Chapter 5 of a story I'm wondering if I'll ever finish. Granted, I haven't finished any stories besides my story of the true Zeo Takamaru. Well, the date is 7-27-07... let's see if I can get it out faster than five months
Disclaimer: I like grapes ... ... ... and I don't own Naruto
The Second Kyuubi Vessel
Naruto could only look down in confusion as he read the note Zeo had left at the training ground when he left.
"He... got to go... on a C rank mission... baka!" Naruto complained as he turned and began to train on his own.
Sasuke, who had once again followed, though not to ask for training, overheard this and glared down at the ground.
"He's that far ahead of me? Damn it!" Sasuke screamed in his head as he ran off to train on his own.
Sakura... was too busy staring at a picture of Sasuke to even think of trying to become stronger.
Meanwhile, with Zeo's group... not much was happening.
"Oh come on, we've been out here for almost an hour and no one's attacked at all!" Taichi complained, causing everyone else to sigh.
"He's literally asking for trouble" Zeo thought, shaking his head.
"Does he want to die?" Kazu sensei thought.
"What an idiot" Rio muttered under his breath as they continued to walk.
"Hey! I heard that ya know!" Taichi complained.
At that point, Rio made a turn off the road and into a forest.
Everyone else turned in unison and continued to follow.
That was when Taichi finally got what he had asked for.
4 ninja, who seemed to have no headbands, attacked at that point in time, one of them at Jounin class.
He instantly began to fight against Kazu sensei, who was slowly being pushed back as he hadn't had time to draw anymore than his kunai while his opponent was using a blade.
The remaining three attacked Taichi, who back flipped out of the way and attempted to counter with a shuriken.
The shuriken was easily deflected, but it was all as planned.
The second the shuriken was touched, it unleashed a smoke bomb.
Using the distraction, Kazamaru, Taichi's partner, attacked full force, followed closely by Taichi himself.
"One down" Rio thought, watching the situation.
He was injured after all, and he didn't think it best to enter the battle if he didn't need to.
With Kenji, his opponent had been unlucky enough to try a spin kick similar to Konoha Senpu... unluckily, when his back was turned, Neji struck him directly in the back of the neck using his Jyuuken style.
That battle was over quickly as well.
"Two" Rio thought with a smirk.
It was then he saw that Zeo had frozen in place when a ninja jumped at him.
Sighing, Rio pushed off to that area, grabbed the ninja who was attacking and threw him over his shoulder.
Now turned towards Zeo, he sighed.
"Pay more attention next time. If you can't think on your feet, you just ain't fit to be a ninja kid" Rio said to Zeo.
"Uh... ya" Zeo said, sighing. He was the only one that had frozen up.
"And also, don't forget, your supposed to be protecting me, not the other way around" Rio said with a small smile.
"Right!... sorry" Zeo said, looking down.
By that time, Kazu sensei had gotten a chance and ended the battle.
"Well... that was annoying" Kazu sensei said with a small grin.
"Yeah, come on, lets go" Rio said as he began to walk.
Everyone immediately got into formation again and followed.
It was only a few minutes before another group of ninjas attacked.
Once again, these ninja's seemed to have no headband.
Unluckily, this group was a bit larger.
There were four jounin, all of them attacking Kazu sensei at the same time, and, rather then facing genin like before, the three genin of team 1 were facing chunnin level ninjas... but it seemed that two of the chunnin weren't very powerful either way.
One of the unidentified Chunnin attacked Taichi, who once again tried the smoke bomb in a shuriken trick.
It didn't work out so well as the chunnin was able to grab it at just the right spot to make sure it didn't explode before sending it back towards Taichi, who was unable to dodge and was soon unable to see as well.
Kenji attempted to go on the offensive, not noticing the strange energy around the chunnin he was fighting.
His Jyuuken hits had no effect and soon, the chunnin caught a chance and kneed him in the stomach, sending him a few feet back.
Zeo was having similar luck.
The chunnin he was fighting had started the battle off with a genjutsu technique that tricked the mind into thinking the body was out of chakra, meaning it was only breakable through pain as the most common way was to push chakra through your body.
