hurts to have your teammates double check your supplies."
And then he was gone.
All three genin stared at the dissipating smoke in a long drawn out silence.
"I can't decide if I'm excited or terrified by what I just did," Naruto finally confessed.
Sasuke grunted. "Look at the bright side. We'll have proof who we beat up. Maybe there will be some bounties."
Sakura gave them both a devilish grin. "Plus, imagine how baffled everyone will be cause we still look completely incompetent. Even if we only send one or two genin in, we're going to confuse the hell out of everyone."
The boys shared her grin.
"Y're late!" slurred Tazuna as he pointed an accusing finger at them.
Naruto squinted at him, looking affronted. "No we're not! We totally said ten thirty! The drinks goin' to your head, old man!"
Tazuna paused, turning a doubtful gaze to the rest of the team. Sakura groaned at Naruto's antics but nodded apologetically. Sasuke grunted in irritation. Kakashi just kept eye smiling at him. Tazuna shuddered under the jounin's unflappable stare.
Tazuna huffed, pivoting to head out the gates. "Fine! Whatever! Let's just get moving!"
Kakashi discreetly ruffled Naruto's blond locks while Sasuke and Sakura once again exchanged discreet fistbumps behind the drunk's back.
'Best team ever,' Kakashi thought as he trailed behind his 'bickering' genin.
Tazuna came to an unexpected halt in the middle of the trail. Team 7 immediately paused to look at him.
"Is something wrong?" asked Sakura, having played the role of kind mediater to her 'insufferable teammates' antics and the client.
Tazuna pointed dumbly at the chaotic mess of the trail around them. When he'd last passed this way, it hadn't looked like this at all. Currently, it looked like a rather messy battle had taken place on the rather innocent looking road. "Wh-what happened?!"
Team 7 blinked, exchanged looks, and then turned to Kakashi as one. The silver haired jounin simply shrugged.
"Mah, I have no idea what you're talking about. It's been this way for a while."
"No it wasn't!" roared Tazuna.
Kakashi waved a hand airily. "Sure it was. We haven't had time to send a team to clean it up yet is all."
"I came through here three days ago! It wasn't like this!" Tazuna insisted.
Kakashi shook his head. "No, I'm pretty sure it was. The Hokage was muttering up a storm about having to put up the money to send a team of genin to fix it."
"You're wrong!" Tazuna, forgetting he was dealing with well trained killers, stomped right up to Kakashi and started shouting in his face. "It was all nice and pretty! Plus, this looks like it just happened this morning!"
Kakashi gave him a lazy look. "Why would you becoming this way? The only way this road goes is to Wave."
"Exactly!" burst Tazuna. "I came from Wave and it wasn't like this!"
Kakashi's lazy expression snapped into a fierce one instantly. "Funny you should say that. Aren't you hiring us to get you safely back to Wave? Why would you come directly from Wave only to hire us to take you right back? That seems rather wasteful, doesn't it?"
Tazuna's bluster failed him as he gaped under Kakashi's sharp glare. He fidgeted and let out a shaky chuckle. "Ah, well, I mean, when I came through here a few weeks ago-"
"Yeah, see, I'm not buying that. Explain." Kakashi stared him down, causing Tazuna to swallow thickly.
Tazuna burst like a soap bubble, making a large scene about Gato, his aims to build a bridge to freedom, and how his family would be all alone if he died.
Kakashi almost rolled his eye at the man's poor attempts at manipulation. His team was already stuck with the mission. They weren't going to be turning back, nor would they be getting help.
But, they all had their parts to play. He turned to his genin, making a show of being against continuing. Naruto did his job perfectly, ranting about it being their duty and the right thing to do. Sakura played the unsure card well, and Sasuke's monosyllabic response was icing on the cake.
As the team cheerfully continued on their way, Tazuna mingled in with obvious relief, Kakashi glance back at the crater pocked road, charred trees, and broken tree limbs.
