Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Naruto woke with a boisterous voice shouting in his ear. "Good Morning Naruto-Kun!" The boy sat bolt upright with a yelp. The tall, black-haired, black-eyed, black-browed, black-clad ninja beamed happily. "What a Joyful summer morning!"
"Ehhh..."
"Be vigorous, Naruto-kun, your Youth awaits!" Gai struck a pose, his teeth reflecting the weak sunlight filtering through Naruto's window in a blinding flash.
"Stop shouting, Gai," a disgruntled, female voice groaned from outside the door. Naruto pulled his blankets up to his chin, shrinking away from his new protector. Then a purple-haired woman stuck her head into his bedroom. "Morning, kid. Hurry up, or you'll be late for school." Her short hair was clipped messily up behind her head, and her brown eyes were bloodshot. "What the hell is taking so long, Gai?"
"Naruto, this is the most Un-Youthful Anko-chan. She stayed up too late drinking last night, and now is paying the Price." He frowned disapprovingly at her.
"Ah, shut up, Gai." Anko sprawled on her back across the foot of Naruto's bed, dressed as Gai was in basic (skintight) ANBU blacks. She didn't seem to care that her arched body and attire were very not conservative. Tossing an arm over her eyes, she moaned. "My fucking head." Naruto slid unobtrusively towards the head of his bed, staying safely under the covers, his blue eyes wide.
"Anko-chan, please watch your language! That was a very Un-Youthful thing to say, especially in front of Naruto-kun." Gai shook his head at her, not disturbing a single, perfect, shiny hair.
"Whatever, Eyebrows." She yawned. "I'll meet you down for training...in a little bit."
"Anko-chan! You can't go to sleep now!"
"Why the hell not?" She began to snore exaggeratedly.
Gai vacillated uncertainly for a moment. "Anko-chan..." She rolled over, burying her face in Naruto's blankets. The boy pulled his knees up to his chest, huddling against the headboard. Scary lady...
Gai made his decision. "ANKO-CHAN! YOU MUST AWAKEN! THE SPRINGTIME OF YOUTH AWAITS!" Naruto clapped his hands over his ears. Anko shrieked, and did the same.
"Gai, you bastard!" The woman jumped off Naruto's bed and flung herself at Gai. "You insensitive useless eyebrow freak! I have a goddamn hangover!" He dodged her punch, and did a back flip over the bed. Anko followed him, leaping gracefully to the bed in order to throw a second punch at his face. Naruto watched with a mixture of shock, fear, and admiration. It was certainly a unique wake-up call.
"Um..." Naruto tried, as Anko thudded into the wall. She sprang off it, snarling wildly and slammed her head into Gai's stomach. In the cramped space of Naruto's bedroom, they backpedaled into another wall. "Hey," he tried again, louder.
Gai dropped to the floor to execute a spinning kick that Anko easily leapt over. He followed up by pushing off the floor and slamming a scissoring leg into her shoulder from above.
Their fight was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a very irritated neighbor. "Can't you keep it the fuck down?" the brown-haired man snapped. "Some of us are trying to sleep!"
"Sorry, friend," Gai said contritely, immediately stopping. Anko was not so polite. With a cry of triumph, she drove a fist into Gai's stomach.
"That's for shouting, jerk." The man grunted, folding over his midsection. "Time for school, Naruto," she added, switching in the blink of an eye to cheerful older sister tones.
Naruto shivered, and made a note of how the other ANBU had stopped Gai. That might be useful to know. Sliding out of bed and hurrying to get dressed, he decided that he already missed Raidou-nii-san.
Squad 14 had left Konoha two hours before daybreak. Leaping through the trees, they moved quickly through the darkness, not slowing as the sunlight began to filter through the leaves. Kakashi called a halt around noon, when Raidou informed him quietly that Hayate was wheezing and Genma was limping. The young captain finally woke up from whatever distracted thoughts had been occupying his mind for the past forty miles, and the team settled for a break on a grouping of wide branches.
Hayate quietly swallowed a sip of water and one of the pills the medics had given him (perfectly legal, no international treaties violated). Genma re-wrapped his ankle, tightening the supportive bandages, and swearing under his breath. Raidou wondered sometimes if Genma's dirty mouth was a defense mechanism against the rest of the world. It was certainly keeping Tenzou a safe distance away; the boy's ears were bright red as he studiously chewed on a ration bar.
Kakashi only let them rest ten minutes, then they were off again, only a little slower now as the afternoon heat grew.
"Naruto-kun! How was School today?" Gai boomed, clapping a hand on Naruto's back. The boy stumbled forward from the force, and grinned weakly back. The tall man was dressed in a green jumpsuit now. Oddly enough, it looked more normal on him than the uniform he had previously sported.
