The Best Laid Plans
Arun
Chapter 3: Training & Traitors
Disclaimer:
Own Naruto, I do not.
Early morning found Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura at Training Ground 4. An aura of barely restrained anger murderous in its intensity surrounded the Uchiha in a shroud, the result of yesterday's humiliation. Sensing how close he was to committing murder, both Naruto and Sakura left him alone. The former lay flat on a patch of grass and fell asleep. The latter leaned against a tree trunk and contended herself with drawing patterns on the dirt.
Time passed slowly. As the seconds ticked by, Sasuke's anger, without a natural vent to release pent up frustrations, skyrocketed to epic proportions. Ignorant of his teammate's fury and the world at large, Naruto lay snoring spread-eagled on the dew. Sakura silently fumed at their irresponsible teacher, but there was the memory of Sasuke's treatment from the day before. Hence, she reigned in her temper and kept her outward appearance the very picture of serenity. It was into this tableau that Kakashi shunshined at a few minutes past eight.
As his first act of the day, Kakashi kicked Naruto hard, rudely waking sleeping beauty from his dreams. Having gained his students' undivided attention with that one act, the jounin glared at them until they assembled before him.
"You disgust me," he spat without preamble. He'd observed them for a few minutes and their apathy disgusted him. "You had three hours in the morning. Three hours that you could have spent training or exercising or teaching each other. But what do you do?
"Pretty boy, emo-avenger there sits brooding about the ass-kicking he received yesterday. Spoiled, blond-brat here takes a nap, snoring like he has no care in the world. And pink-tress, weakling fan-girl plays with sand as if she is a toddler and the training ground her sandbox."
A pause.
"Right now, you have sunk low and can't sink any lower than you have before my eyes. You stupid brats will get yourselves killed in your first mission on the field and take me with you in the bargain. I'd be crazy to let you guard a dead rat, much less protect my back, because you incompetent imbeciles are worthless, good for nothing worms. No, you are not worms. You're worse than worms. You're the stinky shit that even a starving dog would steer away from."
Lacking self-confidence to begin with, Sakura looked a little put down at Kakashi's harsh words, but then, she sneaked a look at her teammates and saw them glaring at their teacher. Taking the cue and drawing strength from their reaction, she gave vent to the anger dammed within. Anger at the world, at her life, at her teammates and now, at her bastard of a teacher!
Kakashi caught the byplay and his lips curved into a very small smile behind his mask. So long as they saw him as the common enemy, they would cooperate. That was enough for the here and now. Once they learnt what they could achieve by working together, they would do it on their own without a foe to unite them.
"I'll give you the next three hours to prove that you're worth my time. Try hard; try very hard to impress me with your hard work and your dedication. If I so much as feel that you aren't giving me your hundred and ten percent, then you don't deserve to be genin, much less shinobi of the Konoha Ninja Corps.
"Now, follow me. We're going to run a lap around the village," he said, leading them on the run.
At the end of the three hours, Kakashi admitted to himself that he was impressed, though he didn't let the fact slip to his team. Instead, he told them to take a twenty-minute break for breakfast and assemble no later than the prescribed time for more training.
xxxxx
"Sensei," Sakura asked at the end of the first day after Kakashi dismissed Team 7.
"Yes," Kakashi replied, stopping in his tracks. He turned to face Sakura, sporting that weird little smile on his.
"Could you… I want to get strong," Sakura said hesitantly.
Kakashi nodded enthusiastically. True, Sakura didn't seem to understand that he was already helping her towards her achieving her goal, but he wasn't going to complain. He had only so much time on his hands to teach his genin and Team 7 needed to start taking the initiative if they ever wanted to become truly strong.
"You really are the smartest member of the team," he said. He pulled out three scrolls from nowhere and offered them to Sakura. "Here you go."
"Um… What're they?"
"One's a scroll on genjutsu theory. It also contains pointers on creating genjutsu. Another talks about medical theory. The last… talks about nutrition."
Sakura looked thoughtfully at the three scrolls.
"Why nutrition?" she asked finally.
"Are you questioning my judgment?" Kakashi asked in reply, narrowing his eyes. It was good that she could ask questions, but did she have the courage to stand up to him.
Sakura shook her head.
"No, no… Thanks, sensei."
