Really, Minato had lucked out, a jounin wasn't as easy to fool as a bunch of chuunin charged with the oversight of thousands of children, especially a jounin that would be dealing with her daily, and probably giving her one-on-one instruction. The next step in her career path was the chuunin promotion, and honestly, of the three types, she knew of one that wouldn't work. Field promotion, unless a war started, this would be out of the question.

However, for now, Minato had D-ranks to complete, and a genin library to visit.

D-ranks, Minato looked sadly at the list, babysitting, weeding, cleaning, painting, and catching a cat? It was obvious really, chores for young ninja to earn some pocket money, or to pay rent. She looked around the mission hall, there were a few chuunin standing around, looking for young genin to accompany them on C-rank missions, though no genin in sight.

'Babysitting would get me in contact with those in charge of Konoha, though there is a risk of them recognizing me, catching a cat? The pay is decent, but it just screams… trap.' Sorting through the list, Minato thought of the trash collecting jobs, they seemed simple enough. Still, she wanted to figure out about the cat. "I'll take the trash collecting, though what's with the cat mission?"

The smirk that the chuunin at the desk gave her was answer enough for Minato; she had no desire to spend time on that. Taking her mission scroll, she set off towards the river, where she would spend hours on the mind-numbingly task of picking up trash. Just as she left the mission office, she realized she had no clue where to get the trash bags, or where to dump them after her work, so she quickly returned and asked the chuunin, much to his amusement.

Trash collecting had turned out to be even more boring than Minato had predicted, and take longer than she had expected, but at least it took place along the river. This allowed her to practice her water walking while distracted and bored, and by the early afternoon, she had stopped noticing whether she was standing on the banks or on the river entirely.

After a late lunch at a small stall, Minato headed to the genin library. It was, in word… disappointing. While the shelves had quite a few copies of each volume, there still weren't enough books to fill up the small room, leaving three of the seven bookshelves entirely bare and the rest half-empty. Again, it wasn't like she couldn't understand why, genin could leave the service after ten years of service, and half of that could be spent as inactive, this meant that genin were much more likely to return to civilian life, and take all their skills with them.

That didn't mean Minato couldn't find anything of value, in fact all the books had quite a bit of basic information recorded, and there were exercises for basic elemental transformation, and a few utilitarian elemental jutsu's. The only subject that had any extensive coverage, besides medicine, which took up half a bookshelf on its own, was the fuinjutsu section. While it contained mostly basic theory, it also had a comprehensive introduction to making storage scrolls.

This was good news for Minato, the academy course on fuinjutsu had only given her an overview of how the art functioned, not how to make her own designs, which was necessary for anything beyond basic explosive tags. The fact that she had been the only student taking the course meant she had gotten a very thorough education in the art.

'This is much more comprehensive than it should be for genin; Konoha clearly wants more seal masters in their ranks, if they're starting them young. Same for medics.' With her observations made, Minato borrowed the books that interested her the most, An Introduction to Storage, Elemental's of Elemental Transformation, and Illustrated Illusions.

The fuinjutsu book didn't take her long to read through, and a few days later Minato had made her first successful attempt. Dividing the week, she took on three D-ranks, where she practiced elemental transformation and spent the evenings reading, and three days of training, where she would go through kata's and practice her kawarimi, the most useful ninjutsu in her arsenal. Sundays were for light exercise and relaxing.

By the end of the first month on her own, Minato had gone through most of the library, and had some ideas of what her elemental affinity was. Fire, obviously, since she was a gargantuan fox made from it, but also wind, interestingly enough. Not that she had trouble with elemental transformation, earth came reasonably easy as well, and she had less trouble with water and lightning than she had expected.

It wasn't like Minato could do much in any of the basic exercises, the fire one called for her to burn the leaf, and she could make the tip smolder, but that was it. Genjutsu was a bit trickier, she was certain that she had the basics down, but without test subjects, ones that could accurately report what she was doing; she had no clue if it was working.

NONON

By the third month of training and doing D-ranks, which were really starting to bore her, Minato packed her storage scrolls with equipment for a longer mission, and set off to the mission office early in the morning. "Any of you want some help on a C-rank? It's my first, so not too much, okay?"