"Good?" he tried. Then, a thought came to him. "Gai-san, can we go get ramen?"
"It is time for training, now, Naruto-kun! Ramen must wait until after we have exercised our Fires of Youth!"
Anko materialized out of the crowd leaving the Academy, also not in ANBU uniform. Her close-fitting mesh was hardly more appealing than Gai's green monstrosity, but Naruto didn't notice, as she had appeared behind him. A cold hand slipped onto his cheek, and he yelped, heart pounding. "Boo," she whispered in his ear. "Got you."
"Anko-chan, please do not scare Naruto-kun like that," Gai chided, as Naruto whirled around to stare at the Scary Lady.
"Let me have some fun, Eyebrows," Anko pouted. "You and your ribs have kept me out of missions for a week. I'm bored," she complained. Naruto stepped carefully towards Gai; no matter how disturbing he was, he was safer than Scary Lady. She had a stick of dango in her other hand, and now munched off the last sweet. With a quick flick of her wrist, the skewer flew at Gai's head. He caught it in one hand.
"Be careful, Anko-chan. You might hurt one of the children." He tossed the skewer carefully back to her, then put a hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Let us go Train!"
They made camp as the sun set. It took no time to spread out the bedrolls, but Kakashi wasn't satisfied until they had trapped a fifty-foot perimeter and investigated the forest in a mile-radius. As Raidou prepared to take first watch, Tenzou drifted quietly over. "Is he always like this?" he asked quietly, tipping his head towards Kakashi.
"Yeah." Raidou rested his head against the trunk of the tree he had chosen for sentry duty. "Keeps us alive, though."
"We covered a lot of ground today," the teenager commented, dangling his legs off the branch.
Raidou nodded agreement. "Same tomorrow, probably." Taking his eyes from the empty darkness for a moment, he focused on Tenzou's face, floating palely above the ghostly chest plate and darkly invisible uniform. "What's on your mind?"
The boy looked down at his swinging feet. "I've never done...assassination before," he admitted. "I'm only bringing it up because I don't want my inexperience to be a liability to the team," he added hurriedly.
Raidou let his lips curl, hidden in the darkness. Obviously a prepared speech, so he could avoid admitting anything as unworthy as fear. "Lucky for you," he said lightly, "that massacres are nothing like assassinations."
Tenzou was still a kid, Raidou realized. Funny how much difference only a few years could make in a person. Tenzou had probably been around eleven when the war ended; old enough to have been a genin during the final years, young enough to have avoided most of the worst parts. Whereas Genma and he had been tossed into the thick of the fighting as soon as they got their headbands, the Hokage had tried to keep the genin as far as possible from the front as soon as peace seemed to be an option. Tenzou had probably never seen the melee of a real battle.
Tenzou's voice was half annoyed, half suppressed anxiety; Raidou knew how hard it was to speak of one's own weakness. "I've never done that before, either."
The older ANBU sighed. "You get used to it," he said off-handedly. Actually, that was a lie. He had never gotten used to it, only good at it. "Don't worry, Tenzou. You'll do fine," he said into the night, hoping it would be true.
Naruto hurried into school the next day without waiting for Kiba at the gate. The Inuzuka boy found him scrunched down at his desk when the bell rang. "What's up?" he asked, plopping down in the seat next to his friend.
Naruto looked at him with haunted eyes. "My brother's on a mission," he said. "This other guy is taking care of me..." Naruto shuddered, and in a conspiratorial tone added, "He wears green jumpsuits."
Kiba patted him awkwardly on the back. "That's not so bad."
"You haven't met him," Naruto told his friend despairingly. "And there's this other lady..."
They were nearing the border with Grass, and three of the five were starting to get twitchy. Hayate watched his teammates with resignation; Tenzou with confusion. Even Raidou, the most normal seeming of his whole team was snappish.
"Raidou-san," he had asked when they stopped mid-morning, "Is there any protocol for missions like this?" Raidou had been helpful before, and Tenzou was hoping for some advice on the mission.
"Protocol?" Raidou had asked. He had lifted a hand, hitching slightly as it passed his face, to run it through his hair. "Don't mess the heads more than you can avoid; we need to ID some of them afterwards."
"Anything else I should know?" he prodded.
"I don't know, rookie. Can't you just leave me alone for a minute?" Raidou had snapped. He yanked his beaked mask over his face and stalked away, leaving Tenzou gaping after him.
"He doesn't mean to be upset," Hayate told him later. "Just," he gestured vaguely at his own face. "It happened around here. He and Kakashi both lost teammates in Grass during the war." Kakashi wasn't talking to anyone except to give orders.