Unluckily, no one had ever told Zeo that using pain also worked.
"Now that you can't fight back" A voice said to his side.
In response, Zeo threw a kunai in that direction, only for it to immediately come back at him.
He quickly rolled out of the way of the strike.
"You are doomed" Zeo heard from behind him.
He quickly spun around and leapt towards that position.
However, there was no one there.
"You can't catch me here" the voice said from above him, causing Zeo to quickly look up and nearly miss the strike coming from below.
Luckily, he saw it an managed to turn, meaning the strike aimed for his heart instead stabbed into his ribs, ending the genjutsu to his surprise.
Seeing this, he quickly countered with his ice sword and knocked the ninja who had attacked him out before falling to the ground.
He was currently bleeding profusely and he could feel poison in his body.
Surprisingly enough, he felt his chakra flare up and the poison dissipate.
The blood seemed to dry quickly and the wound closed.
Zeo was surprised, but didn't stop to think on it, Kenji needed some help with his battle after all.
Seeing this out of the corner of his eye, Kazu nearly stopped before remembering he was fighting and quickly jumped back.
In the battle between Kenji and his opponent, Kenji had absolutely no chance... up until Zeo entered in, activating a jutsu that knocked the chunnin to the side, bringing down his aura for a split second, giving Kenji a chance to strike and end the battle.
"... thanks" Kenji muttered as he and Zeo headed towards where Taichi was.
Using a wind Jutsu, Zeo blew away the smoke, revealing Taichi, who had managed to hold his own, with the help of Kazamaru.
With the smoke cleared, the chunnin he had been fighting quickly jumped back, throwing a few exploding kunai towards the three genin.
"Heh, there's no way he can beat all three of us!" Taichi said with a grin as he did a few hand signs and activated his Gatsuuga.
The Chunnin saw the attack approach and deflected it with one hand.
During this time, Kenji had attempted to strike from the side, but was easily parried.
Unluckily, the chunnin had lost track of Zeo when a wind jutsu struck him from above.
It wasn't enough to do much damage, but it was a good enough distraction for Kenji to get back up and strike again.
The ninja jumped to the side, taking the hit to the leg rather than his arm or chest and quickly flashed through some hand seals, ending with a Katon seal and he quickly used Grand Fireball jutsu.
The three genin instantly jumped into the air, trying to avoid the technique.
Seeing the second, smaller fireball that the chunnin had sent at them, Zeo used his chakra to make a shield and deflected the technique.
"This guy's tough" Zeo said, panting a bit.
"Hn" Kenji muttered, agreeing.
"I'd say..." Taichi said, nodding.
As they once again landed on the ground.
"Hey... I have a plan" Zeo said with a smirk as he told them the plan.
The chunnin suddenly lost sight of them due to a low level genjutsu Zeo had performed before back flipping out of the way of two Gatsuuga's coming at him.
He jumped into range of another wind technique with devastating power.
Once again, he back flipped away.
From there, he saw Kenji coming down at him with a Jyuuken strike.
Once again trying to back flip away, he found he couldn't move his legs, looking down, he saw a pair of hands holding him in place.
The Jyuuken strike struck him in the chest while the two Gatsuuga attacks swerved towards him and crashed into him.
Right as the Gatsuuga made contact, Zeo let go, letting him fly into a nearby tree, now unconscious.
"That... was one hell of a fight" Taichi said with a small grin.
Zeo grinned as well while Kenji just smirked.
"He was only chunnin though... I guess even I'm not that powerful yet' Kenji thought with a sigh.
Around that time, Rio had entered the fray and was helping Kazu sensei.
With his help, they managed to beat the jounin.
"Alright... I guess we should continue" Kazu sensei said, looking towards Zeo.
There was no evidence of the injury from when the genjutsu specialist had struck him.
"Eh, I guess so" Rio said, once again beginning to move, though at a slower pace.
The three genin were grateful for the slower pace nonetheless as they were exhausted.
About three hours later, Rio stopped and turned.
"Alright, this is as far as you can go. I can't let you into the village after all" Rio said as the others nodded and turned to walk off.