This was the easiest way, chuunins looking for missions arrived in the morning, and if they needed a few hands, they would stick around and find a genin. Arriving early meant Minato had more options of missions since most genin didn't show until late morning. "Sure kid, I'll take you along, it's just a mail run to a few of the border stations, super boring stuff, I hope you're a good conversationalist."

"So, what's your name kid?" The silver haired chuunin that had introduced himself as Mizuki asked, after they had gone over her supplies. "Minato, no last name, yet."

"Manito, that's a heavy name in this village, any ninja village really. At least you're not a blonde. So, you know how to take the ninja highway?" Nodding quickly, Mizuki and Minato took off to the treetops, and headed north, towards their first stop. Setting the pace, with Mizuki easily keeping up, they ran until lunch where they stopped at a river, where her commander taught her the first trick.

"A fishing net really makes life easy, no trapping' small game, no waiting for fish to bite." Minato vowed to add a net to her pack, though she had ration bars packed, and enough to last her a month, they tasted like wet cardboard with a texture like mush, but just adding a bit of fresh fish and the experience became a lot better. "This is probably the most important tip ever, thanks, Mizuki-san."

"Glad to be of service, kid. Besides, you're keeping up well, are you tired in any way?" Minato quickly shook her head. "No, I have a lot of chakra, so to train my control, the teachers at the academy showed me every control exercise available, including the basic muscle reinforcement, besides, look."

Minato quickly flew through the seals of the bunshin, creating a single clone of herself, a clone that looked rather dead as it flopped in the wind. "Crap, still too much. I can make two now, but the first time I tried any less than thirty and they came out like this."

"That is a hell of a lot of chakra kid, you're going to be a big name in the future, might even make Hokage, if you're interested." Minato ducked her head, to hide her embarrassment with muttered thanks. "Now that we've had lunch, let me properly brief you on mail runs."

"First thing, kid. A mail run is very common, they are daily, and usually contain personal letters, however, sometimes orders and new patrol schedules are included, and on very rare occasions, they include intelligence from spies. We aren't told, so no one but the big-wigs know, however, it also means that all mail runs have a chance of being intercepted by enemy ninja, after all, we could be carrying anything from porn to battle plans against Iwa."

"So, a generally low risk mission, but if it does go wrong, it goes majorly wrong." Mizuki gave her a firm nod in confirmation. "This is also the downside of mail runs, since we don't know what we're carrying, if we encounter enemy ninja, we run. Fast. On that note, fore the afternoon, set a sprint pace, I want to see how well you'd do in such circumstances, for motivation, I guess I'll chuck kunai at you if you slow down."

Mizuki didn't give her any warning as he threw a kunai at her, ad Minato took off at her fastest pace, running from the madly cackling chuunin as fast as her short legs could take her. "Keep on running and this might be the fastest mail run in years!"

More kunai passed her head and Minato found a bit more speed in her body. They continued north, with Mizuki adjusting their course by chucking kunai to her left or right when she needed to adjust her direction. It wasn't until early evening that the sadistic chuunin allowed her to slow down, and they returned to a more leisurely pace.

They were five days out of Konoha, when Mizuki changed their sleeping routine. "Since we might be carrying important documents, sleeping in the wilderness means taking watch, truthfully, any situation calls for it, but this close to the border it gets dangerous. With just two of us, we'll take three hours of sleep each, then move again, once we reach the border station, we'll take a long sleep." Before Minato could unseal her tent, Mizuki stopped her. "We should consider this hostile territory, so no fire at night, and try roughing it on the ground, its's better that way."

Three hours later, and Minato had watch, it came with the realization, that D-ranks were infinitely more interesting. At least Mizuki had woken her up exactly between sleep cycles leaving her somewhat rested, though the chuunin was much better conditioned, and woke up after a single cycle on his own.

"Since we're nearing the border, we won't go at such a heavy pace, as the risk of encountering enemies goes up. Even then, with your speed, we should make it to the first border station by early evening." With that, Mizuki took off, and Minato followed behind, the pace was quick, but not as fast as she had gone the day before.

By late afternoon Minato and Mizuki reached the first border station. It wasn't exactly what she had expected; she had pictured something like a small castle brimming with ninja, not a small log cabin with a short watchtower attached. "Yeah, not what you expected. This is what border stations look like, most of the ninja 'here', patrol the area between stations, and only stop for a resupply. It is the most boring job a ninja could ever get, avoid it like the plague."

