Five: C-Rank

"Where the crap is our sensei?" Sasuke groaned, exasperation loosening his iron trap of a mouth.

We had all but given up on our sensei ever being on time, but today Sasuke was more unnerved than usual because we weren't meeting in the usual spot. I was sitting with my back to the KIA memorial with Sasuke pacing in front of me. Sakura was standing up against a tree, probably imagining the best ways to kill our sensei, from the tiny waves of killer intent she was learning to send out. I shuddered. Women are scary.

"I'm gonna go look for him," Sasuke decided abruptly. "Naruto, stay put. Here's your sketchbook; don't do anything stupid, and don't move." His voice was quiet; I doubted Sakura had heard him.

"Ah, come on Sasuke, I'm not three years old," I complained, softly. "I can find my way around, y'know." It's not like I'm blind or anything…

"Yeah, whatever." He left, and Sakura followed him like the pining puppy-dog she was, leaving me on my own. I stared blankly after them for a second, wondering if I should be offended, then shrugged and flipped my sketchbook open, tugging the pencil out of the spiral binding.

Yeah, just because I'm blind doesn't mean I can't draw. Actually, I'm pretty damn good, according to Sasuke, but I think he's biased. I can roughly draw any face I can run my hands over, and pretty much anything else I can touch – like Mizuki's demon shuriken. And anything else that happens to pop into my head. I chewed on the end of my pencil for several seconds, letting my mind drift as I flipped through the book until I found a blank page, and then set the pencil down, starting to scribble almost straight away.

In a few flicks I had started, drawing in the curve of a face I vaguely remembered from somewhere. I wasn't sure where; I didn't think, I just drew it. I only managed to finish the outline before I remembered another face and immediately sketched it beside the first, then going back to the eyes of the first one.

It's not as hard as you'd think to draw blind, especially if you're me; my fingers are sensitive enough to tell where the pencil marks are on the paper. The pencil changes how the paper felt, raising the paper's texture slightly and making it feel slightly slippery. I'd just totally finished both of the first heads when a third one started out before I even realised what I was doing, and I pulled my pencil off the paper with a sigh. I'd been sitting here for at least half an hour, and now I was bored.

I turned around a little, reaching back with one hand and reading out the first name that my fingers touched. "Uchiha Obito," I mused. Hm, one of Sasuke's relatives? "Who were you? Did you have a family, friends, people you left behind when you died? Do people mourn you? Does anyone still miss you?" Did Sasuke know you?

I put my pencil back to the paper and slowly drew in jerky spikes of hair, shading them in carefully. "How did you die? Why did you die? Was it stupid, pointless? Or did it mean something? To you, or anyone else?"

I'm not sure why, but all three of the faces I'd just drawn were smiling. I smiled too. It was nice when my drawings smiled at me – the sad ones were creepy and the angry ones made me feel guilty, like it was my fault they were angry. "Was it worth it?" I asked the name on the memorial stone, running my fingers over the sketches.

"Huh – oh, hey Kakashi-sensei," I said, having just noticed the man flickering in to stand over me. I drew in a pair of – were those things goggles? I frowned. My imagination scares me sometimes. This face's eyes were cheerful, bright, and all round hard to draw, but I think I managed it. I think. The goggles were shoved up to the top of his head, half over his forehead protector – hey, all three of these guys had forehead protectors. All Konohan, too.

"Hey, Naruto," my sensei said, sounding faintly strangled.

"Oh, did Sasuke and Sakura find you? They sounded pretty mad when they left – no, that's not right…" I erased the smirk my hand had been trying to draw and replaced it with a proper grin. "That's better. Stupid drawings."

"May I see?" he asked, and I shrugged and handed the book over. He seemed kind of stiff today – did he have arthritis or something? Or was he just excited over something?

"I like these ones," I told him, tapping the page. "They're all smiling, and that makes me happy. The bored ones make me bored and the smirky ones put me on edge. It's weird, I never know how they're going to turn out until I've already drawn them. It's like their faces just appear in my head and then I have to draw them like that and I can't change them, they have to be drawn like that."

I was babbling, hoping he would say something. Seriously, he was almost as bad as Sasuke, and it was making me nervous. Eventually, after several minutes of staring at the sketchbook and me chattering randomly, he asked me, "Where did you see these people?"