Rio turned the other way and walked through a barrier, disappearing to all those who were watching.
He then immediately came back out.
"Hey, guys! I'm adding another part to this mission, assuming you accept... this part'll be S rank" Rio said seriously.
"...what's happened?" Kazu sensei asked.
"Someone found the village, we need help now and I can't do this on my own" Rio said as they entered through the barrier with him.
As they entered, they found a literal war zone ahead of them.
Many had died and the attackers seemed to be wearing the same clothing style as the one's they had fought.
"I see" Kazu sensei said, looking around.
"Follow me... we need to get to the village" Rio said as he turned and tapped on a tree trunk three times.
It then opened, to the surprise of the three genin.
"Rio... who are the others?" someone asked from inside the tree.
They couldn't see the person from their angle however.
"Reinforcements... they were my escorts from Konoha to get here and we need all the help we can get" Rio said.
"This is a war, there's no place for kids here!" the voice said, annoyed, seeming to see the three genin, even though they couldn't see him.
"Eh, deal with it" Rio said as he entered the tree, followed closely by team one.
A few minutes later and they came out inside of the village.
"So... what village is this anyways?" Kazu sensei asked.
He had never seen any village like it before.
"Village hidden in the Shadows" Rio said, looking around.
"One minute" Rio said as he disappeared.
"Hidden... in the ... shadows?" Kazu sensei muttered as he looked around.
"This place is supposed to be nothing more than a rumor" Kazu sensei thought.
Zeo looked around as well.
"This place looks like it's supposed to be peaceful... but this is a war, as that one person said" he thought with a sigh.
It was at that point in time that Rio returned.
"Alright, I've delivered my message... and got the healer to heal me" he said, the scar gone and the limp also removed.
The scar could not be removed however.
"Anyways. I know you guys are a team but..." Rio began.
"I understand. This is a war. We need to be spread out to where we are most helpful." Kazu sensei said while looking towards the three genin.
They nodded to him and the three of them disappeared from view.
Kazu sensei and Rio nodded to each other before also disappearing.
Zeo ran through the village at a fast pace, looking for someone who needed help.
Seeing a woman who was currently being held to the groung by three guys while a fourth seemed to be fumbling with his zipper, he easily figured out what was happening and jumped down, hitting the man who had been messing with his zipper, and was obviously the team leader, in the back of the head with a spinning kick, knocking him unconscious.
Seeing this, the other three, who seemed to be genin rank, leapt towards him with the intent to kill.
Their intent proved to be their downfall however as Zeo's chakra reacted and knocked the three out with ease when sensing the oncoming attack.
"... why the hell was this not working before?' he thought before turning towards the woman who was still on the ground.
"Are you okay?" he asked, helping her up.
"Ya... I-I'm fine" she said, shivering in fear at what had nearly happened to her.
A few minutes later and Rio had found a safe spot for her.
He left her there and went to find more people to help.
He soon found a large group of about fifty genin.
"Not sure if I can, but it's worth a shot, he thought as he jumped towards them, flashing through some hand seals.
A tornado was produced and tore through the unsuspecting genin, killing all of them.
"... this is a war I guess" Zeo thought, looking away from the bodies. He hadn't meant to put that much power into his attack.
All across the village, similar happenings were taking place.
Taichi and Kenji had cleared out nearly all the genin currently in the village while Rio and Kazu sensei were quickly decimating the chunnin ranks.
Soon, the 5 of them met back up where they had started.
"This sure was easy" Taichi said with a grin.
"True" Kenji muttered.
"Well, this is only one battle... they'll send more tomorrow" Rio said.
"Come on... we should rest up" Rio said as he lead them towards a small house.
The next day, things were pretty much exactly the same.
Rio had managed to persuade a few more ninjas to enter the battle while Kazu sensei and the rest of them helped to clear out the village of enemy ninjas.
During the process, they were able to save a few people, some of them, being ninja, chose to help in the battle.
As the days passed by, Zeo and the others found the battle to be a bit too easy.
By about noon, two months after entering the village, there were no more attackers.