Tenzou nodded, and hoped that the mission would be over soon.
"Naruto-kun! So nice to see you again," Quartermaster exclaimed. Naruto hurriedly shut the door to the man's office behind him and grinned.
"Hi, Quartermaster-san."
"What are you doing here?" he asked, casually. If he were any judge, the kid was running from someone. But he didn't look upset or hurt, so it probably wasn't serious.
"Gai-san wants me to try on clothes," Naruto said, heading over to where the quartermaster of ANBU was flipping through a binder of papers, scribbling every now and again on a page and checking off boxes.
"Do these clothes happen to be green, one-piece jumpsuits?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at the five-year-old.
"Yeah."
"Then you're welcome to stay here as long as you need," he offered. "But you have to help me inventory the supplies."
"Thanks, old man!"
Quartermaster glared at him. "Don't call me 'old.'"
"Sorry, ol—um, Quartermaster-san."
"Seijun-san is fine, Naruto-kun. Now, do you see that box over there? The cardboard one on the second shelf. Go over there and tell me how many metal glove-plates we have left."
Naruto bounced over to the shelf and pulled down the large cardboard box. Sitting down on the floor, he began pulling out the slightly curved steel rectangles, each with three holes punched on both short sides.
The door swung open again, and Naruto looked up, ready to run away again if it were Gai with that terrible green thing ('Perfect for training, it will help your Fire of Youth burn brightly!'). Instead, it was a little girl with brown hair tied up in two buns on top of her head. "Ibiki-san says he only has two boxes left, Dad," she told Seijun. "He says about six more should hold them to the end of the year."
"Thanks, Tenten. Let's make that eight. Ibiki always underestimates bandages, and I don't want him stealing from the hospital again." The graying man added a note to his binder, then flipped back a few pages. "Oh, Tenten, this is Naruto. Naruto, my daughter, Tenten. You both go to Academy, but Tenten's in her second year."
The little girl glanced over at Naruto, sitting on the floor with glove plates spread out around him. "Hi," she said.
"Hi," he repeated.
"Tenten, go ask Junji-san if he needs more glass test tubes. I think I gave him the last box already. Naruto, do you see a wooden crate marked with a red cross on that shelf? If it's there, it ought to be in the back."
Sunset was long past on the second day out of Konoha. A voice crackled over the radio in Kakashi's ear. "Frog in position."
"How many sentries?" the captain asked, tersely.
"Four, that I can see from here."
"Falcon in position. Three, but I think I'm overlapping one with Frog."
"By the big rock?"
"Yeah."
"So six," Kakashi cut in. "Bunny, where are you?"
"Almost ready, Captain," Tenzou whispered into his microphone. "The mud here is making travel a little difficult."
Kakashi grinned behind his two layers of masks. Who better to send to the swampy side than the rookie? "Well, hurry up Bunny. We're waiting on you."
"Yes, Captain," Tenzou acquiesced, before clicking off his microphone and muttering to himself. "Says the man sitting in a comfortable tree reading porn."
"The tree's not that comfortable, Bunny." Tenzou paled, and checked his radio. He was sure he had turned it off.
"Captain?" he asked hesitantly. Kakashi had to be guessing, so he wouldn't admit to anything.
Hayate's scratchy voice cut in. "Stop messing with his head, Captain. Don't worry, Rabbit, he's not offended."
"But I didn't say anything," Tenzou protested.
"If you weren't thinking 'why should Kakashi get to read porn and sit in a tree while I slog through mud,' you're more of saint than the rest of us," Genma added. "Are you in position yet?"
"Not yet," Tenzou retorted, grumpily. "Okay, I've got a visual on three sentries."
"Finally." Kakashi yawned. "Well, keep tabs on them all. Hayate and I will be doing our best in our terribly difficult assignment. Have fun." He clicked off his radio and pulled out his book. All three agents perched uncomfortably around the enemy camp swore.
The next afternoon, Naruto and his friends were back at the park. Shikamaru was annoyed, and not talking to any of them. Chouji offered him a chip.
"Come on, Shikamaru, tell us what's wrong," Kiba pressed, crouching in front of the Nara boy.
Shikamaru just continued to stare at the clouds. "Shikamaru?" Chouji pressed. He waved the chip above Shikamaru's face.
Shikamaru just yawned, and fixed his gaze on the sky. "Naruto," he finally said, "Why does everyone hate you so much?"
"Huh?" Naruto sat back on his heels. "Uh..."
"My mom and dad were arguing last night," he added. "Mom says playing with you isn't safe, and could be bad for my future. Dad says his friend likes you, and he trusts his friend. Why are they arguing about you, Naruto? Why does my mother even know you?" Naruto sat down in the woodchips, dragging his fingers through them. Shikamaru lifted his head to look at his friend. "I've been watching people today," he said calmly. "People stare at you. Not nicely."
