A/N :Thanks for the Reviews faves and follows.

Arc 1: war

Part 2

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Inoichi activated a privacy seal. "How is life as the chief strategist in a minor war?" Shikaku asked his son with a smug satisfaction, hidden under a mask of boredom.

"Troublesome. You planned this troublesome thing didn't you, dumping your job on your son. Those troublesome blondes planned this with you didn't they?" now Shikaku was outright laughing "Yes Shikamaru; the Godaime, Naruto and myself planned to put you in this position. Let's go over the plans we made over the week Shikamaru."

Shikamaru: "I will begin with the centrepieces of this er... situation. Mei and Naruto, Mei is the leader of the resistance and our leader in this mission is Naruto. Maintaining Mei's safety is our prime priority, along with relocating the rebels. Accomplishing one goal without the other is detrimental to our goal of integrating the rebels into Konoha."

Shikaku: "Agreeable goals but how do you intend protect them and maximize the efficiency of what they intend to do."

Shikamaru: "The two teams that have been selected for them are squad 1 with Neji, Shino and Hana who will work along with Naruto when he is not available Ume Mizuno will be included and Takara in Hana's absence. Neji steps in as leader, central power house and scout of the team in Naruto's absence. While Takara though not a talented as Hana as a medic is as good if not a better tracker."

Shikamaru: "With respect to Mei, is best not saddled with an assault team as she is a heavy hitter so a tracking trio with one being an assassin helps round off her unit the added Akimichi is to provide extra force in both defence and offence to reinforce Mei."

Shikamaru: "Squad 2 is standard Ino-Shika-Cho formation with Genjutsu support perfect for infiltration and or heavy assault."

Shikamaru: "Squads Genma, Aoba and Raidu are heavy assault, combat medic and infiltration squads with Medic, Ninjutsu and Genjutsu support in the form of Rat, Rabbit and Tiger"

Shikamaru: "Fast response unit is attached to Hq to bring in the slug when needed."

Shikamaru: "The work of ANBU squads is to perform evacuations and guard the evacuees from others and other internal threats; Anko is more than capable of sniffing out the spy's."

Shikamaru: "Shizune's squads are there to keep us alive and in one piece."

Shikamaru: "Now on to the cover stories. Squad 1 is off to wave country to sign a trade treaty and we are leaving behind squad 2 in a show of good faith and to encourage them not to form an independent defensive force but to have a force from the leaf defending them. 4,5 and 6 are supposed to be their back up and a public show of force to impress the leaders to make it a permanent agreement. Naruto leads this as he is seen as a hero in wave."

Shikamaru: "Squad 3's story is close to the truth they are to return to the mist with Mei who approached us for a post rebellion alliance, Hyūga Hinata as clan heir of Hyūga makes a believable diplomat. Two other trackers can be justified as scouting out the competition and the Akimichi is for Power projection."

Shikamaru: "ANBU squads mission is near truth explanation, they will officially lead by Chōza to 'observe & contain' the spill out of rebellion in case of their failure. They will be the last to depart."

Shikamaru: "Few small disease breakouts will be blown out of proportion and 2 Medic teams will go there, they will report it beyond they actual and Shizune will be moved there. Epidemic will be explained as an artificial one. Full quarantine will be declared and ANBU medics with assault teams and a SAI squad will be sent under Crow. Crow and his team will stay behind with the 2 medic teams sent before Shizune. Shizune and the rest of the ANBU medic squads will move towards Mizu no Kuni."

Shikamaru: "Even if this is goes well we have so much to do, why can't people get along and not kill each other. Life would be so much easier."

Shikaku looking seriously at his son "We are growing old; we grew up through one war and fought in another war. You, Ino and Chōji are lucky to be born after one and never been through a war but war is once again coming. Once the situation in the mist settles in one way or other wars will start, the balance of power will fall with the mist civil war ending one way or another, when the balance of power falls' war starts Shikamaru. We need you people to take over for us, we you and me fail here my grandchild won't have a home to grow up in .One is truly strong when they fight to protect something precious to them." Chōza and Inoichi nodded along to this. Taking a swig out of the bottle of sake he held in his hand.

Dejectedly Inoichi spoke up.

Inoichi: "Ino"

Shikamaru: "Yes Ino. This is her final test Kazuo has been an examiner and a positive influence on her. Hopefully she can pull it off, it feels bad for Chōji and me to be Jōnin without her there knowing that she is more than capable of being one only that stupid infatuation was holding her back. "

Shikamaru looking to his father with a serious expression on his usually bored face.

Shikamaru: "Naruto is holding something back; at first I guessed it to be Mei but…. "

Shikaku: "It's not Mei then?"

Shikamaru: "Mei is on that important list but that does not explain the protectiveness. Mei is borderline S-class something else is up and Naruto is not letting on. Tsunade knows but she is tight lipped, Shizune most probably knows too. "

Shikaku: "Do explain…..."