"So... does this mean we won?" Taichi asked with a confident smirk.
"I doubt it" Kazu sensei said with a grimace.
"I have a feeling tomorrow won't be so easy" Rio said
"Eh, you're just over thinking it!" Taichi said with a grin.
"I sure hope so" Rio said, looking out of the window towards the stars above.
The next day, Rio's prediction proved to be right.
But, rather than genin and a few chunnin, there were nearly 300 chunnin and over 70 jounin.
"They're going all out. They don't want to risk us managing to win" Rio muttered with a sigh.
"As much as they are doing, this still isn't a war" Kazu sensei said with a sigh.
"What do you mean?" Taichi and Zeo asked in confusion.
"This is a battle. An invasion of sorts. Sorry to say it, but your village is overreacting." he said to Rio.
"Eh, true..." he said as he looked at the jounin approaching.
"Unluckily, these assholes declared war, meaning my village won't fight back" Rio said with a grimace.
"Hmm? What does declaring war have to do with this?" Kenji asked.
"Simple. My village was started with one rule. We would never fight in a war. The makers of this village lost too much when they made this village due to the first Great Ninja War. Whoever these guy's are, they found out, and are using it to their advantage" Rio said.
"We persuaded some of the ninja we saw to join when they realized it was nothing more than a battle, but that wasn't enough people to make that much of a difference" Rio said as an enemy jounin suddenly appeared in their group.
The five of them jumped back quickly as the jounin suddenly exploded, nearly catching them in the explosion.
"A bunshin" they all thought as they spun around, each blocking a punch from a Jounin's Kage Bunshin.
The five then back flipped to their original position as the bunshins once again exploded.
"It would take only one ninja of jounin rank to do that about fifty times at average... altogether, they can do this over 3500 times with jounin's alone... if you assume the chunnins can do this... that adds another 10,000 or so... shit" Kazu sensei said after calculating it all.
"You can't be serious!" Taichi thought, groaning a bit as the enemy ninjas split up, so they couldn't be grouped together for an attack.
"I'm not... here" Kazu sensei said, throwing a bag of ten soldier pills to each of them.
"What do we need these for anyways?" Kenji asked, annoyed, no Hyuuga had ever been forced to fall to using such an item.
"We'll have to keep up a strong pace for at least 15 hours. A single flaw will result in death. These will keep up your energy" Kazu sensei said.
"Now then, split up" Kazu sensei said as another Jounin bunshin appeared and exploded.
The five ninjas once again jumped away.
This time, they headed off on their own, doing a few amazing acrobatics in order to avoid the explosions.
"Even with these pills, this will be a real challenge" Zeo thought as he continued to try and dodge.
It was getting harder and harder as fatigue began to fall on him.
Taichi and Kenji were having the same problem.
Neither of them wanted to be the first to fall to the pills, but they all knew they had nowhere near enough stamina to keep this up for 15 hours straight.
It was, after all, their first real mission.
Regardless of how strong they were for genin, they hadn't fought enough battles for their stamina to reach that level.
Rio and Kazu sensei were faring a bit better, but even they were beginning to slow down from the constant movement.
Elsewhere, many other ninjas from the village were fighting to keep up as well.
While they were all strong, they were running out of energy quickly.
If they failed to keep up the pace, they were surely dead, but the pace was unreal and truly grueling.
To be able to keep up, they would have to be unrealistically powerful.
But they refused to quit nonetheless.
Though not Konoha Shinobis, the will of fire was something that still prospered inside of them.
For a full 15 hours, the ninja's in the Village hidden in the Shadows kept this up.
Many were lost in the battle, but soon, the jounins and chunnins had wasted the last of their chakra.
Seeing this, the remaining ninjas turned to them and counterattacked.
They were in worse shape, body wise, but, besides using chakra to keep up their stamina in small amounts, their chakra was at it's full still.
In about an hour of battle, this invasion was stilled.
Most of the enemy jounin had fallen in the battle.
That meant this war was likely nearing it's end.
It appeared the Shadow village was victorious.
That was when a message was received from a shadow ninja.