Kakashi nodded gruffly, which Sakura took as her cue to make her exit. As she walked away, the jounin followed her with his eyes. He was a little disappointed that she didn't stand her ground, but that was okay. These things take time, after all. Maybe he could start a pool as to how many useless scrolls he can foist on her before she loses her temper with him!
xxxxx
The merchant's blood soaked travel papers said that he was a citizen of Rice country. He had voided his bowels at the moment of death, but there was no stink. From this and other clues, the ANBU tracker surmised that the merchant had been tortured and strangled to death less than four hours earlier. He reported this to his captain.
"It's ten hours to the nearest border," the captain observed aloud. If it were shinobi who had committed the crime, they had too big a lead to catch now.
"It wasn't any nin that did this," the tracker replied confidently. "The victim was garroted with shinobi gear, but it was done haphazardly. There were seven of them and they took the draft animals with them. The tracks point towards the western hills."
"Bandits?" the captain asked, thoughtfully. "Makes sense. Harvest has been disappointing this year, but I doubt these are first timers."
"Wasn't there an unsolved murder around these parts last year," one of the others piped up. "Come to think of it, it happened not far from here."
The captain turned to face the tracker. The team had worked together long enough to understand each other's body language, not that it would have taken a genius to figure out what was going through her mind at that moment.
"The tracks are fresh," he told her. "And they've got three mules to drag along with them."
"And they stashed the body, however messily. It was pure happenstance that we happened upon it. Would have walked right by if we didn't have Nose with us," another ANBU observed.
Nose, the tracker, shrugged. His keen sense of smell was a boon in his line of work. The fact that he could turn it off whenever he wanted to was an even bigger boon. But it wasn't his nose that had alerted him to the body. The wind had been blowing in the wrong direction for that. No, it was the carrion birds circling overhead that caught his attention and drew him to the bush.
"We'll pursue," the captain said, "and when we catch them, we'll put the fear of God in them.
"Two, radio in our position and heading."
Two nodded. The captain was right. This wasn't a border patrol and their primary mission wasn't to prevent infiltrators but to keep the peace. And letting the trail of murderers go cold was anything but.
Two and a half hours later, as ANBU manacled the genjutsu-ed bandits around her, the captain stared at the scroll in her hands. Its contents were not exactly sensitive, but it had been penned by a Konoha shinobi of chuunin rank or above and it had security seals when she first laid eyes upon it. Seals that she had since broken. The scroll's presence in the merchant's personal belongings raised quite a few interesting questions, however, despite its apparent lack of military value.
Why did a Rice country merchant have any information regarding Konoha's Armed Forces on his hands? How did he get his hands on a report submitted to the Hokage? And what was valuable about the scroll? The fact that someone wanted it implied it was, but it had nothing interesting that she could see.
xxxxx
"So here we are," Kakashi told his students, as they wound down from the morning jog, "already three days into your training. Sakura, you found the scrolls I gave you useful?"
"How come you gave her scrolls and we didn't get them?" Naruto asked indignantly before Sakura could reply to their teacher's question. If Kakashi was going to play favorites, he had better pick the correct one. Namely, Naruto himself.
"Because you and boy wonder did not ask," Kakashi replied shooting a cheeky grin at Naruto and Sasuke. He'd asked Sakura the question just so that they could have this conversation as she had strangely not shared her knowledge with her teammates. Moreover, he knew the boys were headstrong enough that they would not read the materials he gave them. It would be a different matter altogether if he enticed them into asking for the scrolls themselves and Sakura stopped hoarding her book-smarts, which was why he had to manipulate them. Why, if he maneuvered them often enough, they would start looking 'underneath the underneath.' Wheels within wheels drove the shinobi world and his trusting students took everything at face value. That simply would not do. Not if they were to ever become leaders of men.
"Well, we want them," Sasuke huffed, shooting both Sakura and Kakashi dark looks.
That simply will not do, Kakashi thought, sensing the hostility directed Sakura's way. The whole point of antagonizing his team was so that they could grow close to each other and unite against him, after all.
"And you shall," he shot back, his eyes curving into a smile even as he planned his next move. A moment later, the bare outline of a plan fell into place and he knew what he had to do. "Let's have a spar. The three of you against lil' old me."
Team 7 stared at the jounin. This would be their first spar as a team and all three genin had been knocked out multiple times and received other painful bodily injuries courtesy of Kakashi in the three preceding days that they thirsted for revenge. Then they looked at each other and a single thought passed through their heads. This was their chance to get back at their teacher for all the shit he'd pulled.
