i have an idea, and i won't stop writing until I have finished writing through my plan. basically, it will work through this, I'll work through differing parts of the series, twisting them as much as possible, and continuing through these different pieces of the story. I'll come up with a plan for each part of the storyline, and then I'll work through making it interesting, just wanted to tell ya, NEXT CHAPTER
The Fox, The Raven, and The Cat raise hell
chapter 7 - hell in wave country
konoha mission center, three months after graduating
"come on old man, give us a challenge," naruto yelled, "finding the fire daimyo's cat? kiba gets scratched up a bloody storm until rikou gets tired of watching and pins it to a tree with one of his card! weeding? kiba uses fang-over-fang and obliterates the weeds from the root up! picking up trash? my wind jutsus throw them into the junkyard while my kitsunepou annihilates everything else! we've completed two hundred D-ranks in the time it takes to do a low B-rank! give us a C or something harder than this shit! I want my fucking second tail already!" naruto yelled royally pissed at the fact he's stuck doing D-ranks when they've physically, mentally, even maturely proven they're ready for more.
"I was expecting this, but isn't it just fair that an old monkey gets to have a few kicks too?" the sandaime asked not looking for an answer, "all you had to do was ask." the third said making naruto's jaw drop.
"good one old man!" rikou said loudly as he broke out laughing while anko started laughing as well.
"now, as for the mission you're getting, you can have a B-rank escort mission, your job is to protect tazuna the bridge-builder from anything you come across. however, seeing as you are just genin, even if you're sensei is anko, you're going to have a second team assisting you. kakashi, front and center!" sandaime said firmly as a jounin wearing a mask appeared, his hair silver, wearing typical jounin attire.
"ha! a hatake! how rich!" rikou said from behind him laughing.
"hmph, disrespectful genin, have you no idea what the hatake now possess?" he asked in an annoyed tone.
"do I have an idea? I'm the reason your clan is able to withstand the sharingan, respect me like you would respect your brother, cause I can easily take you down." rikou said, the amazing thing being, his team thought he was being modest.
"you think you could over-power me?" he asked his anger building.
"I couldn't over-power you, I could match your power, and take openings in your defences you had no idea were even there." rikou said chillingly making anko smirk, which did not go unnoticed by kakashi.
"hmmm, it looks like this kid has anko's respect, and not that half-assed 'leave me the fuck alone' kind of respect, no, this kid's ruthless." kakashi said a smile under his mask.
"getting back on track, kakashi, you're here to accompany them on their mission to wave country, bring in the client!" sandaime said to the chuunin by the door. when the client entered a moderate height drunken man walked in, a disappointed look on his face.
"these are the ninja you sent to protect me? why, they're just a bunch of brats!" he said insultingly as anko's kunai, two of her shuriken, and one of her snakes whizzed past the old man. "hey! why did you attack me you crazy whore?!"
"I didn't, my students did, if you would have payed attention, you would have seen that I deflected a card, two kunai, and a very, very, peeved puppy." anko said as naruto and hinata picked up their kunai, akamaru walked back to kiba, and rikou mourned over the loss of his favorite 'ack of hearts'. "around us, respect is something required for survival, and that just seems like something you don't get. the only one on my team who hasn't killed is the guy with the jacket and the dog." anko said very threateningly.
"when do we leave?" tazuna asked disrespectfully causing him to get a glare from anko, "ma'am"
"10:00 tomorrow, and kakashi, if you're late, I'm sending rika and rikou after you, and their idea of a date is ripping someone apart and seeing how far they can chuck the remains." anko said completely serious making kakashi's eyes widen in fear.
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konoha northern gate, 9:59 A.M., next morning
"I swear kakashi if you're-
"yo." the silver-haired jounin said as he appeared with his team of sasuke, shino, and sakura.
"you're kidding," sasuke said with a frown, "our help is bird-boy, dog-breath, whisker-girl, dumb-ass, and miss nobody?"
"watch who you're insulting thief!" rikou yelled, "or need I give you a crash course on how we killed itachi?"
"please, three against one? even with your skills it can be done."
"need I remind you we were six-years old?" rikou said tauntingly.
"can it!" the uchiha said beaten. "so, why did we have to be here so early?"
"that was my idea," rikou said, "we're gonna test your patience, cause you're gonna come with us while we get some weapons."
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weapons shop, half-a-minute later.
"hey there old man, remember me? I'm the one that gave you a tip on the house we bought four years ago." rikou said to the man behind the desk, who looked up with a warm smile as he saw the smirking boy.
"yeah, I remember you, so what'll it be?" the man asked standing up.
"two zanbatou, no more than three inches wide, two pairs of metal claws, two katana, and a bottle of venom remover please." rikou said taking out roughly 5,000 ryo.
"why the extra pair of claws? inuzuka's the only one who'd use them and I doubt you wanna give em to me." sasuke said mockingly.