"Our leader has fallen! Our Leader has fallen!" he screamed, running towards them.
The shadow village occupants turned and stared.
"But... how?" Rio asked, confused.
The shadow leader had been like his father.
He had held power that had been nearly equal to the Yondaime himself.
For him to have died in battle, added on with the fact that he had been in his office, hidden in case of such an outcome... what had happened?
"This attack was nothing more than a distraction. A group of assassins located our leader and engaged him in combat. They won due to numbers alone. When I arrived to check on him, I found the other ninjas dead and his body gone. One of the guards recognized one of the assassins who seemed to be acting as the leader... It was the legendary sannin, Orochimaru" the messenger said.
"What? He still lives?" Kazu sensei said aloud, forgetting the situation.
A few turned to him, but he said no more.
"No, he doesn't. His body was found at the scene" the messenger said.
"The sannin is dead... I see" Zeo and Kenji thought.
Taichi... well, he had tried to cheat from Naruto's test all those years ago.
He still thought a sannin was a mushroom... enough said.
"Well? Now what do we do?" Asked a couple of the Shadow village nin.
"Our first state of business is to instate a new Kage" Rio said.
At that point all eye's turned to him.
"Who should that be?" Asked a single ninja in the crowd.
"That is the question" Rio muttered, looking around.
"As there were no plans for a succeeder, we will have to vote on it" Rio said, looking around.
"We've already voted" most of the ninjas said, surprising Rio.
"Who then?" Rio asked, oblivious of the situation.
"You" a ninja nearby said with a smirk.
"Eh? You serious?" Rio asked in confusion.
He was, by far, the strongest ninja in the village, but this village's Kage wasn't decided by power.
It was decided purely by will.
"Yes, we are Rio. If not for you, we would have merely sat in hiding. Your will was strong enough to not only keep up through the 15 hours, but to help us see our own mistakes." A ninja said, grimacing a bit.
If not for this war, he would have likely been chosen as leader, but he had messed up in the battle and had lost the full trust of the village by choosing to go into hiding with a few others in order to form a resistance.
"Besides, even though it's got nothing to do with the village's leader, you are the strongest here" the ninja said with a smirk.
"... thanks... Sho" Rio said, looking at the ninja who had always been his rival.
His rival had admitted him to be stronger, meaning his reason for the rivalry was gone, but his friendship still remained.
He then turned to Kazu sensei and his team.
"As it stands, I would like the four of you to watch the happenings of the ceremony. and afterwards, report to the Sandaime of the events here. You are still to tell no one of this place, understand?" Rio said with a bit of a command in his voice.
"But of course, oh great kage" Kazu sensei said sarcastically, causing Rio to crack a smile.
"Anyways, thanks for the help" Rio said with a smirk on his face.
With that, the five ninjas in the center of the crowd fell to the ground.
Their energy had finally reached it's end.
The other ninjas carried them to a nearby building and placed them each in a bed.
"Amazing... if not for a couple of genins, we could have died" one of the members of the village said.
"Even though the genins helped, it was still Rio and Kazu who did most of the work" another said with a small smile.
"Either way, it's about time our village stopped hiding ourselves so completely. We thought separating ourselves would help... but it didn't. With the help of Konoha, our village would prosper a lot more" Sho said, leaning against the wall.
"We'll bring it up with Rio and the others when they awake" Sho said with a yawn.
It was late into the night when they had all returned and everyone in the village was exhausted.
It was another three days before the five ninja, who's names had become legendary in the village already, awoke.
"Ugh... my head" Zeo muttered as he pulled himself out of bed.
"Glad to see your awake" Kazu sensei said with a small smile.
"How long have I been out?" Zeo asked.
"As long as the rest of us. Everyone else got up about thirty minutes ago" Kazu sensei said.
"And... how long was that?" Zeo asked.
" ... about three days" Kazu sensei said with a small smile as Zeo's eye's widened and his jaw dropped.
He always found the look on a genin's face hilarious when they found they had slept for longer than about 8 hours or so.
It wasn't too long, considering, but it was a lot longer than how long one would sleep from regular exhaustion alone.