I shrugged again, relieved to have been cut off. "I didn't. They just appeared in my head so I drew 'em while I was waiting for Sasuke to find you."

"So you were sitting here drawing for the last hour?"

"Oh, drawing and talking to dead people," I said easily.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, Uchiha Obito is really chatty."

Kakashi dropped the sketchbook.

"Ah, man, did I get them wrong again?" I complained. "Sasuke said the last set looked like disfigured mutants. I was trying not to do that this time! D'you want to see the last lot? Man, they were nasty."

"No thankyou," Kakashi-sensei managed.

"Sensei, are you okay? You sound kinda weird."

There was a long pause in which I became anxious that I'd done something wrong, dropping my shoulders and blinking apprehensively. "I'm fine," Kakashi eventually said, "but we'd better go find your teammates."

"Oh, they're over there," I said, pointing vaguely northish with my pencil as I picked up the book and flipped it shut. "I think they're lost… no, wait. Sakura thinks she's lost, and Sasuke's just coming back here. 'Bout time, teme!" I yelled the last sentence at the top of my lungs, and he shouted back, "Shut up, dobe! Kakashi-sensei is extremely hard to find!"

"Suuure. I managed it, and I'm not even allowed to move. I guess I'm just the world's greatest ninja!" Laughter tickled at my throat; he was so easy to tease.

"Oh shut up, dobe," Sasuke grumbled as he fought his way out of a bush.

I chuckled under my breath and bounced back to my feet. Whatever we were doing today couldn't be any worse than the park mission we did yesterday. How can I pick up litter if I can't even see where I'm going? Unless I tripped over it… which happened more often than I'd like to admit. Sasuke made me hold the bag, and the rubbish smelt really weird.

"Hi, kids, you'll never guess what sort of fun we'll have today!" Well, Kakashi seemed to have recovered from whatever it was.

"It's incredible, how he makes the word 'fun' sound like a death threat," Sasuke commented quietly, coming up to stand beside me.

"To the missions desk!" our sensei announced, making Sakura mutter under her breath as she came up behind us, "How old is he?"

I just shrugged and followed our weird teacher. So, was it Tora-the-runaway-cat or the evil-triplets-of-doom today? Maybe the I-forgot-to-weed-the-garden-for-six-years-and-now-the-plants-try-to-maim-kill-and-eat-anyone-they-can-reach mission? Man, was that one annoying. Thorns? What thorns? I don't see any thorns! Ow!

I blinked as we walked into a room, the air abruptly becoming slightly stuffy and charged with the smell of sweat and bored people. Ah, the mission desk. Mental note: avoid this job at all costs. It must be boring as hell. Not to mention dangerous, when you were handing the entire ninja population missions that, as a rule, they didn't want to do.

Maybe it would be the paint-a-fence mission this time. I hoped not – I was tired of having to get drenched in turpentine because I always got covered in paint. Whose idea was it to make the stupid paints non-water-soluble? Screw the rain!

"Oh, Kakashi," said the chuunin at the desk – I thought I recognised him vaguely as someone called Kotetsu. Maybe. Or was it Izumo…? Why did I know this guy's name? "You've got a mission order from the Hokage. A C-rank. Nice going – who'd you have to kill to get a C-rank?" He sounded bored out of his mind.

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you, too," Kakashi-sensei said glibly, the parchment of the scroll rustling as he picked it up. "Well, well, well, guys, looks like we get a C-rank mission."

"Finally!" Sakura exclaimed. "All those chores were so tiring, and we never even got to leave the village!"

I just blinked. Oh great. More stuff for me to trip over. Sasuke brushed the back of my hand and whispered, "We'll be fine."

The parchment crackled as Kakashi unrolled our mission, apparently reading it over, as he didn't say anything aloud. Then he handed it to Sasuke, who handed it to me straight away and read it over my shoulder while I brushed my fingers over the kanji and hiragana, carefully reading the smooth tracks of ink.

Mission Rank: C
Mission Type: Escort Mission
Client: Tazuna
Mission Description: Protect Tazuna on the way back to his home, the Land of Waves, and then for as long as it takes for him to complete the bridge he is building.

