Start of Chapter 5 –
It was just about half an hour after the group had their meeting, but Shikamaru was already working. He jumped from roof to roof observing the people below regularly, he was looking for his team. He'd started to look for them after Naruto had left for ramen. He needed to tell them how the team was going to continue on with all of their jobs, they could not risk having people notice that they hadn't done any D-ranks or that they'd never done the test or anything like that, it was just too risky.
Since it was only about three o'clock in the afternoon, he'd have thought they'd still be outside instead of returning home. Anko he'd already spotted and was about to head over when he saw a familiar face, his half covered face buried inside a bright orange book.
He was making his way through the bustling crowd, not stopping once to look at what the shops had to offer. Though big, Konoha was still quite a crowded place, it had a lot more civilians than the average hidden village would have but it helped their economy greatly. The streets were usually filled with busy shops and there was never really a quiet day around the civilian districts.
Shikamaru jumped down to meet him, wondering if he'd seen his team somewhere, sometimes when Neji got bored he would seek out either Anko or Kakashi to train with, since they were pretty much the only people that knew about them and he could not beat. Shikamaru himself could only manage to defeat him because of his strategic planning applied to what he knew Neji he could do beforehand, the same came with Hinata. If Shikamaru were to fight any of them one on one with just taijutsu he would never be able to win.
But that wasn't the only reason. Kakashi and Anko needed to be briefed on their secondary part of the plan. Since everything on the schedule was being pushed forward, they are needed earlier as well.
"Kakashi-san! Have you seen my team anywhere?" Shikamaru said.
"Weren't you just with them doing the team introductions? I've only just finished mine." Kakashi said, finally putting down his book.
"...Really Kakashi, you're the only team leader who started their introductions two hours later." Shikamaru said "And anyway, we'd just come back from the Hokage and we need to arrange how we're going to keep up the missions and keep everyone thinking that we're Genin."
"Can't say I can help you there, I haven't seen them today at all."Kakashi said.
"Oh well, I've found Anko at Izakaya so I might just ask her."Shikamaru said.
"If I see them then I'll tell them you were looking" Kakashi said.
"Sure, thanks. Oh and one more thing, if you could come into one of the back rooms in Izakaya in about fifteen minutes, I need to brief you on something." Shikamaru said quietly, in fact it was almost a whisper.
Kakashi once again opened his book and waved his hand, his one visible eye crinkling at the corners as he disappeared in a puff of white smoke. Nothing could have given away the fact that he'd received the last words Shikamaru had told him, but Shikamaru knew he did. Kakashi was just that kind of person, not missing a single thing but going at his own pace.
Looking around it didn't seem as if it had disturbed anyone, if anything the people began rolling their eyes and shaking their heads 'Ehh, Kakashi must frequent this area, people usually get very annoyed when ninja just come and go with the shunshin.' Shikamaru thought
-1-
Kakashi frowned as he came out of his shunshin, after he'dhe'd run to the end of the street where Izakaya was and snuck in. He didn't know what Shikamaru might need to brief him on, as far as he knew Shikamaru wasn't doing anything that might involve him. He'd hidden in the far corner of the bar, opposite of where he could see Anko. All he had to do now was wait.
The bar had a very typical tavern-like theme, like most in Konoha. The furniture were made of wood and it was lit by candlelight, though that didn't mean it wasn't lit well. It was a bar that was very well known, mostly by the shinobi. The owner was a retired Kunoichi and she had done her best to make the bar completely shinobi proof, seals enhancing the durability of the wood, rooms in the back with sound-proofing seals, of course, only able to be activated by the blood of a Konoha shinobi.
Since the bar was already a popular place for shinobi, the Hokage figured it would be most secure if his ninja were able to register a sample of their blood when they first sign their loyalty to Konoha.
The room was generally rectangular, with the exceptions of any pillars dotted around. One of the shorter sides was where the door was located. The bar stretched all the way along the right side, the rest of the place was split between the eating area and the dance floor, though the dance floor did receive a much bigger portion.
At the back there was three closed doors, two were the obvious male and female restrooms but the other, in the middle, had a blood seal on it and it led to the back rooms, each of the rooms inside already had a built in sound-proofing seal and it also had another seal to secure the door as well, for safety reasons the seals don't stop anyone from leaving. There were also other seals dotted around the room with other abilities.