"The objective of this exercise is to grab this bell from my person," Kakashi continued, seemingly oblivious to the exchange between his students. Truth was, he saw the first signs of teamwork in their interaction and was all the happier for them. "Should you fail it, you'll be marching cross-country tonight. You'll be carrying a backpack and it will be loaded as I see fit."
"And if we get the bell?"
"You get to sleep under a roof tonight. That sounds fair to you?"
It wasn't, but no one in Team 7 was going to object. Not after the last three days.
"Very well. This spar is no holds barred. Come at me with intent to kill or I will kill you. You have three hours before the end of the exercise, commencing now."
Team 7 fled the clearing at Kakashi's words. The jounin tracked their tactical retreat for several hundred yards before happily turning his attention back to Icha Icha. From the looks of it, he surmised that they were actually going to sit together and come up with a plan. Maybe he wouldn't have to break bones today, after all.
xxxxx
"What do we do?" Naruto asked as he jumped trees alongside Sasuke and Sakura.
"We stock up on weapons, come up with a plan and go after the bell," Sakura replied.
Naruto made to veer off towards his home before a thought struck him.
"Where shall we rendezvous and when?"
"We're not splitting up," Sakura replied forcefully.
The two boys looked at her.
"Kakashi-sensei will pick us apart one at a time if we separate," she replied. There was a term for that kind of defeat, but it escaped her just then and even if it hadn't, she was doubtful if Naruto knew the jargon. She could explain it to him, of course, but they did not have the time for lessons now.
"What about restocking then?" Naruto asked after negotiating a particularly hard jump.
"I'll share mine," Sasuke replied.
The other two looked at him.
"The Uchiha clan armory is well stocked. I've even kept most of it in good shape."
"What about…" Sakura begun, but something in Naruto's eyes caught her attention. He shook his head in warning. She did not want to go there. Not at this point.
"Very well," she said, dropping the half-formed question. She observed the slight relaxation in Sasuke's shoulders at her action and congratulated herself for making the right decision to steer away from the treacherous waters. But it made her wonder what Naruto knew about Sasuke's family that she did not and she and made a mental note to pursue the matter further at her leisure.
xxxxx
"Here we are," Sasuke said, as he swung open the doors to what was, when his clan was still alive, the second largest armory in Konoha.
Naruto made sure to catch Sasuke's eyes before nodding once and stepped inside. Sakura bit her lips to stop herself from asking the one question she was aching to ask and followed the blonde in. From her observations so far, she was sure that Sasuke would not appreciate her questions about his clan right now. The compound gave her the creeps and she did not doubt anymore that there was something was terribly wrong with the Uchiha clan. It was not just the cobwebs on the windows of most houses and the dirt and grime everywhere that clued her in either. There had been no guards at the gates and she hadn't seen a single soul since they entered the premises. The latter was probably the weirdest thing of all. It was almost as if the whole clan was dead and gone.
In silence, the genin helped themselves to their favorite wares. A short blade mounted in plain scabbard drew Naruto's attention and he pointed it to Sasuke.
"What is it?"
"It's a chisakatana," Sasuke replied.
"Can I…"
"You want it?"
Naruto nodded.
"Take it. Its purpose is wasted in this armory."
"Thanks," Naruto said, reaching out for the blade. He lifted it in his hands and joined Sakura and Sasuke on the floor. The sword was useless in the coming fight, but he planned to take it home with him. "Now, what do we do?"
"We plan. I think we should make one probe and one all out attack," Sakura answered.
"Won't work," Sasuke replied.
"Why?"
"Knowing Kakashi-sensei, he'll probably break us during the probe. We'll have one chance and we can't afford to waste it."
"Worried about the march?" Naruto asked, grinning at Sasuke.
"As if you aren't," Sasuke replied, but there was no heat behind his words.
"What if we convince him that the main attack is the probe?"
"That would work," Sakura replied thoughtfully. "But any ideas as to how we'll do it?"
"Well…"
xxxxx
It's been nearly two and a half hours, Kakashi thought as he flipped another page. Either his students were going to attack soon or they were not. If the latter, he was definitely going to break a few bones when he caught the brats. He would withhold treatment and then take them on that trek, broken bones and all. Preferably through the land just north of the village wall. There was lots of brush in that rocky terrain. In the darkness, Team 7 was bound to have a few falls. With fractured limbs, it would be a painful and unforgettable lesson to never take his words in vain.