After a good night's rest, Mizuki showed her a map, pointing out the next stations on the route, so Minato would knew where to run if they encountered enemy ninja. After a solid breakfast, they set a hard pace, to only spent two nights between border stations, since this was a mail run, there was no need to spend time looking for tracks or encroaching ninja, though Mizuki told her to keep her senses sharp.

After two weeks of utterly boring running while trying to keep her senses sharp, Minato had decided that mail runs wasn't really something she liked all that much. It was boring for one, and exhausting to keep checking for enemies that weren't there. "Kid, since we're close, want to see the Valley of the End?"

"Yeah!" Minato had heard of it, in history class. Most of it was how the first Hokage had battled Madara Uchiha, but what interested her even more was how Madara, supposedly had summoned her to fight for him, and her very presence had altered an otherwise insignificant valley into a massive gorge with a giant waterfall. Of course, to her it was to see what she could really do, there wasn't much evidence of her assault on Konoha left after all.

"It's another two days travel from here, and we're near the border so it's still hostile territory, and there won't be any border stations to sleep at, so it'll be a long way home." Minato gave the chuunin a big grin and set off towards the Valley, leaving Mizuki to catch up.

A hand suddenly covered her mouth, waking her from her sleep. Mizuki had done this a few times already, getting her used to waking up suddenly, and Minato sharpened her senses, listening for any trouble. In the distance she heard a light creaking noise, like weight being added to a branch. Her heartrate sped up, and her eyes widened, unlike before, where Mizuki had quickly told her to stand down, this time he gave her a sharp look.

Calming down, Mizuki gave the hand signs for enemy, return, Konoha, and stealth. Minato nodded, they were still carrying return mail, so the mission was still on, and they were nowhere near equipped for dealing with enemy ninja.

As quietly as they could, they made their way south heading straight for the village, hoping to avoid a fight. Even as they moved, they could hear the ninja looking for them. Even with her decent stealth ability, they didn't get far before the ninja found them, and Mizuki gave the signal to take off at top speed.

As Mizuki had said, in this situation, all they could do was run, and while she was quite fast for a genin, her lack of sleep and being woken in the middle of her nap meant that she wasn't in top condition. Still, for two hours, they ran as fast as they could barely managing to keep ahead of the enemy ninja. However, Minato was slowly starting to lag behind, and it almost seemed as if Mizuki was moving at an even faster pace than before.

Her heart was beating a mile a minute, and Minato could feel the enemy ninja right behind her slowly closing the distance. Then the weapons started flying. If it hadn't been for Mizukis sadistic training methods, she wouldn't have noticed the sound of kunai approaching from behind. More weapons quickly followed the first, and she noticed they were mostly aimed at her legs. She hoped it meant the enemy was equally exhausted, and were trying to slow her down.

Another kunai whipped past her, aimed at her body, apparently, the enemy had given up on incapacitating her, and was now aiming to kill. Minato swallowed thickly, before it had all been academic, yes there was danger, but it had been sort of distant and strangely subdued, now there were three enemy ninja trying their hardest to kill her.

More weapons came her way, and one of them nicked her shoulder, sending a burning sensation through her arm, and causing her to miss the branch. Tumbling through the forest, Minato saw the enemy closing in on her position sending a hail of shuriken towards her. Without a way to change her course, she closed her eyes and waited for the impact.

As each shuriken hit her body, Minato let out a pained scream. She had been hurt before, and cut several times in kenjutsu class, but the shuriken felt like they were burning her body. With the pain through her body, she fell straight to the ground, landing with a dull thud.

Her entire body hurt as Minato tried to push off the ground, only tumble gracelessly down into the mud, behind her she could hear shouts, and then a soft thud as someone landed nearby. After what felt like hours, she slowly opened her eyes, and saw the head of someone, someone that was missing the rest of their body; and then everything exploded.

For a brief second, Minato wondered what had happened, she couldn't hear anything, and her left eye was blinded from the heat and light of the explosion. Mizuki landed in a crouch next to her, and as relief flooded her body, her consciousness faded.