I ran my fingers over the paper again, double-checking I hadn't missed anything, before handing the scroll back to our teacher – Sakura had been reading it from near Sasuke's elbow. "Not a whole lot to go on," Sasuke muttered under his breath into my ear, and I shrugged slightly.

"Not meant to. It's just a C-rank, not an A."

"Hey, why do you do that thing with your fingers?" Sakura asked as Kakashi tucked the scroll into his pouch. "Running them over the paper like that?"

"Ah, so I don't lose my place!" I said quickly. "Ahaha, I have trouble reading in a straight line." I laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of my head with one hand.

Sakura snorted. "You are such an idiot."

"Send in the client," Kotetsu/Izumo said to someone, and I heard the door begin to slide open, glancing at it automatically.

My eyes widened and my shoulders dropped at the overpowering smell of sake, and I took a half-step back, trying to hide behind Sasuke. He touched my shoulder questioningly and I choked out, "Smell… of alcohol… strong enough… to kill… small insects!"

I pinned my nose closed and instead listened to staggering footsteps that paused as soon as they entered the door. "What, so I'm being guarded by a bunch of snot-nosed brats?" came the harsh voice that I assumed belonging to our client, followed by a sharp increase in the smell of alcohol. Great, a drunk. "And you can't tell me the short one with the idiotic look on his face is a ninja!"

I sighed irritably. I knew I was the shortest, and I hadn't seen my own face in years, so for all I knew I did look stupid. "In the shinobi world you shouldn't judge by looks alone," I growled. "Don't dismiss us until you've seen us in action."

I heard Kakashi breathe a faint sigh of relief – no doubt glad I hadn't attacked the client. The bridge builder just snorted, unimpressed, although I could sense the chuunin, Izumo, or was it Kotetsu, mentally raising an eyebrow. I sighed again, a little more quietly, and asked Kakashi-sensei, "When are we leaving, and how long is this mission going to take?"

"Hmm…" Kakashi drawled. "This mission should take us about a week, so make sure you take enough supplies. We'll leave from the main gate of Konoha at… say… midday today. Don't be late!"

Then he vanished.

I snorted. "Now taking bets on how many hours late Kakashi-sensei will be."

"I'm not getting there 'til one," Sasuke commented dryly.

Kakashi's Log

Team was given C-rank mission; they weren't as excited as I thought they might be. Naruto seemed more nervous, and he's been somewhat subdued for the last couple of days. Sasuke appeared worried, and overall Sakura seemed the most pleased.

When reading the scroll, Naruto ran his fingers over the parchment. When questioned he said that he had 'trouble reading in a straight line', but I have a feeling he's covering for something else.

Earlier in the day I found Naruto waiting at the memorial; he was drawing in his sketchbook. It was a sketch of three faces – perfect copies of Sensei, Rin and Obito. When I asked him where he saw them, he didn't know.

Midday came and went. One o'clock came and went. Sasuke came but had to stay. He wanted to go, but sadly, we were stuck waiting for our lazy-ass sensei. He was really bored, but I had two new sketchbooks and my old one, too, so I made him sit still for a few minutes while I drew him.

Two o'clock came and went.

When Kakashi finally showed up, Tazuna trailing behind him, I sensed him falter slightly when we came within eyeshot, and I glanced up at him, wondering if something was happening that I wasn't aware of. Sakura was leaning against the village wall, probably dead bored, and Sasuke was sitting cross-legged, one hand holding his head from drooping. I only knew that because I had decided to do a full sketch instead of just his face and checked his whole posture when Sakura wasn't looking.

"Hey, Kakashi-sensei!" I said cheerfully, waving my pencil in the air. "It's about time you got here!"

"YOU'RE LATE!" Sakura shouted, and I rolled my eyes and removed the pencil from my ear.

"Sorry," he said, not sounding sorry at all, "but a black cat crossed my path, so I had to go the long way to avoid the bad luck."

"Are you a mouse, Kakashi-sensei?" I asked interestedly, and that gave the lazy bastard pause.

"Pardon, Naruto?"

"Are you a mouse?" I repeated. "It's only bad luck when you see a black cat if you're a mouse."

"Or if the cat's a panther," Sasuke pointed out.

"What's a panther, again?" I asked, frowning.

"You truly is idiot (1). Big black cat. Likes eating humans or lazy jounin instructors!" the Uchiha said, growling the last part at Kakashi.