Right now, there were about ten small rooms there, each like a cubicle with two rows of bench-like chairs connected to the side walls and a table in the middle it could just about fit three people on each row.
Since it was still early, there were barely any people in the bar, but since it was open twenty four-seven it acted like a restaurant in the day so the people would most likely be at the eating area. Anko seemed to be the only one at the bar, there wasn't even a bartender. But she was there, enjoying a box of dango and drinking from a bottle of Asahi.
Kakashi watched as Shikamaru stopped at the door and stared at him. Shikamaru though, seemed to pay no mind and walked over Anko and sat down next to her. She looked over, not really surprised at his coming.
"Hey." Anko said, tipping back the brown bottle again.
"Hey."He paused. Taking the time to wave his hand and order a glass of water. "Have you seen the rest of the team?" Shikamaru asked.
"Hmm, they said that they'd returned home to work on something the Hokage gave them. Something related to that S-class secret you're always working on. Did you finally get round to telling them about that? Can you tell me?" Anko asked, her smile tearing across her face. It was slightly disturbing.
'S-class Secret?' Kakashi thought. 'Of course, he's the one in charge of the secret Hokage-sama keeps mentioning. I should have known Shikamaru's what he meant when he told me it was a Nara.' He shifted his hand, pulling up his hitaiate to allow for his sharingan to help him see better. Originally he'd just been lip-reading normally and that was fine, but now that it was getting interesting, he couldn't afford to miss a single thing.
"Gomen, they found out by accident, too much was happening, and they just happened to be around." Shikamaru said, finishing his water. "Mind if you wait here for a while, I'll need to brief you all on something."
"Un."Anko replied, still swallowing a mouthful of beer. "Sure."
"Sankyu...Anko-chan" And with that, he was gone, sinking into his own shadow.
Anko stopped, spinning on her stool she turned to face the spot Shikamaru had just stood and whispered "Anko...chan...ka?" Before slightly shaking her head and ordering a bottle of warm sake, she then quickly downed the first half of the bottle.
Kakashi sighed 'Looks like she's still hung up on Sukoshi.'
He thought back to what Shikamaru had told him to do and shrugged. 'No harm in being early' He thought as he made his way to the back rooms.
Shikamaru came up from his shunshin, still smiling at his most recent success, he'd finally managed to make the grey patches in his shadow realm look closer to black. In the beginning, when he had just begun training, changing the brighter colours was much easier. Nowadays though, he had to change colours like grey and brown bit by bit into black. Since the colours were closer to black, one would think that it would be easier but apparently these colours had to be worked on shade by shade and each shade barely had any difference, only that little bit darker. Most Nara's ended up having just black, grey and brown, sometimes navy. But most just slowly darkened the colours steadily over time, most would never get it reduced to even two colours let alone getting it to change to pure black.
He'd come up at the front gate of the Hyuuga compound and the guards had already opened the gates. 'I must come too often' He thought offhandedly, walking briskly up to the main house...house.
He knocked, and not long after a young branch member came and opened to the door and escorted him up to Hinata's room. 'I really must come too often, everyone seems to know exactly why I'm here. Mataku.'
Shikamaru lifted his hands up from out of his pocket to knock, but almost just as he'd poised his hand, the big and exquisite door was flung back and a glowing Hinata stood in its place.
"Shika-kun! Thank you so much!" She shouted, "I almost expected you to carry us out of the office when the Hokage decided to let us in on the secret, even if it's just a bit of it."
Behind her Neji smirked and watched as Shikamaru struggled to say anything in reply, in fact he only managed to fit in a quiet "Heh?" before Hinata started speaking again.
"Before you were so protective of us and we knew that your mission must have been extremely dangerous, but we've always wanted to help. And now we know that it really is just as dangerous as you'd implied, but the fact that you have more people working on it makes it so much safer as well you know." Hinata gushed, and she would have continued if Shikamaru hadn't interrupted.
"Mataku. Hinata, you know very well that the risks in letting more people in, is much more dire than having only the necessary people know. Even if it is safer and it would be done faster, that doesn't cancel out the risk that someone may find out and completely ruin the plan." He said. "Now before we go into this subject any further, let me tell the two of you why I came over."
Neji walked up until he was next to Hinata and said "We need to find a way to keep up our image as Genin don't we?"