Naruto shrugged, staring at the ground. "It's always been like that. I don't know why. But I've got you guys now, right? We're friends now?" He looked up uncertainly. "Right?"
"There were leeches in that swamp, Kakashi-taichou," Tenzou stated. He wasn't complaining, of course not, just making sure his captain understood the situation.
Kakashi flipped another page. "What was that, rookie?"
Tenzou rolled his eyes and leaned back on the ground. Genma was perched in a tree a few meters away, scanning the surrounding forest for danger. Hayate and Raidou were trailing the group of missing-nin, making sure they didn't lose the trail in the day. The rest of the squad would catch up later, when the group made camp again. Hatake didn't expect them to go far today; they were close to Grass country, and according to the information Intel had provided, three days ahead of schedule. The missing-nin wouldn't cross the border yet, so Squad 14 had time to prepare.
"Kakashi." Hatake looked up immediately from his book, and Tenzou frowned. Why did Kakashi pay attention to Genma, but not to him? "Do they have anyone from Rock?"
Kakashi pulled the mission scroll out of his pouch, and unrolled it. "Mist, Mist, Leaf, Sand, Cloud, Cloud. The other twenty five or so are unidentified."
"They might know about the I-K-62."
"They'd have to cross the border first. Intel says they're waiting for a contact in Fire country."
"Yeah." Genma fell silent, but he hunched uncomfortably on his branch.
"Captain?" Tenzou asked. "What's I-K-62?"
Kakashi opened his book again. "Rock safe house in Grass country. Probably still stocked from the war."
"Definitely still stocked," Genma stated. "We've been keeping an eye on their movements around here. Rock's been collecting explosives there. If our group gets their hands on them, we're in serious shit."
"Three more nights," Kakashi assured him. "They won't cross before then."
"Hey, Shino, want to play Ninja?" Kiba asked, poking the silent boy in the shoulder. Shikamaru, Chouji, and Naruto were also out recruiting.
"Tenten-chan!" Naruto called, "We're playing a big game of Ninja, want to come?" The girl smiled fiercely, pocketing her practice shuriken. Tenten was good at that game.
"I'd love to."
"Great! I got a few more people to ask, but we're all meeting at the slide in the park." Naruto dashed off. "Sakura-chan!" he called next, pulling up next to the pink-haired girl. "Want to come play Ninja with everybody?"
Sakura frowned, forehead wrinkling. "Who're you?"
"Uzumaki Naruto. We're in the same class," he reminded her.
"Oh. Oops." The girl smiled awkwardly. "I didn't notice you."
Naruto shrugged. "It happens." Although, with the way he and Kiba had been baiting the teacher yesterday, it was surprising she didn't know him. (That tack trick was beautiful; the teacher hadn't bothered to check for two layers of traps. Heh.) The teacher had been reaming him out every other day, and he and Kiba had decided on revenge.
The group gathered at the slide grew quickly, and the game of Ninja began. Two teams, one hiding, one searching, if you got hit with shuriken you were out. Tenten and Sakura were on Kiba and Naruto's team, Chouji, Shikamaru, Shino formed the basis of the second team. All in all, about fifteen kids played together until the sun began to set.
"There," Kakashi whispered. His black-gloved hand twitched almost imperceptibly, and nine eyes focused on the empty clearing below the ridge and a ways distant. Five hands lifted in half-seals. Kai. The dark, grassy opening was suddenly filled with bodies. "Sleeping," Kakashi murmured. "How many sentries, do you think?" Tonight was the final chance in Fire country.
Genma shrugged, shoulders digging into the dirt as he lay on his belly above the ridge. A single finger traced an arc around the camp. "Five there. At least three on the other side."
Hayate's raspy voice broke in. "I saw four last night."
"But it was only two before that," Tenzou added.
Genma shot him a look, invisible in the dark. "They were in a cave, Bunny. They only needed two."
Tenzou shriveled up a little. "Sorry."
"This is our last chance before the border," Kakashi reminded them all. "We can't screw up."
The ninja settled, focusing intently on the mission ahead of them. "Six to one odds," Hayate muttered. "Clones might be useful."
"Take the sentries out as quietly as possible," Kakashi ordered. "Pop a clone if you need it. Genma, you start from here. Hayate, you take the far side. Tenzou, left, I'll go right. Raidou, if you could toss up some covering genjutsu..."
"Yes, Captain."
Kakashi pulled his mask down in front of his face. The snarling wolf shone eerily in the faint starlight; a demon wolf with intent to kill. "Remember: no survivors."