Kakashi just laughed at us, but he seemed slightly off-balance. Us retorting back like that instead of just Sakura shouting was a little out of the ordinary. I half-smiled and accepted Sasuke's hand up, dusting off my knees and tucking the sketchbook into an easily accessible pocket of my backpack.

"Can we go, already?" the Uchiha sighed.

The second we stepped out of the village, I felt a faint shiver run up my spine. I had never been out here before, not once. Every step was new, and every step I waited to stumble, to slip, to find something under my feet that I couldn't see. I was shivering faintly, and the pounding of my heart was starting to drown out the footsteps of my comrades.

Sasuke's hand gently brushed my arm and I started slightly, before relaxing. "Just focus on me," he said quietly. "We can do this, Naruto. It'll be ok."

I took a deep breath, forcing my heart rate to calm down, and focused on Sasuke's light footsteps, the soft brushing of the cloth of his shorts, and his hand running across tree bark at random intervals; we were walking on the edge of the trail, I realised.

I fixed every step in my memory, every little dip in the road and the way the small stones under my feet shuttled underneath my ninja sandals, where every tree was as Sasuke brushed past. I was still shaking a little, though, a fact that our obnoxious client (who still stank of sake; seriously, dude, there's a new invention called soap, have you heard of it?) was quick to pick up on. "How can I be sure these brats will protect me?" he complained loudly. "The short one's already shaking in terror, and we've only just left the village!"

I jerked up my head to glare in his direction, and I sensed Sasuke doing the same thing. "It's my first time outside of the village, okay?" I growled, feeling defensive. "I'm just a little nervous. I've never been out here before." I scuffed the ground with one foot, a little self-conscious.

"But what about the Academy exercises where we left the village to practise?" Sakura asked, sounding confused. I sighed, and Sasuke twitched slightly as well.

"Sakura, those need permission forms. I was never allowed to go on them, and even the small-scale ones that stayed inside the village were hard to get permission for." I shifted agilely around a pothole that Sasuke indicated with a foot tap, focusing intently on his footsteps.

"But why couldn't you just get your parents to sign them?" She actually sounded confused. Ah, the joys of living a charmed life. I smiled bitterly, wondering what my life could've been like if I hadn't been orphaned at birth and given a heavy burden before I could even walk, let alone understand.

It was Sasuke who answered her. "Naruto doesn't have any parents, Sakura. They died a long time ago. He's an orphan like me."

"Oh…" Sakura seemed to have realised she'd hit on a sore spot, and for about ten minutes, we were able to walk in silence. I just focused on feet I couldn't see, just putting one foot in front of the other, hearing grit and dust shifting underneath our shoes as we walked.

I blinked as Sakura's voice started up again. "Excuse me, Tazuna-san? (2) You said you come from the Land of Waves?"

"That is correct. What of it?"

"Well… doesn't the Land of Waves have its own ninja village? Why do they need us?"

"Actually, Sakura, the Land of Waves is a small island," Kakashi-sensei explained. "Ninja are military strength, and with the natural protection of the ocean, they generally have no need for them. When they and other small countries like them need ninja, they usually hire from the nearest Great Shinobi Nation."

"Huh… so, Konoha is one of those, right?"

"Correct," Kakashi said agreeably. "Konoha, of the Land of Fire; Suna, of the Land of Wind; Kumo, of the Land of Lightning; Kiri, of the Land of Water; and Iwa, of the Land of Earth, are the Five Great Shinobi Nations. There are other Hidden Villages as well, but those are the five best known."

"What are some of the others?" Sakura continued to pursue the subject, and I restricted a sigh. What a know-it-all.

"There's Kusa, to the north-west of us," I found myself saying, still 'looking' at the backs of Sasuke's feet, "and Taki, straight north. There's Bird Country to the west, although I don't know if their village is still in action or not. Ame is to the west as well, but not as far as Bird, and there's supposed to be a Yukigakure in the far, far north in the Land of Snow, but my map might be out of date – that place has been kinda in a civil war for the last few years. Dunno what's happening there."

I sensed everyone turning to look at me, even Sasuke. "…What?" I growled. "I might be an idiot, but I do like to know what's going on around me!"

"It's nothing, Naruto," Kakashi said as he turned back around. "I simply wasn't aware you knew that much on our surrounding countries."