"Exactly, we can't have anyone know hide nor tail about this mission, even the fact that we have a mission above a C-rank must be kept secret." Shikamaru said. "I have Anko waiting at Izakaya's, we can continue the discussion there, even though the Hyuuga compound is usually secure we can't risk saying anything more here."
With that the other two nodded and followed Shikamaru in performing the specific seals needed for their respective shunshin.
Once they had reached it, they wasted no time in greetings and walked straight towards the back rooms, Shikamaru in the lead as he walked past every single room seeming to concentrate until he stopped abruptly in front of one. He cut his thumb and placed it onto the middle of the seal, almost immediately the seal glowed orange and indicated the door was unlocked.
Opening the door, he gestured for his team to walk in first, Neji and Hinata sat on the bench on the left whilst Anko sat on the empty bench on the right, Shikamaru to sit next to her.
He closed the door once again placed the still bleeding hand to lock the door with the seal stretching from the door to the wall, going over the crack. He then turned to the wall behind Anko, edging in slightly between the bench and the table before once again pulling his thumb across to make sure it was activated, a red glow told him that it was. He then walked in, staring at the far corner of the ceiling, the ceiling was high and there was a particular spot that was kept shrouded in darkness. He smirked slightly before looking back to his team.
"Right then, down to business." He said, sitting down in the process. "Firstly, Anko, you'll be fully briefed now, you and Kakashi were actually meant to be briefed when the Akatsuki make it known that they would begin their attempts to capture the jinchuuriki, but since you were made our Team Leader, you guys will need to be briefed now." He said, speaking straight through Anko's confused "What?" at the mention of Akatsuki.
Realising he should have briefed her first he explained. "Yes, this is about the S-class secret I'm involved in" He said answering Anko's unspoken question. He then went on to explain the things that Hinata and Neji had been privy to, mostly speaking about the problems to arise in the village rather than anything substantial about the Akatsuki.
"Now Hinata and Neji have been given the mission to eradicate any found spies within the village, most of them should have a connection to root, since we have just been given the information that Danzo was the one leaking our information. Anko, right now, we have too much to do, so we will need to be able to do what we need to do without being suspicious in the fact that we have barely done any missions." Shikamaru said. "Right now, Hinata and Neji, whilst they are still in their reconnaissance stage will be able to fit in one D-rank mission every few days, I however will most likely be in and out of the village. I am needed to pass the information out to our spies outside."
"Actually, our reconnaissance stage will not last very long, the information given to us is quite detailed and several are already confirmed to be the spies, all we really need to do now is to confirm the others and make sure that there are no others that have not been suspected." Neji said. "In fact we believe that it will be done in about two months."
"That's fine, by then the chunin exams will have come up and we will become chunin, anyway." Shikamaru said.
"Okay, so how are we actually going to do this?" Anko asked.
"You actually play quite a big part in this part of the plan Anko, we need you to say that you're going to focus more on training, each sensei has their own method of teaching and they report a basic training plan to the Hokage, most teachers focus more on team building and doing more missions, gradually doing less and focus more on training as they get older." He said, pressing a button on the edge of the table.
He continued on to explain. "But some teachers do focus more on training, these teams depend heavily on the teacher, if the teacher is good then the team is generally better since they are more experienced combat-wise and their team work will have been more focused on battle. But if the teacher chooses this method and doesn't teach their students well it could very well end up as a huge disadvantage." He paused before asking. "Anyone want anything to eat or drink? I forgot to eat lunch with Naruto stuffing his face."
He was met with a few nods and a couple of sures and their orders, Anko wanted a box of Dango, Hinata just wanted a small platter of sushi and Neji opted for a small bowl of rice with a grilled fish. He himself wanted a bowl of rice with barbecued pork cutlet.
"Right, now hopefully, we will be able to organise it so I will be in town when we are supposed to do our D-ranks. But if not we'll need to-" He was interrupted by a knock on the door.
Putting chakra into the seal in the middle of the door, the door outside flashed a three by three grid, and each box numbered from one to nine. The waitress outside pressed the ten digit code in and the seal to lock the door faded, the normal turnkey lock however, was still locked and so Shikamaru stood up and opened the door and repeated everyone's orders as well as ordering four cups of green tea and a kettle for refills. The door closed and the Shinobi continued their discussion.