Blackness, it was emptiness, and in the hollow world, there was nothing. Pain, it was the first conscious thought she had, everything hurt. Slowly the vast nothingness receded, and the pain became unbearable, causing her to groan even as her throat resisted. Still, she couldn't see, trying to open her eyes, she only saw blackness, nor could her ears detect even the faint sound of her heart.

Memories returned, and with them a sense of self, she was Minato, she was the Kyuubi, she was on a mission, she was running from enemy ninja, then there was an explosion, and then… Mizuki. 'Had they made it?' She wasn't sure, she couldn't remember, maybe she had been captured, maybe Mizuki had thought her dead.

Carefully Minato tested her body, her legs weren't hurting as much, just a dull ache from running too much, same with her arms. Though her back was sore and her head throbbed painfully, her training helped her, and she slowly moved her arms to check, and to her relief she wasn't bound. It meant that she had been left for dead, or Mizuki had saved her.

A hand helped her, as Minato tried to sit up, and as she let out another pitiful groan, she felt a cup pressed to her lips. Just a single sip caused her to cough, but she quickly drank more water, and the relief of her parched throat causing her to moan in pleasure.

Then they were on the move again, at first she hadn't been sure where she was, or who was carrying her, but after indicating that she was deaf, whoever was with her, had guided her hand to the Konoha forehead protector, kept in a bandana style, mark forward, with near shoulder length hair. Even blind and deaf, she recognized the distinctive feel of Mizuki, and she relaxed.

Even with Minato resting on Mizuki's back he ran at top speed for what seemed to be most of the night. She couldn't be sure as her eyes were still covered, but by the second day she could hear again, and she spoke up as they settled down for a quick nap. "I can take guard duty, my right eye is fine, and I can hear again."

"Thanks chibi, I've been going straight for about four days now, we're close to Konoha patrols, and I think we got all of them, but we shouldn't rest until we're inside the village." Minato retied the bandages around her eyes as Mizuki spoke. "What happened?"

"I ambushed them, you were just fast enough they couldn't act, but too slow to run away, so I went ahead and set up an ambush, ninja-wire between the trees took the head of the leader when you ran under it, and explosive tags, lots of explosive tags." That explained her last memories, she was sure she had seen the head of an enemy, a head without a body. Mizuki grinned as he continued. "You being a chibi and all meant that the wire was too high up for you to get hit, while low enough to take a head. Besides, I expect you to make some replacement tags for me, those things are bloody expensive."

"Sure thing Mizuki-san, I'll whip up a few for you when we get back." Minato kept her voice low as the chuunin drifted off. Her wounds were healing quickly now that she was awake, and could actively circulate her chakra, she would be back to one hundred percent when Mizuki woke up. Besides, the guy looked dead on his feet, and she knew she wasn't as light as the large fuma shuriken he had carried on their way out.

Two days later, and a pair of worn out shinobi entered the mission office. "Debriefing will be with someone from the intelligence division. This is standard procedure if you encounter ninja from other villages, but not for rogue ninja, in those cases the mission leader can make such a call if they feel it is warranted."

"So we aren't sure if they were rouges going for a stroll, or from an enemy village gathering intelligence, thus the reporting?" Mizuki nodded at her response, and they entered a small office, where a chuunin in a grey uniform sat at the desk. "That would be the case for this mission, if it wasn't for the fact that we were handling two missions… Chuunin Mizuki 011141, Genin Minato 012389, reporting on mission 10C-4396 and mission 68B-7930."

"So I was a what? Smokescreen?" Minato grumbled after the debrief. He C-rank had been nothing but a cover to get Mizuki to the border where he met up with an informant and picked up some documents, but she wondered why he had taken her along for that. "Yeah, I had hoped that the enemy would think we were a normal mail run in the vicinity, and leave us alone, but well, shit happens."

"Truthfully, I should have gone with a team of chuunin, but we would have been obvious. Then I spotted this fresh little genin and thought, hey maybe no one will think twice about a bog-standard mail run, so bad luck, but on the flip side, you got a B-rank on your first mission out of the village, and the pay as well. Still owe me some explosive tags though." Mizuki chuckled at her annoyed expression, which under no circumstances looked like a pout. At least the pay was massive, 55,000 ryo each after taxes, now she could afford a proper sword rather than the cheap training one from the academy.

AN in the profile