I shrugged and kept walking. "I like maps," I muttered. Then I continued, barely aware I was still speaking, "Wave is too small a country to either need or support a ninja village. It would have to band together with most of its surrounding islands to manage it, like the Water Country did at one stage."

"That is correct," Kakashi-sensei agreed. "So whenever Wave needs missions done, they go to a nearby village. Aside from that, and in general day-to-day working, they do without."

"So if there are other ninja villages out there, does that mean we could end up fighting other ninja, from a different country?" the girl asked.

Kakashi chuckled lightly. "No, Sakura; at least, not on a C-rank. On a B-rank or A-rank, absolutely, but on a simple C-rank like this one, we don't have to worry about anything more than bandits and thugs, petty thieves. We won't be encountering anyone with ninja training on this mission."

My nose twitched as I caught a familiar scent – fear, tinged vaguely with guilt. I tugged lightly on the back of Sasuke's shirt, whispering, "Something smells funny," and let my sightless eyes slide towards the bridge builder momentarily. This guy's hiding something – he doesn't smell right.

Sasuke tensed the muscles nearest my hand in reply and muttered, "Civilians." Translation: Civilians just don't know how to hide their secrets.

Evidently, he was getting visual signals that agreed with my sense of smell. I tugged again, silently asking what we should do, and he shrugged, making the cloth pull at my hand, then tapped my fingers lightly. Translation: Ignore it for now, but don't forget about it. We may find something later that'll make more sense.

I shrugged myself and let go of his shirt, content to walk on in silence – or as close to silence as we could get; our sensei was humming something absently under his breath. I would have been curious, but considering his choice of reading material, I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

We were maybe an hour out of Konoha (man, was I sick of Kakashi-sensei's humming by then) when I stumbled slightly, my left foot landing in a puddle. "Ack!" I yelped, then glared at Sasuke.

He chuckled, and I scowled, kicking the water in his direction, and it was his turn to yelp. "Naruto, that's cold! And wet! And… and muddy!"

I hooted with laughter, incredibly amused by his response. "You really are a genius, teme, you worked out that puddles are wet, cold and muddy!" I splashed him again and frowned a little, asking, "Feel that?" and this time, I wasn't talking about the temperature. Can you sense the chakra? Chakra in water… what could it mean?

"Narutoooo! How could I not?" Sasuke yowled, skipping away, but he landed ready for combat, a tapping in his feet letting me know his recognition. Yes, I sense it.

"What, can't handle a little water?" I teased as I leaped out of the puddle of chakra and trotted back towards the group, Kakashi-sensei ending up behind me, my heart beginning to race. Are you ready for this?

"Che! As if, dobe! I can handle it fine!" Sasuke scoffed. Bring it on.

I felt the flare of chakra and started turning almost straight away, hearing at least two bodies springing into the air into attack stances; Kakashi-sensei suddenly yelped, and there was a horrible sound of something being shredded through sheer force, and a quick flicker of chakra that felt like a kawarimi. Sakura screamed, and Sasuke flinched. I frowned, barely hearing one of the two foe's whispers of "One down," and computing it to mean Kakashi-sensei was out of action.

Then they were moving again, two vague flickers on the edge of my consciousness outlined by blurs of chakra and sound – a weapon, was it wire, no, too bulky for that, whistling between them – and I drew two kunai, my heart pounding and adrenaline rushing as I frantically tried to track the pair. My ears were too slow – they were so fast – I flinched back from the clanking of – was that chain – and held my weapons in the only plausible block. I couldn't see the weapon – I couldn't see its target – all I could do was hope.

Then there was a clash and a cracking shink, and I heard a shuriken bury itself into a nearby tree, closely followed by a kunai, and as the clank of metal on metal followed, plus an abrupt halting to the two shadows' movements, my mind raced to catch up. Wire – chain – tied together – wrap – razor sharp – pinned – kunai – Sasuke – two – Kakashi – chain – two – linked –

There was a snap as the chain was unhooked from our adversaries, and I let out a yelp and dodged a blow I had only just sensed in time, feeling metal blades tug briefly at my hair before cutting straight through the strands. I sprang back, trying to block the oncoming blow with my kunai, getting a scratch on the back of my hand for the attempt, and as the pain jolted me my concentration dropped. Suddenly, all I could hear was my heartbeat, blood rushing past my ears, adrenaline pounding, my breath impossibly loud and harsh. I could feel my heartbeat in every inch of skin, pulsing with fear and excitement, and was completely lost in an instant.