"Right, so normally I won't be able to schedule any of the times that I'll be around for, but the Akatsuki hold a meeting every two weeks in each month, so those times will be when I'm usually in the village. But it can't be guaranteed because my contacts aren't all in the Akatsuki." Shikamaru said. "If you have scheduled a mission when I'm not here, the best thing to do is either have Anko make a Kage Bunshin to replace me or just say I didn't bother coming or I called in sick."
"So we'll be reporting that we're going to have training sessions everyday save for two or three days of missions every two weeks?" Neji asked.
"Yeah, pretty much."
"So...Do you actually want me to train you, or can you just work yourself? Because, right now, I'm not sure my techniques are very helpful to you. Your team specialises in stealth and assassination, and whilst mine are for assassinations as well, I've not got much in the stealth department." Anko said.
Before Shikamaru could answer however, a bell rang and a small led light flashed at the opening of the wooden dumbwaiter. Since Hinata was the closest, she opened it and pulled out the food, placing each tray in front of the person who ordered it. When she closed it again, it returned up and within moments came back down with four cups of green tea and an especially large kettle of hot water to provide for refills.
There was a quiet moment where the four had started to eat, Shikamaru started speaking after devouring half the bowl of rice and two slices of his barbecued pork cutlet.
"It would be good if you could teach us more on offense, even though we are fully qualified jonin, we are still considered weak in terms of offense. Neji and Hinata" He said nodding to each of them as he swallowed. "Though are more capable than I am, but in general, we would not fare well in a battle with other more experienced jonin."
"I agree, we specialized early so we have trained a lot more for stealth, assassination and infiltration, so open battle is always disadvantageous to us." Neji said chewing on his fish. "Normally our family style is sufficient enough and that would easily allow for us to easily defeat any chunin. But if we faced a fully fledged jonin we'd have trouble."
"And you could say that we could outsmart them but that always depends on what's available. We usually have less trouble maneuvering around any rookie jounin but any with more experience could probably trounce us easily." Hinata said before popping a piece of cucumber sushi into her mouth.
"Mmkay. So in general, I'll just concentrate on teaching you taijutsu and ninjutsu... You know I'm not considered amazing at either right?" She said, shrugging and fiddling with the Dango stick.
She was right, Anko specialized in her summons, she'd mastered the art of summoning to the extent that Orochimaru's snake based jutsu are no longer used as ninjutsu to her. Whilst normally you'd have to create a separate route from the summoning world, Anko doesn't need to go the long way round, all she has to do is manipulate her summoning so it matches the Jutsu.
Following this, she can use her summons in almost any situation, without the need to perform hand seals and place her hand onto a flat surface, her summoning was at least five times faster than the normal summoning. It was also much better in the way that she didn't need to use half the usual amount of chakra needed.
"That's fine, you'll be working with Hatake so that should make easier right?" Shikamaru said.
"Kakashi? But how are you going to get him to teach us while we-" Hinata asked.
"That is none of your concern, his part in this mission will be classified on the same level as mine."Shikamaru said.
"Mou, Shika-kun. You're so serious nowadays, what happened to the Shikamaru that always had time for regular cloud watching."Hinata said, as she peeled the raw salmon off the last of her sushi and dipped it into some soy sauce. She then placed it back on and picked up the whole thing to eat.
"Sigh, that Shikamaru is locked away for the peaceful times Hina. He can come out when all this is settled" He said with a smile.
No one spoke.
He sighed and said. "Dismissed."
When nobody followed his order he only repeated it calmly. "Dismissed."
Neji and Hinata stood and filed out silently, looking back only once with pride in their eyes. Shikamaru smiled at them. He stood up and Anko assumed that was to allow her to leave but as she stood he only locked the door again.
"No, you stay Anko."He said, using one hand to push her down onto her seat again. He went on to sit on the opposite side of where he'd been originally, opposite her. He smiled at her confused look and said. "This won't take too long, I just need to make sure Kakashi got everything."
"Kakashi?" Anko inquired.
Shikamaru gathered up the trays and placed them back into the dumbwaiter along with the four cups and the now empty kettle.
"Yeah, you can come down now." He said looking at a corner in the ceiling. Anko stared up along with him.
"Damn, Shikamaru, I wanted to scare her." Kakashi said sitting down next to Anko. She turned quickly and gasped.
