Chapter Four

It was a strange silence in the office as the four shinobi finished their long and strange report. The nature of the facts was not an unusual one, as the Third regularly dealed with enemy attacks or infiltration attempts. Such a large village like Konoha was hard to supervise and so it was often that some would try to sneak in, disguised as civilians. All they had to do is go trough the gates.

But this time there was a problem. The Hidden Village of the Dragonfly had been destroyed decades ago. The Leaf had had been at war with them but it was another village, unknown until today, that struck the last blow after the signing of a peace agreement. If rogue nins with loyalty ties with the Dragonfly existed then why would they come to Konoha. And what were they doing in the Academy. He already ordered it searched in and out, every room and corridor but there was nothing.

"At the moment we have nothing else to do but increase our security status and wait. This information is classified as B-rank, anyone under Chuunin is forbidden to know. In your mission log I will add it as a completed B-rank scouting and investigation type. You can get your pay from the Mission Centre right away. You all did a fine job, even though there are still missing pieces."

"Hokage-sama. I would like to request another mission for my team. Since they proved their worth they can receive C or B ranked with no risk."

"True, still their level does not allow B ranked ones. A mere 55 is impressive for the first day, yet B ranked are given at 90. If your team successfully completes two C ranks then you can go further. And lucky for you, I have a C rank ready. Team 7 do you agree?"

"Yes!"

"A man from the Country of Waves is in need of protection returning home and completing a certain building- he is an architect. At the moment he is stationed in Tanzaku Gai under the supervision of a chuunin. In this file you will the address?"

"Why does he need shinobi? C rank guarding means bandits and wild animals and there are lots of mercenaries for hire."

"For some reason he paid enough for a B-ranked while the mission requires C expertise. He insisted on being guarded by a team on ninja. Should things complicate themselves you can advance the mission status and then with it that way, Kakashi. If enemy ninja interfere call for back up and then return to the village."

"I would like to request B rank equipement."

"Approved. Chuunin type battle armor, a tanto and twelve exploding seals for each. I doubt you'll be wearing yours Kakashi. Your genin can get them from the depots this afternoon. You leave in two days for Tanzaku Gai."

"Understood." And so the tree genin departed. Naruto went to a music store to get some new CDs, Sasuke left for the Uchiha training grounds and Sakura to a restaurant for a late lunch. Kakashi went to get some 'crack…..ers' and a 'por…..table pc'. But nobody believed him so he just shrugged. So the next day passed with one blond kid singing all alone in his apartment, a black haired one getting lost in the Uchiha grounds- "big ass woods"- and a pink haired one sleeping 24 in a row. A silver haired man was caught while exposing himself in a bar but unfortunately he was wearing a mask covering half his face so nobody recognized him- he escaped a few minutes later.

So the next day came and Kakashi, for the first time in days stood present at the correct hour. Naruto was eating some fast-food breakfast and Sakura was reading a paper. They all looked like shit.

"Hey, Sakura, can I have that newspaper please." He got it and began searching through the pages." Hmm, that's odd. I thought that would be big news."

"You thought what would be big news?"

"There seems to be an absence of a certain ornithological species. A lack of an avian variety." Sakura looked at him like he was crazy.

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, have you not heard? It was to my knowledge that everybody knew about 'the word'."

"What wor….?" Sakura was even more confused. Kakashi was making desperate gestures and eventually shouted at the same time with her" SAKURA DON'T!"

"EVERYBODY'S HEARD…ABOUT THE BIRD…BIRD BIRD BIRD…THE BIRD IS THE WORD…I SAID BIRD BIRD BIRD….THE BIRD IS THE WORD." While Naruto sang Kakashi drew a kunai. Sakura's eyes grew wide then surprise turned into annoyance and then anger. Naruto had begun dancing some idiotic dance while the other two chased him around. Sasuke arrived filled with tree branches, leaves mud and looking like he was starving. "Fucking big ass woods…" he kept muttering. From a rooftop their old classmates watched with pity. Kiba spoke"I guess all the fighting and missions got to them. Poor guys, good ninja gone crazy." He got hit in the head.

Meanwhile Team 7 got on the move, walking at normal speed to their destination. The client was waiting for them in the evening so there was no rush. Naruto had an ugly bruise on his faca, Sakura fingered a kunai in her pocket, ready to interrupt another 'great hit'. Sasuke was talking to Kakashi, telling him of the past 48 hours while the jounin pretended to listen.

"So I had to wait for a cousin of mine in the damn woods but he never showed up. Nasty part was that I forgot if it was the first or the second river. By nighttime I was so freaking hungry I almost ate a live squirrel. Little predator bit me and then ran off. An owl was planned for desert but the scariest shit happened- it turned it's head at 360!- man I was fucking freaking out I ran an fell into the river. Some dead guy floating around- I got out and ate a fucking tree. I ate it all I was so fucking hungry that I actually ate a whole tree!!! Man it was strange."

"Oh yeah? Cool….."

"The instinct for survival man, it's in our blood! I fried myself a rat on a some stones. It was disgusting but then it hit me! I realized I was a MAN, a survivor, I was the leader! It was fucking awesome to feel like a man of the woods!"

"Yeah, yeah, nice…What happened next?"

"My mom came out and told me to stop playing around in the back yard." He said with a resigned tone.

"Wait a minute, how far were you from home? In meters."

"About ten or twelve." Kakashi sweat dropped. "Yeah, those were the worst 20 minutes of my life!" Kakashi decide to leave him and talk with Naruto. "So, how've you been?"

"Nothing."

"…."

"Dude, the Green Trooperz are the fucking best. You know, they are so totally awesome."