Naruto was terrifying, Kakashi concluded. He'd had the short blond send out a team of henged clones hours before they were to leave. Naruto had somehow managed to hide explosive notes on each of them. The tricky bastard even made extra clones henge into random objects for his people henged clones to carry; a nifty trick they'd discovered, that as chakra constructs it meant the clones could quite literally bend their shape to the form they wished, so were a properly transformed object and not an illusion. An unassuming group of five had walked this trail, and quite literally an entire army ended up beating the crap out of two unsuspecting chunin. The two missing nin were lucky they survived, if barely.
Sadly, Kakashi was pretty sure that the two chunin had a friend or two nearby. The two chunin Naruto described, and Ibiki confirmed, were ones suspected of working with Zabuza.
Ah well, his little genin would learn some valuable stuff on this mission. It would be quite the show.
Kakashi sweatdropped. He really hadn't expected Naruto's little trick to work twice. The fact he'd managed to actually injure Zabuza was quite an accomplishment.
Bad thing? Zabuza was furious. The singed and clearly battered man came charging down the path in an absolute rage, frothing at the mouth about orange clad punks pretending to be ninja.
Naruto did not help matters by cackling like a hyena, taunting the 'eyebrowless bastard' for being so pathetic. Kakashi kinda couldn't blame him, but Zabuza's enraged swings of his massive sword were getting a bit harder to dodge or deflect.
Tazuna hadn't helped either when he'd shouted "I knew it! You made that mess, didn't you?!" And then pointed accusingly at his team.
His team did a good job ignoring the civilian. Bad thing? They started taunting the missing nin too. Sasuke even went so far as to tell the man to his face that he wasn't worth the effort if the 'dobe' could hit him. The boy crossed his arms and smirked at the older nin.
Zabuza became apoplectic, forced into incoherent sputtering as his KI flooded the area.
Kakashi was just about to panic that his idiot little genin was about to become a smear on the ground, when suddenly, Zabuza wasn't standing there anymore.
Kakashi blinked.
Tazuna blinked.
Zabuza's head, sticking out of the dirt in a very familiar fashion, began spouting some very creative and very foul curses.
...right until a rather fearsome looking Sakura came barreling forward with a warcry and smashed a fist in the man's head so hard only his hair was now visible above ground.
Naruto appeared from underground, clapping his hands together to remove the dirt from them. "Scroll ready?"
Sasuke walked forward, unfurled a scroll, and bit his thumb. Naruto squawked when he realized Sasuke was already in motion. He performed a swift hand seal before grabbing Zabuza's hair and yanking the man out of his earthly prison. With very little fanfare, Sasuke ran his thumb along the contents of the scroll, which started to glow, before dropping it unceremoniously on top of Zabuza.
The unconscious Mist missing nin disappeared in a poof, scroll and all.
Just as Kakashi opened his mouth to speak, a despairing cry filled the air as a second ninja came barreling out of the treetops.
Feeling a bit put out by being outdone by his own genin, Kakashi reacted swiftly. In a flurry of movement and a subtle lightning jutsu, a masked Mist ninja lay on the ground where Zabuza's head used to be.
Kakashi recognized the Hunter mask, and was just about to identify it, when Sasuke dropped a second summoning scroll on the unconscious boy and made him disappear too.
Kakashi wanted to groan at the political nightmare the boy had probably just incited. Instead, he turned to a flabbergasted bridge builder and cheerfully waved at the path ahead. "It looks like our path is clear. Ready to see your family again?"
The silver haired jounin would let Hiruzen deal with whatever mess his genin just created back home. Kakashi was happily not present in Leaf to deal with it, after all.
That thought put a bounce in his step as he began whistling a jaunty tune, making Naruto complain loudly, Sasuke to glare, and Sakura to wince and try and engage Tazuna in conversation again.
None of his team were impressed with Inari. Kakashi willfully let Naruto berate the brat loudly before the blond happily informed the kid that they'd already gotten rid of four big tough ninja already, so no pathetic greedy little worm was going to touch them.