At that moment, Kakashi's vision flickered slightly. Mentally scolding himself for not trusting his students more, he put his book away and shunshined out of the clearing. No need to show the young impressionable minds how to break a genjutsu so early in the exercise. Also, he wanted to teach them the lesson that for maximum effect, you wanted to hoard the most potent weapons in your arsenal and use them only when the enemy least expected it. And in this exercise, with Sakura having upped the ante with genjutsu, knowledge about how to break one would be a powerful one.
That must have been their probe. They had no one to pin me while applying the genjutsu, which implies they did not predict that I would run. But that's okay because they surprised me a bit as well. Hell, I'm amazed Sakura managed to get the fundamentals so fast, though I suppose I shouldn't be. She's as much a prodigy with chakra control as the other two are in their respective disciplines. But that makes two holes in their plan so far…
And, here we go. Looks like Sasuke and Naruto are leading and Sakura is staying behind, which is tactically sound.
As before, Sakura, who was hiding behind one of the trees that bordered the clearing, struck the first blow. She used a genjutsu that caused bright lights to flash in Kakashi's vision. Her technique was weak and for all its usefulness in battle, had several glaring holes that he could exploit. Kakashi, however, did not. It was better to let his students think that they was doing well at this point in the engagement. It would make his counterattack, when it came, all the more effective.
Even as Kakashi reeled – he did not even have to put on an act because Sakura's technique disoriented him – he noted that Naruto and Sasuke were also affected by the illusion. Naruto, it seemed, was unusually vulnerable to genjutsu. He stumbled and the jounin decided at that moment to target the blonde first.
But before Kakashi could connect with his kick, Sakura used kawarimi to replace Naruto with a log. Kakashi's kick sent the log flying into Sasuke, who dodged it by a hair's width thanks to his sharingan. The move unbalanced the Uchiha a little, however. Naruto was at least forty yards away – too far to interfere without resorting to ninjutsu, which was his greatest weakness or thrown weapons, which Kakashi could block – and the jounin knew Sakura was near the end of her reserves. So he took the opportunity as presented and body checked Sasuke as the latter came in with fists swinging.
The force of impact knocked the breath out of the Uchiha. His rude introduction to the ground broke his recently healed ribs and the hard blow to his head as it hit the compacted earth sent him into the blissful embrace of oblivion. Having incapacitated one of his opponents, Kakashi rolled with his momentum, successfully evading Naruto's shuriken. He regained his feet and flipped backwards twice to avoid more projectiles from both Naruto and Sakura, the latter having finally come out of hiding.
Sakura was the weaker of the two, but her genjutsu gave her an advantage that Naruto did not have. At once, she was the vital link that could give Naruto the edge he needed to grab the bell and she was also the weak connection that could bring him down. Naturally, Kakashi feinted an attack on Naruto. Sakura, with what must have the last erg of her chakra reserves, reinforced her genjutsu to disorient the jounin. She tottered on her feet as her last ditch effort took her to the edge of chakra exhaustion. Kakashi stumbled as he went temporarily blind and Naruto seized the opportunity with a mad rush to grab the bells that left him completely open to attack.
But Kakashi knew this would happen and having planned for just this eventuality, used kawarimi to escape Naruto. Sakura's genjutsu collapsed then even as she herself fell to her knees gasping for breath. Kakashi's carefully aimed kunai pierced her right arm just above her elbow and she screamed in agony. Naruto, who had by this point reversed momentum with skillful use of his legs and kunai, threw shuriken at his teacher and came rushing in right behind them.
Lightning fast, Kakashi's kunai flashed in the path of the shuriken and deflected the offending weapons.
Unfazed, Naruto thrust his kunai at his teacher's chest with one last burst of speed, but the teacher was ever faster than the student. There was an audible snap as Naruto's hand broke and Kakashi kicked him down. With his foot on the young Uzumaki's rear as befit a conqueror, the jounin lifted his beloved Icha Icha out of storage and began to read.
Good thing I didn't cancel the genjutsu. Gives me an ace in the hole for tomorrow. Or maybe not… I have to teach Naruto how to counter genjutsu or he's dead meat the first time he runs into an expert on a mission.
xxxxx
The senior medic nin in the medical emergency response team pulled Kakashi to the other side of the clearing and glared at him. In the background, his two assistants attended to the assorted wounds inflicted on the genin.