I couldn't hear Sasuke – I couldn't hear Kakashi – I couldn't hear my opponent's swing – everything was gone, I was trapped in a dark void, there was nothing here, I was trapped, there was nothing –

I wheezed as a foot – a foot a fist a knife pressure nothing everything pain force – I hadn't known was coming slammed me just below the ribcage, forcing all of the air out of my lungs and sending me flying. My back connected with the rough bark of a tree and the sheer force snapped my head back, cracking it against the trunk with a painful smack. I couldn't do anything more than let my body crumple forwards, barely dragging a knee up in time to stop me doing a faceplant into the dirt, and as I vaguely sensed my opponent rushing me, I waited until the last second, before letting myself collapse sideways in a desperate attempt to dodge him.

Crumpled in the dust, I barely comprehended Kakashi-sensei throwing his already-captive foe at mine, knocking them both over, and then grabbing the pair of them. The danger over, Sasuke was at my side in an instant, gently brushing his fingers across my arms and face, asking near-frantically, "Naruto, are you okay? You didn't get knocked out, did you – or were you cut? Are you okay, come on, speak to me!"

"'M'ok," I mumbled weakly, "but my head is killing me. Wha…" I didn't need to expand on the blurry half-question, as my best friend whispered rapidly, so that no one but me could hear him, "Two attackers, ripped Kakashi-sensei apart with a chain weapon at the start, then headed for you; you were trying to block them but you were positioned wrong; I pinned the chain to a tree, the two of them undid it and while one attacked you the other went straight for the client; Sakura and I distracted him, then Kakashi turned up again – I think he used a kawarimi – and grabbed him, bowled your guy over with him, and now he's interrogating them."

I nodded, then put up my hand, letting Sasuke pull me to my feet. "So, the Demon Brothers á la Mist, huh?" our sensei said, and I turned my head towards his voice instinctively. "Why would you two lowlife chuunin be attacking a genin team, hm? Surely you're not stupid enough to pick a fight with a jounin?"

Sasuke and I walked over, stopping a healthy distance from our sensei and his captives. "Ah, Naruto, I'm sorry for not intervening sooner. I didn't mean for you to get hurt, but I wasn't expecting you to freeze up like that."

"Ouch," I said sarcastically, even though that had actually stung. My head was rapidly clearing as I healed up, and thinking was no longer a painful chore. "This is my first actual combat, sensei; gimme a break."

"What about our bell test?" the jounin reminded me, prodding at one of the two Demon Brothers.

"That doesn't count," Sasuke piped up, unexpectedly in Kakashi's slight twitch of the foot, scraping the ground.

"Yeah," I agreed firmly. "You wouldn't actually try to kill us – no matter what you say, Kakashi-sensei, you're too lazy, and I'll bet there's too much paperwork involved."

I derived no small amount of sadistic pleasure in the unmistakable shudder that elicited, and Sasuke's fingers touched my bicep lightly, letting me know that he was amused as well.

"Naruto, you're bleeding!" Sakura yelped slightly.

"Huh? Well fancy that." I touched my fingers to the gash on the back of my hand. "I'm bleeding. How odd." Note the sarcasm.

"Naruto, you are aware that these chuunin like to coat their weapons in poisons?" Kakashi-sensei told me. "We're going to have to get that treated, and soon."

"Che," I grumbled. "All this fuss over one cut." I considered briefly, then sighed and slashed it open with the kunai I still had in my palm, rolling my eyes at the girl's and the civilian's yelps. It didn't hurt that much – it had missed all the major nerve clusters. "There, it can bleed out now. Can we get a move on?" Sasuke silently passed me a bandage.

"In a minute, in a minute," Kakashi said, sounding very much like a parent attempting to shoo off their children so they could do something useful for a change.

One of his two captives was now speaking, and I listened vaguely while wrapping gauze around my hand. Seriously, it wasn't that bad! Fuzzball would deal with it in about ten minutes flat. I probably wouldn't even notice the poison. "How did you read our movements?"