"In fact," Naruto's mischievous grin should have been ample warning, "you could say it's all because he 'lost his head'."
Kakashi snorted tea through his mask.
Sasuke guffawed before trying to smother his laughter. It made it sound like he was a host of dying animals.
Sakura giggle 'snrked'. A lot.
Tazuna loudly groaned before taking a rather impressive pull from his drink. "I'm never hiring ninja again."
"Pft! We did our job! Even when you lied about it!" Naruto jabbed an accusatory finger at the old man. "You're here, ain't ya'?"
Tazuna scowled back. "Gato's still out there, ain't he?"
Sasuke scoffed, having recovered from his 'death throes'. "Not for long."
A long pause followed.
Kakashi hummed. "Well, accidents do happen," he remarked blithely.
Kakashi tilted his head to the side. He stared a moment before flopping his head to the other side. "Hmm." He scratched his masked jaw. "What...exactly, did you do?"
His genin grinned at the chaos before them.
"Nothing much," started Naruto.
"Really, we hardly did anything," added Sasuke.
"Oh?" asked Kakashi, moving his head aside as a pitchfork flew past.
"Yup!" Sakura popped the 'p' as she rocked back and forth on her toes. She giggled. "We only started a riot." All three genin snickered. "Ya' know, for their own good."
Indeed, Kakashi watched in fascination as the civilians of Wave tore into Gato and his minions with a bloodthirsty roar.
"Ah, so we can honestly tell the Hokage that we didn't lift a finger, yes?" asked Kakashi.
Sakura was impressively fiendish as she grinned down at their combined results. "Exactly."
Kakashi merely hummed with a lazy nod. He paused. "Who's idea?"
"Sasuke's," was Sakura's immediate reply. "I helped refine it, so we couldn't get into trouble for 'interfering' with another country's issues. Henge is the best, by the way. " Her gaze flickered to him with a cheeky grin before she looked back at the mess they'd created. Her eyes gleamed a bit. "Naruto was... brilliant." She looked like she might swoon. "His vitriol, his verve, his charisma… They were eating out of his palm." She shook herself. "Really, Sasuke and I barely had to do anything to help psych them up."
His gennin were becoming monsters.
Kakashi beamed at them, ruffling each of their heads with affection.
They were perfect!
Kakashi yelped and barely dodged an entire brace of shuriken. When the onslaught ended, he cautiously poked his head around the doorframe to spot a huffing and puffing Hiruzen glaring at him murderously.
"You-are-despicable," panted the Hokage. "Do you have any idea how much damned paperwork you've given me?! Just you?" He growled dangerously, clearly debating about finding out exactly what Team 7 had been up to or if he might continue to try and flay the silver haired jounin alive.
"Mah, mah, it can be that-"
Hiruzen snarled and pointed to the left.
Kakashi staggered, eyes nearly popping from his skull.
There, sitting demurely on the floor, were five, FIVE, floor to ceiling stacks of papers. Kakashi couldn't help but let out a weak chuckle and look as non guilty as possible.
It really wasn't working. Kakashi wasn't as good at it as his cute little genin. He'd watched them flat out steal from someone, get caught doing it, lie through their teeth about it, and then look so pathetic and innocent that the man totally let them go and gave them more!
And they'd done it 'just because'.
Kakashi decided he wouldn't admit to the Hokage (which he was ready to do prior to nearly becoming a walking pincushion courtesy of Hiruzen) that the whole mission had seemed anticlimactic, considering how his genin had pretty much owned the whole damned thing start to finish.
Instead, all the jounin managed to get out was "My genin are adorable?"
Kakashi wisely fled as Hiruzen roared and a hail of kunai followed him out the door.
Hiruzen's secretary was pale and shaking, hidden beneath her happily solid metal desk. "I'm quitting. I'm totally quitting. Bir-chan is a total liar. This place is a Kami forsaken nightmare!"