Shikamaru: "Naruto is eager to leave Konoha; almost as if every moment here is a distraction. When Mei arrived here it only got worse."

Shikaku: "Mei's presence here aggravated it you mean so either he is uncomfortable with her as a whole or her presence in Konoha to be specific"

Shikamaru: "If Mei was the problem then the protectiveness wouldn't be there."

Inoichi interjects and adds his opinion

Inoichi: "Sauske."

Chōza: "I understand what you are pointing at but do you think thing with Mei is the same?"

Shikamaru: "No!"

Chōza: "Why not? Didn't he want to save him after having lethal Justus used on him? I clearly heard him say that while I waited for Chōji to recover."

Shikamaru: "We spoke before he left, Jiraiya had suicidal tendency out of him."

Shikaku: "That only leaves us with 2 choices. There is something either outside or inside the Hidden leaf that makes him that makes him reluctant to stay here."

Shikamaru: "I suspect outside. Tsunade has given him a free reign to move around the world as Jiraiya's apprentice so there would be no reason for him to come here if he feared something in here."

Their conversation was cut short when Chōji came in to call his dad for a clan meeting and soon the Naras left leaving Inoichi to think about his daughter's future alone, soon he too left.

3 days later

Hokage Tower

Ami and Akara Kinsukae were two twins with little hope for Ninjutsu and low aptitude for Taijutsu their chakra control was good but not great so no one noticed it and they were a long list of people who flunked the post-graduation test and were in the reserve program.

Konoha's reserve program was its Chunin factory for lack of a better word, people assigned to the reserve program had no one specific Jōnin or squad they had a bunch of Jōnin and Chunin with various specialties, they were trained till they were fit to be Genin the best and the special among them were put back in to the main program as fill ins for teams that had lost a member to promotion or death.

Those that were put back in served as the public face they took the showy missions it was a good and bad thing to be in the main force it was the easiest way to climb up to the Chunin rank participate in exams and make a good showing for yourself and Konoha, the biggest disadvantage is that it is also the quickest way for a Genin to make it to the bingo books and die; hence the reason why they were given the best instructors and fixed teams besides the fact that they were the best Genin out there.

Best instructors came in form of Elite-Jōnin a regular Jōnin being assigned to the main core was rare, E-Jō's as they were commonly called were all-rounder's a Genin's under them usually were all-rounders too, it always helped to have a know it all teacher.

Having E-Jō's has instructors was not all milk honey and flowers. E-Jō's were big names on the bingo books so they were always at the risk of groups of high level Shinobi hunting them down for anything for thrills, missions to personal grudges and Bounties. E-Jō's could handle themselves pretty well but their Genin were not capable of it and most often died on mission those that survived this phase either gave up or became elites themselves.

Now back to the Chunin factory the place for the not so talented Genin place which gave the leaf Chunin of the likes of Ami and Akara Kinsukae they normally would not have made Chunin only on their knowledge of poisons and antidotes, then Senju Tsunade happened and things changed for them.

They were part of the Reserve's Medic Core which was founded along with the Intel, Fuin and sensor core by Tsunade. Ami and Akara's ability with poisons caught the eye of both Shizune and Tsunade and they were allowed free reign to learn all the village had about poisons, antidotes and such in time they had earned the trust of Tsunade and were sent on sensitive missions they were on their way to TokuJō (Special Jōnin) position if they kept this up.

The trust Tsunade and Shizune had in them landed them in their current positions as team leaders of 2 squads participating in a cover mission. But it was their teams that took them by surprise 2 TokuJōs and a full Jōnin. They along with their team were given brief descriptions of disease breakouts, locations, possible causes and the teams were dismissed with team leaders held back for full briefing.

As the teams left the two Chunin team leaders were briefed about the actual mission, communication protocol cover stories, rerouting of supplies, order in which they were to call for backup and pretend to be Shizune.

All this seemed a bit above what they expected to do. Then again this was not their first sensitive mission they had done but nothing they had done before would prepare them for what they would have to do now.

There was this lingering problem and Ami voiced it "Tsunade-sama we are Chunin." "Do tell me how that matters?" she asked them with a smug look on her face. "It's a team full of Jōnin." Akara deadpanned.

Throwing a scroll at each of them and said "Oh! Let me fix that!" the opened it then looked at the scroll then at themselves then back to the scrolls and they were at it for a while "Congratulations! Now shoo" Tsunade said, they Shunshined out of the room.

Tsunade, Shizune and 4 hidden ANBU couldn't stop laughing watching the reaction of the newly promoted was definitely fun.

"Shizune I want you to go to the Supply depot and get "all" the supplies they need and hand it over to them and help with the detailed briefing."

"Hai!" Shizune replied and left the room.

A/N: That is it for this chapter. Naruto's cover mission and Shizune's mission will begin in the next chapter. Looking forward to your reviews.

Thank you for reading.