"This is too much," he spoke quietly so that his voice wouldn't carry to either his assistants or their patients. "You aren't training these kids. You're torturing them."
Kakashi eyed his accuser lethargically.
"I appreciate your concern for my students," he said, "but I'll remind you they are my students. Your job is to heal them, which I can see you're very good at. Do yours and leave me to mine."
"You're being too harsh on them."
"Nonsense. They're ninja. What good are they if they cannot endure a little discomfort?"
"Broken bones and two inch deep flesh wounds are hardly little discomforts for twelve year old kids."
"I would rather they suffer these indignities by my hands than have their throats slit later."
"If that's your answer, I'm going to report this to the Hokage."
"Do as you see fit."
"I'll ask the chief medic nin to suspend support for your team."
Kakashi's eyes narrowed imperceptibly.
"You'll need authorization from the Hokage for that," he pointed out. "You won't get it. And if you try to present it as a fait accompli, I will come for you. The Hokage will even sanction it for my genin."
"This in intolerable. You can't threaten me."
"For my students, I can and I will."
"I will file a report."
Kakashi shrugged.
"As I'd already said, do as you will."
"You're being stupid. Think about your words and actions."
"Once your people are done, leave. I have to conduct an After Action Review for the exercise for my team."
The medic nin shook his head and departed.
Looking at his retreating back, Kakashi muttered, "I've had more than a decade to think back on my words and actions. Perhaps I'm doing things wrong, but I'd rather do the wrong thing than not do anything at all."
xxxxx
Sarutobi stared long and hard at the report about the dead merchant from Rice Country on his desk. It was late in the evening, but thanks to ANBU's fortuitous discovery, what had been a long day was about to get even longer.
While it was common for nations to steal academy graduation reports of competitors to keep an eye out for fresh talent, it was usually done for a whole graduating class. What alarmed him about the incident was that in this particular instance someone wanted information about a specific team of genin. That meant this was no simple fact-finding mission, which implied there was some other objective behind it. Problem was, there was not one but two promising genin in the particular team in question and if their teacher's glowing reports were to be believed, the third one was just as interesting as the other two.
Fortunately for Konoha, the gods of fortune had smiled upon her and bequeathed a favor once again in her time of need. This time, the remarkable string of coincidence that led to the merchant's death at the hands of the bandits and their subsequent capture by ANBU had also delivered a gift to Konoha's counter-intelligence that was almost too good to be true. And while Sarutobi had always been wary about gift horses, even the commander of ANBU counter-intelligence, one of the most healthily paranoid individuals in all of Konoha had been unable to smell any traps hidden within this Trojan horse.
Unfortunately, the ramifications of the report were mostly bad. It meant that one or both of the senior chuunin tutors within the academy were compromised and had been traitors for god knows how long. On the bright side, the very nature of the special document discovered on the merchant's person narrowed down the list of suspects to those two as the primary ones and their colleagues at the academy as the secondary ones. Sarutobi consoled himself that as bad as the prospect of treason in the academy was, it could have been a lot worse. If the document had gone through the normal channels, the loyalty of practically the entire shinobi administrative establishment would have come under question and that was a headache he did not want.
"Ninjato!"
The counter-intelligence bureau ANBU literally melted out of the woodwork.
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
"I'm authorizing your operation. I entrust you to ensure that adequate security precautions are taken for the duration of this mission. I don't like traitors near our security archives any more than I like security leaks. Even less, in fact."
"Both the primary suspects are weak in genjutsu," Ninjato replied, "I'll put my genjutsu specialists on the security detail."
"You have carte blanche on this operation," the Hokage told him in return. "Find out who the traitor is and report to me. We'll decide what to do from there."
"It'd be wise to leave him where he is, Hokage-sama. Better a spy you know than a spy you don't."
"And where there's a spy, there'll be a ring," the Hokage replied. "I know, Ninjato. But there are things that you can't risk, like the safety and loyalty of the children at the academy. Find out who the spy's master is. If it's no one of import, you have my official sanction to arrange an accident."
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
xxxxx
Author's Notes:
There, that's done.
I'm astounded by the number of reviews I've received so far. Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling… ROFL
But anyways, the plot is a little further along now. Things are moving along nicely, if I do say myself and within the next couple of chapters, we'll see some interesting things.
Oh, do leave reviews if you like the story. No other way I'll know if I'm doing it right or wrong. I'll even get back to you, I swear.