Shikamaru laughed and shook his head.
"You did get to scare her, and anyway, I looked at a different corner so she wouldn't see you anyway." Shikamaru said.
Kakashi shrugged.
"Hey!" Anko said.
"Now did you get all that Kakashi?" Shikamaru said.
"Yeah, but it wasn't all that new to me. Hokage-sama already filled me in a bit." He said. "I think I was the only ANBU he called upon to do anything related to it. I'm guessing that's because I'd be filled in later anyway."
"So you were here the whole time weren't you Kakashi" Anko said, shaking her head. "I really need work on sensing people."
"Yes Anko, yes you do." Kakashi said, eliciting a glare from Anko.
Shikamaru chuckled at the exchange before speaking again.
"Anko, you and Kakashi have another job to do. You two are in charge of raising security, this village is going to be in constant danger and we want everyone to be alert." Shikamaru said smiling. "What I want you two to do is to make sure that happens, we can't alert the whole village by raising the official security and increasing patrols, no that might alert the other villages and make them think we're expecting war."
Shikamaru waited, the other two only just realising what he was implying. Anko grinned widely.
"Hell yeah!" She shouted. "Legal pranking."
"Not quite, it might not be quite as elaborate as you might think." Shikamaru said.
"You want us to test individuals right?" Kakashi said. "You want us to break in and maybe move things out of order, not extreme but enough to put them on constant guard right. Maybe flash small amounts of chakra out in the streets right?"
Shikamaru smirked "Exactly."
"Oh Fuck you... I was really looking forward to pranking Asuma, he's still trying to pull those ridiculously cheesy moves on Kurenai. Damn..." Anko said pouting, she mourned her lost chance for only a moment before asking a more relevant question "So, any targets we need to focus on? Or is this just a general thing?"
"Not really, Genin and Chunin may not realise immediately though so you may want to spend a bit more time on them. You might want to make some a bit more obvious though." Shikamaru told them. "Also you need to realise that this will put you in a lot of danger. As your actions become more known, people will become more cautious, as is your goal, and you will not be protected by anyone if you get caught. This isn't an official mission, the Hokage can't protect you."
"That's fine, you chose us because you trust us to do our job. And anyway, like anyone can top me in stealth." Anko proclaimed loudly.
"Yeah right, if you're that good at stealth then you've just labelled me as god." Kakashi said.
"And since you've just said that Kakashi, you've just labelled me as a titan" Shikamaru said smirking. "Face it you two, you can't beat me when it comes to stealth."
Anko glared, and Kakashi laughed and said. "You're right, but you don't get a place in our competition, not everyone has two full years of intensive stealth training."
"Anyway you know what to do with your mission, so I'm not needed anymore. But just for your information Kakashi, you might want to prepare yourself, the Sandaime is gonna retire and you may need to get ready for the Kage position because I really don't think that Tsunade will come back to be our Kage." Shikamaru said as he left the room.
"Wait, what?" Kakashi said.
Anko laughed quietly next to him. "I believe congratulations are in order Kakashi." She said, and then she sighed. "Remember the times when you were the too young jounin commanding the elder ones in the war."
Kakashi shook himself out of his reverie and answered. "Yeah, I really was hoping that that wouldn't need to happen in this generation."He looked at her. "We used to get so annoyed at them, wondering how they just couldn't understand some things"
Anko laughed again. "I Remember. It got a bit better when I became you're ANBU partner, maybe that was because I had someone to help me explain. We were always at the front-lines, in charge of a squad or platoon. And things were so stressful, especially trying to keep everyone in line and making the plans. We were so bad at strategic planning in the beginning. Imagine how hard it must be for him Kakashi." She said.
"It must be very difficult for him. The fighting is easy, you just have to train, but planning ahead, guessing at what the enemy will do next is incredibly hard to do, and with so little help. He isn't even allowed to give the whole story to his teammates."
Kakashi shook his head and stood gesturing out the door. "Who do you think should be our first targets? Genin, Chunin or Jonin?"
She looked up and laughed, standing up with him and left the room before saying. "I think we could have some fun with the Jonin first, I really want to start with Asuma, even though it won't be pranking. At least I still get to mess with him."
AN- Not a very interesting chapter but it does give you information. This is a slow build up though. I think I'll put some action into the next chapter so you can look forward to that
R&R Please and Thank you