"Well, anyways, we should probably help rebuild this village. This mission has been moved up to the highest rank possible as we have saved an entire village and found information regarding a missing ninja" Kazu sensei said.
"Alright" Zeo said, rubbing his head as he got up.
"We'll be leaving in about a week. We still have to stay for the ceremony" Kazu sensei said with a smile as he disappeared.
Walking through the town, Rio looked at the village he was now the leader of.
"It seems so strange" Rio said with a sigh.
"You'll get used to it" Sho said with a smirk, walking up to him.
"Maybe" Rio said with a smirk on his own face.
"And besides, if you can't cut it, I'll take over for you" Sho said with a grin on his face.
"Like it'll ever fall to that" Rio grinned back.
The two were no longer a team due to events that had transpired years before, but they were rivals nonetheless.
After their team leader had turned on them in the middle of a mission, killing their third member, Jade, they had both returned to the village depressed.
It had been almost two years before they could talk to each other again without an all out fight breaking out.
Now, after all these years, they were once again, the best of friends.
Elsewhere, Taichi looked around the village, searching for ramen.
He soon found Zeo doing the exact same.
"Alright, the sooner we find this place, the better" Zeo said after they had talked for a few minutes on the subject.
"Yep" Taichi said with a grin.
"Which is why we'll split up. We'll use these to stay in contact" Zeo said with a grin, pulling out two walkie talkies.
"Alright, let's get going!" Taichi said with a grin as they both disappeared.
For the next few hours, the two ran around the village at full speed, searching for something, getting a few ninjas on guard at the fact they seemed so intent on finding something at a time like this.
In the end, Zeo stumbled upon a restaurant that hadn't been too badly damaged.
They were serving ramen.
Using the walkie talkies, Zeo sent a message to Taichi, who responded and followed the sound of the static from the walkie talkies.
Soon, the two entered and ordered.
As the ramen arrived, two nodded to each other seriously as they both brought their arms up.
"Itadakimasu!" they both yelled as they dug in, getting a few strange looks from all the others in the restaurant.
Elsewhere, Kenji was also walking through the village.
He had noticed something about Rio while they had been in battle.
For a split second, his eye's had flashed red.
He wasn't sure, since he had only seen it about twice in his life, but it had looked like a sharingan to him.
"It was probably just a trick of the eye's" Kenji thought with a sigh as he continued to walk.
A few days more and the ceremony took place.
A few hours of congratulation and celebration, and it was time to leave.
"As I said before, thanks for your help" Rio said, shaking hands with Kazu sensei as they turned to leave.
"I would send an escort, but I think you know how to get out from here" he said, turning to Kenji, who looked like he was confused, but really knew what he was talking about.
He had used his byakugan to trace the path there.
Granted, he could only use it during times of battle without drawing suspicion, so there were a few holes on the map, but they were easy to make up for.
"Well, than, I suppose this is goodbye... as I'm the new leader, I'll pay you all extra... on top of the increased rank extra" Rio said with a small grin.
"Also, I need you to deliver this message to the Hokage" Rio said, giving a scroll to Kazu sensei, who nodded as he took it.
With that, the Konoha shinobi disappeared.
"Quite the mission" Kazu sensei said with a sigh as they sprinted towards Konoha.
"I'd say. Considering it's our first mission, I think we did really well" Kenji said with a cocky smirk.
Kazu sensei couldn't help but laugh at that.
"Too true Kenji, too true" Kazu sensei said, picking up the pace a bit. Zeo and Taichi were smiling as well as they thought of the events.
"Can't wait to tell Naruto I did a SA class mission on my first mission!" Zeo thought, grinning.
"Can't wait to tell dad about this!" Taichi thought, also grinning.
After about ten hours of running, they arrived at the gate of Konoha.
"State your name and business" a gate guard said with a sigh of relief.
He recognized them pretty easily and had been worried. They were, after all, about 2 months overdue.
"Team 1 of this years graduating team, returning from a mission I have no authority to discuss" Kazu sensei said as his team walked up.
The gate guard nodded as he opened the gate and allowed them in.