"they're not for you, they're for akamaru, he's a part of this team too, and when he's using the man-beast clone technique the claws'll come in handy, you gotta think outside the box, look underneath the underneath, otherwise, how can you expect to be any more than a genin?" rikou asked insultingly.
"like that'll ever help in battle." sasuke said.
"y'know, that's what itachi thought while we were fighting him, and look where that got him, killed by a bunch of 6-year olds." rikou answered coldly, honestly hating the uchiha, as the weapons returned.
"I assumed the claws were for the inuzuka boy and his partner, so I went with a size 7." the old man said handing kiba both pairs of claws.
"thanks old man, I just hope we have time to break in the new weapons before we run into some enemies." rikou said with a smile.
"I hope you do, that'll be 2,500 ryo."
"tch, too bad, I really wanted to see what you could do with that, but since there's no way you have the money-
"how's about I give you 5,000 instead, for your kindness." rikou said emphasizing the word kindness, making sasuke's jaw drop.
"what're you rich? not even my father carries that much pocket change!" sasuke yelled.
"y'know, if you keep acting like the uchiha are the best, I'm gonna have to finish what itachi tried to start." rikou said putting the zanbatou on his back, and handing the other to naruto who did the same.
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dirt road leading to wave dinghy port, twenty minutes later
they were walking down to a port that would take them to wave country, they walked past a puddle which no one but sasuke and sakura missed, rikou 'dropped' a card, one of hinata's earrings fell off, naruto was chewing his nails letting the clippings fall, kiba took out a chicken leg and ate it, leaving the bone, rika practiced one of her fenikkusu gihou, (phoenix techinque) leaving the ashes of a tree, anko left one of her snakes shed skin, and kakashi dropped a page from his icha icha book. after they were a few more feet away from the puddle two ninja popped out and dashed at them, each bearing a poisoned claw, they took rika out first, seeing her power, and proceeded to destroy the others, the others looking on in mock surprise, sasuke smirking, believing this proof of the fact they were just talking big, and attacked the two ninja, while sakura looked at the remains in horror when she noticed something about kiba's remains, it was nothing but a chicken bone, rikou's was a card, rika was ash, naruto was a bunch of nail clippings, hinata was a shattered earring, anko was a torn snake skin, and kakashi was a piece of paper with very colorful words typed on it. she looked back to where she remembered them dropping these items, and sure enough, they were standing there laughing at sasuke's belief that they were really caught off guard, even anko and kakashi laughing. but sasuke took a hit, and when they attacked shino he just dodged them, obviously not interested in whatever they thought they could do to him. after he walked off, and they turned to attack sasuke, and he looked up, rikou appeared right behind them, waved at sasuke, and knocked them out in one move.
"sheesh, makin' a big scene, trying to make this a huge fight, when all it took was a well placed hit, I was wrong, you're not stupid, you're pathetic, just go on home and play ninja with your fool of a fathre, we don't need you to kill off a few mere chuunin." rikou said as the others walked up to him. "either get over yourself and go after power the right way, or get out of our way." rikou said walking off.
"wait!" sasuke said causing rikou to stop and bend his back completely backwards, staring at sasuke upside down. sasuke bowed his head respectfully, "I concede, please, teach me the proper way to gain power."
"deal, but on one condition." rikou said, his flexibilty rivaling anko's.
"name it."
"treat me like a friend, not your master, I hate people treating me like something I'm not." he said standing back up as if it was natural to bend like that.
/what do you know, he befriended the thief, who knew it was possible?/ kiba growled to the others.
/hey, I'm surprised too, whenever we were out on dates, half the time he would ask me about new ways to make sasuke feel like mud./ rika chirped.
/interesting, I didn't know animal type fighters spoke our language./ came a buzzing sound that was so stoic it could only mean one thing.
/shino?!/ anko hissed.
/hmm, didn't know snakes spoke our tongue either. you learn new things each day I guess./ shino buzzed turning his attention completely to their secret conversation. /I know why anko can speak our language, but for you to speak it, you must be either an inuzuka, a hanyou, or a demon heir, correct?/
/impressive./ came a high pitched chirping sound that made sakura, sasuke, and kakashi cover their ears/but the question is, are you smart, or like the villagers?/ it was rikou.
/that depends, am I smart if I see that demons can be kind, or like the villagers?/ shino buzzed making everyone who understood him smile, and though you couldn't see it, shino smirked seeing that he had made some fucking powerful new friends. "I believe it would be wise if we spoke in human tongue unless we must keep the information secret." shino said, causing sasuke, sakura, and kakashi to question what he meant.
"shino, what are you talking about?" sakura asked.
"ancient chinese secret." shino said making everyone but sakura laugh.
"who knew, he has a sense of humor." rikou said in a sort of respectful way.