Kakashi-sensei snorted. "Please. In a dry area, where it hasn't rained for weeks, there isn't going to be a puddle. Naruto stepped in it – it's not like it was difficult to notice."

I grinned sheepishly. "They were hiding in the puddle, I think," Sasuke breathed into my ear. "Explains the chakra saturation." I nodded slightly.

"If you knew they were there, then why let yourself get 'killed' and let the brats fight?" Tazuna groused.

"I wanted to know if they had finally gone off the deep end and attacked Konoha ninja, or if they were after you," Kakashi-sensei explained, his voice all too cheerful. "Which, Tazuna-san, they were. One of them went straight for you, and so did the other, although he had to get through Naruto first. But, it stands to obvious reason that you were their target. And we didn't know that there were shinobi after you."

Sasuke nodded, his knuckles brushing my shoulder to let me know he was agreeing. "This mission just went up in difficulty; it's a B-rank assignment. We're operating outside our mission parameters," Kakashi said flatly. "We should go back to Konoha – we were only hired to protect you from thieves, not ninja." I tugged on Sasuke's shirt again.

"What the crap does 'parameters' mean?"

"I'll explain in a minute," he growled, sounding irritated; only I heard the amused exasperation in his voice. Of course I wouldn't know what that word meant.

"We should head back," Sakura agreed quickly. "We're not ready for a mission like this, and Naruto's already hurt! We should go back!"

I scowled. "It's not that bad, dammit! And we've already started the mission! We've already said we'll do this! I'm not about to back out now! What kind of ninja would we be if we quit at the first sign of trouble?"

Sasuke let that vaguely ominous question hang over their heads for a few seconds before saying, "He has a point. We handled ourselves well enough against the chuunin, and no one was badly hurt. And even if things get bad, Kakashi's a jounin. He can handle whatever we genin can't."

There was a pause of several seconds, Kakashi apparently absorbing our words, before Tazuna spoke up again, filling the air with sake-saturated breath. I covered my nose. "I have a confession to make about the mission. It's most likely, yes, rated above a C-rank mission. As it turns out, there's a pretty dangerous guy after my head, and I guess he decided that sending ninja after me was the best course of action."

I tugged lightly on Sasuke's shirt: Why would they bother sending ninja after this guy? Sure, he's a grouchy old coot, but that's no reason to kill him.

Sasuke tugged back, sharply: Just listen; they're still talking.

"Who is this 'dangerous guy' who's after you?" Kakashi asked, getting to the point in his usual blunt way.

Tazuna paused, hesitating, the fear-smell rising and mingling with the sake, before he sighed. "You've probably heard of him before. The wealthy shipping magnate… a man named Gatou."

"What? Gatou is after you?" Kakashi asked, sounding shocked. I frowned; his name had come up a lot in some of my research ventures into the ANBU vaults. What was that file on again… "From the Gatou Company? He's said be among the world's most wealthy people!"

"I think he's third from the top," I said aloud, then flinched as they all turned to me. I really needed to watch my mouth.

"Something like that." Tazuna sounded slightly impatient, but at the same time, very tired. "Officially, he runs a large shipping company, a very successful company, too. But secretly he sells drugs and other illegal items, using ninja, thugs and gang members to take over businesses, drug rings and even small countries. He is a very nasty man…"

The old man shook his head slightly, dirty-sounding hair flopping against his face. "About a year ago he set his sights on the Land of Waves. Through money and violence he quickly took control of our shipping industry, and Gatou now has a complete monopoly on all the business traffic in the country. The bridge I'm building is seen as threatening to this man, as it would undermine his control, so he wants to get rid of me before it's finished. This bridge is our only hope, the last light on our horizon. If I die, that light goes out, and Wave's hope is lost forever."

"So those Kiri missing-nin, they were hired by Gatou?" Sasuke asked. Kiri? I didn't know these guys were from Mist… I mean, I guessed they were, but I wasn't sure… Thank you, Sasuke, that could have been embarrassing.

Tazuna didn't answer him, but Kakashi spoke out instead, and I turned my head in his direction as he said, "What I don't understand is… if you knew ninja would be after you… why did you hide that fact when you hired us?"

Hm, good question.