"Alright, I think it best we head directly to the Hokage's" Kazu sensei said.
The rest of his team nodded in response and followed.
They soon arrived at the hokage's office.
An Anbu entered the Hokage's office and informed him that they had arrived, causing his eye's to narrow a small bit.
He knew something must have happened to have changed the length of the mission so much.
As team 1 entered, the hokage cut directly to the main reason for their absence.
"What has happened in the village hidden in the shadows that caused a 2 month delay?" the hokage asked calmly.
"Assassination of the leader of the shadow village, a war between an unknown village and the death of the sannin Orochimaru, to put it simply" Kazu sensei said with a smirk.
The Hokage's eye's had widened quite a lot through the explanation of the events.
"Here is a message from Rio, the new kage of the village hidden in the shadows" Kazu sensei said, handing him the scroll.
The hokage stared at it blankly for a second before choosing to open it.
"I am sure this has reached you, Sandaime, so I will not worry about cryptic messages here." the first sentence in the scroll said.
"Not even my own village has been informed of this, but I have a feeling Orochimaru has not been killed. Our former leader's body was not found, as I had expected. Years ago, Orochimaru mentioned a technique that allowed him to transfer his soul to other bodies. I believe he may have mastered this technique and used it on our leader. There is no proof of this as of yet, but it all adds up in my eyes. I thought it best to inform you of this." The first half of the message read.
"Interesting indeed" the hokage thought, rereading it to make sure he had not read it wrong.
Rio was right, it did all add up.
"Er... Hokage, are we dismissed?" Kazu sensei asked.
"Yes, also, according to the mission level Rio has decided on, I will transfer your money to your accounts" Hokage said.
The four ninja nodded as they disappeared.
"Alright, the mission is complete... we will not take any more missions for another few weeks so... just keep up training for now... I have my own business to attend to, unfortunately enough, so I cannot train you myself during this time" Kazu sensei said.
The group nodded once more and went their separate ways.
Back at the Hokage's tower, the hokage had begun to read the second part of the message.
"Our village has remained a secret to all but the Hokage of the leaf for years, however... I have seen that staying in hiding only caused the loss of many of our ninjas. I would like my village to become public and be supported by Konoha as well. We will do our best to support you in response. At our current time, we cannot send any messengers to make it official by usual standards. However, that shouldn't change anything. I have left a single unsigned part of this contract. If you sign this, I will know and the second piece of paper hidden inside the scroll, which is blank will be revealed" the second half of the scroll read.
The hokage stared at it for a few seconds before signing.
At that point, a second piece of paper fell from the scroll.
Written on it were the instructions to reveal the village's existence to all of Konoha, and the rest of the world, at the next Chunnin exam, which, for the first time ever, would have three genin from the village hidden in the shadows participating.
"Quite a mission those four went on... quite a mission indeed" the hokage said with a small smile as he looked at the scroll and saw what Rio was paying the four ninja.
His eye's widened a bit at that.
"Half a million Ryou each!?" he said, confused.
It was a lot more than even he had expected.
Elsewhere, Zeo was looking through the village, trying to find Naruto.
He had already checked the Apartment and training grounds, as well as the secret training grounds, but to no avail.
He finally checked to see if Ichiraku had seen him... and to get some ramen of course.
"Hey, Ichiraku, have you seen Naruto?" Zeo asked as he walked up.
Ichiraku turned at the voice and smiled.
"Sorry, he just left yesterday for his first C rank mission. He was so excited about going that he told us he was going fifty times over." Ichiraku said with a smile.
"Oh... I see" Zeo said, looking down a bit.
"Hey, cheer up, the first two bowls of ramen are on me" Ichiraku said with a smile seeing Zeo's face light up in response.
"Thank you so much Ichiraku! You're the best!" Zeo exclaimed as he was given a bowl of ramen.
"Itadakimasu!" he yelled as he dug into his first bowl of Ichiraku ramen in over two months.
Well... that's a surprise, this chapter only took three days to finish.. Heh heh, the date is 7-30- 07 ... the time is 2:35 AM Well... about twice as much as the last chapter, and a full 30 pages, good enough for me