"Why so? I don't think I've ever heard of them before."

"Oh yeah, they rock. All though they're all about peace, you know, against hatred and drug addiction. Oh, man it would so great if they actually existed." Kakashi sweat-dropped again and moved away. Sakura was looking a bit on the edge and Naruto was slowly re-picking up the tune so he put some distance. On the other hand the road was very peaceful, flanked by trees and empty.

So peaceful he wanted to pass a kunai through his throat and listen to the sound of his own slow death. Not even some rude travelers to insult or some smart ass kid to kick, So he did the one thing that he liked most, above all else. He began laughing. By himself. Out of no reason. He laughed like a maniac. Imagine a silver hair jounin laughing by himself, followed by a dark haired kid pretending to fight a monster squirrel from his back yard and then a pink haired girl chocking a blond boy trying to sing about 'the BIRD'.

"SUUUUURRRRRRFIIIIIIIINNNNNNN' BIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRD'"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, NARUTO!"

A crow in sky "Ahoo!" And the sun shone brightly upon the four ninja, soon to be three due to staff cuts and unpredicted accidents. Many good ninja seemed to suffer from stupidity lately and one of the last stage of this disease consisted in a blade in the skull. Naruto jumped around, barely missing the kunai, while obliviously dancing to his own tune. Only Sasuke ignored him. Then all of a sudden a sound was heard in the sky.

All looked up curios to see a fast moving object passing over their heads and making an annoying sound, like a series of small explosions. Naruto's look softened and he kept walking while his teammates inquired Kakashi. But the jounin seemed to be silent as well.

"It's one of those captured in Kiri." Naruto spoke in a low tone, a dark one" That sound usually meant only one thing- Grimm Reaper. That's what we called it in the first days. Then at one point we captured a base and secured some of those. Rain Country used to make them but fuel is incredibly hard to produce."

"What is it? Some sort of animal? Or a ninjutsu device?" Sakura was listening to every word, analyzing the tone. "How does it fly?"

"I'll draw a sketch when we reach our destination. It's a device made of wood with a metal core and on the front there's a screw type object. It can carry a man at about 3000 m and flies with a few hundred km per hour. I know it might seem pretty cool but once you get used to it and you fly it the whole fun goes away."

"Huh?"

"The Kirigakure forces used it to drop projectiles on ground troops and for reckon. Some have a kunai thrower on so they can hit other planes. We copied the model and now there are some in Fire Country. They need special landing areas and stuff and if there is any defection while in mid air, then you die. In a burning pile of wood, falling down to the ground at high speeds. Air-plane."

"You can fly it? That's awesome? And if it goes so fast then distances will be reduced. You get from Konoha to Tenkyo in one hour or less!"

"Fuel is very hard to produce and the materials are hard to exploit. It takes coal, mixed with some kind of acid, then the paste is turned into powder trough lots of heat. The powder is liquefied in a bath of salts until it becomes clear like water. It tastes like hell. To produce one liter is to exploit it's weight in gold." Sakura becam quiet, still amazed by the things she had just found out. "It burns very fast too and releases a lot of heat. Some tried to make the engine work with other materials but it didn't work out."

"What if there were something good enough?"

"then we ninja would be dead. One hundred of those could go trough the entire defense system of Konoha like butter. In a few hours the village would be burning. Until now shinobi were the only ones capable of doing things like these and that's what made us so important for world politics" Kakashi took over from a depressed Naruto." The power balance in the world is held by the hidden villages. A country won't attack another out of fear that enemy shinobi might rampage them. When two countries have hidden villages they normally try to solve things without a shinobi battle."

"Why doesn't this guy hire a ninja from his own country rather than from Konoha. It would be easier for all."

"It's about thirty years since Wave has had a hidden village of it's own. The Hidden Village in the Hills was destroyed in a war back then. It was chaos, hidden villages emerging everywhere and lots of new alliances."

"What's so bad about new villages? It's not like they were our enemies from day one."

"Sakura, you didn't you who was your friend and who was your foe. Secret pacts were made everywhere and nobody knew what would come next. It's the period before the Third Great Secret War, the main cause for which Konoha declared war on Iwa."

"That's wrong, Kakashi-sensei. Iwa was the one to start the aggressions, burning down the capital of Bird Country. Konoha came to help. I remember Iruka-sensei telling us that."

"What you learned back then was incorrect, Sasuke. Konoha declared war three weeks before that incident by attacking an Iwa cell passing by Fire Country. Bird Country was our ally but we couldn't protect it. In truth, Konoha wanted war from the beginning. Without it we would have lost a lot of strength but instead we became the strongest village of the five."

"That's a very selfish act! And a stupid one, war doesn't solve anything…"

"Do you question the decisions of your Hokage?" Kakashi rose one of his eyebrows" Would you rather have peace and be reduced to nothing but a settlement? Konoha is what it is because the Third took all the best decisions. You might say war is not going to solve a problem but in fact people have mostly relied on war for it. If you still believe that's wrong then you go against the will of the village leader. Sarutobi-sama is a hero, Sasuke,."

With that the argument was over. Naruto kept sulking all they way, becoming extremely quiet. Sakura and Sasuke left him be and kept silence themselves while Kakashi began reading a book from his pocket. It was going to get dark soon, the sun had vanished and only the bright orange and purple clopuds remained. In the distance they could see the high towers of Tanzaku Gai.

The End

I don't know how many chapters I'll publish in one row. I don't actually care, right now my mood is awful. Outside it's raining and a little foggy, it's be evening soon. Just review these chapters. :-

Alex R out.