"Thanks to Gatou and his shipping company, Wave is incredibly poor. Even our feudal lord has basically no money – we've got nothing but dirt left. We were barely able to scrape together enough for a C-rank mission, let alone a more expensive B-rank.

"Well," the old man continued. "I guess it was wrong to lie to you, so you have every right to turn back. If you quit the mission now… I will be definitely killed, but… don't worry about it!" he grinned. "If I die my cute ten year old grandson will just cry for a few days, nothing too bad… Oh yeah, and my daughter will live a sad life hating the Leaf village forever… But it won't be your fault. No, not at all!"

I rolled my eyes, and Sasuke stifled a snort. But Kakashi seemed to have slumped at the sound of Tazuna's speech. "Well," the jounin murmured, "I guess we have no choice. We'll protect you at least until we get back to your country…"

"It figures you'd be a sucker for sob stories, Kakashi-sensei," I sighed. This just got a whole lot more difficult, didn't it?

Kakashi's Log

I had a feeling this wasn't going to be as easy as we first thought.

Turns out the bridge builder, Tazuna, lied to us about the mission difficulty. His country has been taken over by Gatou of Gatou Shipping, and his bridge is threatening to break his control. Obviously, the man doesn't want that, so we've got ninja attacking us now.

First encounter was with two Mist chuunin – the Demon Brothers, Mizu and Gozu, I believe their names are.

It was Naruto who first noticed the puddle they were using as a genjutsu cover, although I'm not certain if he actually sensed it or was just playing around… neither he nor Sasuke seemed surprised when they got attacked a few seconds later, though.

The genin handled themselves fairly well in the ensuing fight, although Naruto froze up a little and managed to score himself a cut or two, and a possible mild concussion; Sasuke defended him fairly well against the pair of Kiri nin, and no one was badly injured. The nins' target was, obviously, our client, but he was unharmed in the skirmish; Naruto was the only one who was hurt at all.

In spite of the obvious trouble this would be, both of the boys refused to turn back when told the mission was out of their expertise, even Naruto, who had been acting incredibly nervy since the start of the mission. Note: has he really never been out of the village before?

In a discussion on the ninja villages, Naruto had moderately detailed – for his level – knowledge on the nearby Hidden Villages, and also of their current states; he even knew about Yuki, but was unsure of their status due to civil war. Second note: it should probably be investigated how he knows this. He has been showing startling knowledge on various subjects all month, and it's starting to creep me out.

Third note: Naruto sketches a lot. He was sketching again when I joined the team at the gates, although I didn't see what he was drawing.

This is going to be a pain, isn't it?

A/N: Sheer dumb luck. Naruto's full of it.

(1) Yes, that grammar is incorrect; however, it's there for a reason. Sasuke is using it as an emphasis of how he thinks Naruto is being particularly idiotic, and is dumbing down his grammar accordingly.

(2) I know I should use the English version, but it's not flowing right. Deal with it. I use Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke-kun, too, don't I?

Regarding the Demon Brothers of the Mist… I know the phrase I used was not the direct translation, but it strikes me as something Kakashi would say. Please don't review to inform me I got it wrong – things have already changed from the original timeline. I'm not going to follow the dialogue if I think I could improve it.

Oh, and the word 'magnate', which is not to be confused with a metal called manganate (as I did, when first reading this word in grade eight). It means tycoon or mogul, someone who has a large amount of control in a particular area. If you know what Zoo Tycoon is, you're on the right track.

Japanese Concepts:

Village Titles: I use both English (Mist) and Japanese (Kiri) for the names of the villages. They are interchangeable in my mind and will be treated as such in this story; the English and Japanese name of each village are indicated below.

Leaf/Leaves – Konoha
Mist – Kiri
Sand – Suna
Stone/Rock – Iwa
Cloud – Kumo
Snow – Yuki
Waterfall – Taki
Sound – Oto
Grass – Kusa
Rain – Ame

To all of these names, add '-gakure' to get 'hidden in the…', such as Kirigakure, Hidden in the Mist, and '-gakure no sato' to get 'village hidden in the…' such as Konohagakure no Sato, Village Hidden in the Leaves. As I warned you previously, all names are interchangeable and will get used at some point. I apologise for any confusion, but some forms of the noun work better in places than others, and I like to keep my options open. If there is confusion, let me know, and I'll do my best to clarify.