Thanks to Gato's slow speed, even when carried by Naruto clones, it took them almost a full week to return home, but as the sun reached it zenith on the sixth day, Team Fourteen was within sight of Konoha. Cresting a rise, they could see the village in the distance, with the Hokage Monument in the rear, and the great tower of the Hokage before it. Somehow, the mere sight of home seemed to revitalize the group, with Naruto and his clones whooping in joy as they ran down the hill, Gato grunting through his gag as he was tossed about.
"Ramen, here I come!" shouted the five copies and the original in unison as they ran, and the others behind him grinned, before the trio of genin took off after him, hopping along the trees, while their sensei hung back, keeping an eye on all of them, no matter how much she wanted to join in the impromptu race they were having. Mind, her urge to join was mostly to show up the young, as they made great time, better than anyone their age should have been able to make, so that within a few minutes, they were before the open gates of the village.
"Ah, Kurenai, so good to see you again," said a familiar voice as the team settled down in front of the wooden wall. In front of them was a sight they were all acquainted with, Hizashi, who stood there in his perfectly clean, white kimono, bowing to the young and their teacher as they came closer.
"Uncle," said Hinata, returning the bow deeply.
"Teacher," echoed the three boys, and the clones as well, all giving the same bow to the older man. Kurenai didn't say anything, but did bow her head in respect for the older man.
"I take it, something is afoot, if a clan member, and an active teacher, is waiting for us," said Kurenai as she raised her eyes, and the white eyed Hyuga nodded at the assessment.
"You cut straight to the heart of the matter, as always Jonin Yuhi. The prisoners you have already claimed as your own have caused much stir in the days before this, and I see you have more yet with you," he said, gesturing toward the bound and gagged Gato.
"Indeed. Hyuga Hizashi, may I introduce to you the former shipping magnate himself, Gato," she told him, and then smirked as those normally dull eyes went a little wide. Of course, he'd heard some rumors from his niece and her friend when they'd been questioned by his brother, but they had refused to say much, and the Hokage had been unusually quiet on the matter of who or why Zabuza, an S Ranked Missing-nin had been on the C ranked mission that Hinata had been on.
"That….answers many questions, but raises far more," he said, trying to connect how this series of events came together.
"You will likely have your answers soon, but for now, we must report to the Tower on our mission," said the red eyed woman, and Hizashi, after a stunned moment, nodded.
"Of course, please, do not let me keep you. However, I would like you all to know you are invited to the Hyuga Compound this evening for a repast. Your former training mates will be in attendance," said the older man, and the others suddenly had very bright expressions on their faces.
"You mean the other teams finished their missions first?" asked Naruto, still looking happy that the others were fine, if with a slight glint in his eyes of jealousy at not being the first to return.
"My son and his team, as well as Iruka's, returned just this morning, along with the border guard. I believe Asuma's team came back three days ago, and have accepted our invitation for tonight. With you four, that brings the whole of the Thirteen together again," he said this with a warm smile, and the genin smiled back. A few more pleasantries were had, before the team went off towards the Tower, all talking about the questions they would need to ask of their fellows tonight about their missions, while going over the details of their own, so their story could be the most epic.
OoOoO
"This is intolerable! I demand to speak to my lawyer! My agent! My BANKER!" shouted the little man on the floor of the Hokage's office, rolling around, trying to break the bonds that held him. The Hokage, for his part, let the tiny, insignificant man squirm for a while, enjoying this far more than he should have, but the memory of Gato's decisions that had hurt not just the Leaf, but all of the Elemental Nations, allowing him a very dark moment, before he made a single handsign, causing Gato to seemingly freeze in place.
"That is definitely Gato. Are you certain there is enough evidence to convict him?" asked the Hokage as he looked at the team in front of him, and Kurenai nodded, pulling out several sealing scrolls from her pouch, and placing one on the ground in front of her. With a small application of chakra, she caused it to open, spilling out a dust plant, as well as several signed statements of those from Wave who had been forced to grow the thing.
"If this is less than sufficient, I'm sure we can return to Wave and collect testimony directly for whatever court we throw this jackle to," she explained, handing the papers to the Hokage, who read them for the next several minutes, his eyes bulging out as he was assaulted with accounts that included every kind of crime imaginable committed by Gato's thugs over the last few years. Considering all they'd put them through, it seemed quiet moral of the people to simply kick the offending mercenaries out of their country, rather than kill them. Mind, without their gear, those mercs were likely to end up getting killed by some bandit in the woods, so perhaps it was a cruel mercy.
"Everything here seems to be in order. Considering the size of his assets, however, I believe I will need to hold a full summit of the Kages to decide just what to do with Gato's shipping empire," he explained, and Kurenai nodded again, before pulling one of the other sealing scrolls out of her pouch, and opening it as well. Inside was a crate, as large as she was tall, and several times as wide. A flick of her wrist against the side caused the wooden panel to fall off, revealing several stacks of ryo, more than even the Hokage had ever seen in one place before.
"What is all that?" he asked after a few moments of stunned silence.
"We were able to clean out every safe house, storehouse, and cache that Gato had hidden over wave. All of them were full of ryo, and I decided to claim them as payment for our mission, considering Wave itself couldn't pay the fee for the A-Ranked this turned out to be," explained Kurenai.
"You mean, you're claiming it for yourselves?" he asked, wondering if she was planning on using this fortune for something.
"No, Hokage, for the village. If it chooses to reward us for our efforts, my team and I won't say no, but we present this as the spoils of our conquest to the Hokage, and ask him to do with it as he deems fit," she told him, and he looked from the fortune before him, a pile that outshone his own not inconsiderable funds, and probably those of every single family on the council individually, if not all of them put together. Gato must have had a good portion of his company converted into liquid funds to have had such a nest egg laying around.
"I will, of course, need time to decide such a thing, but I want you to know, I am very proud of you, Kurenai, and your genin, for not keeping this to yourself. I will admit, I don't think I would have been so forthcoming with this information should a fortune of this scope fall into my own hands," he admitted to them, and the genin seemed to take this as a compliment. For a moment, just that briefest instant, he could see the pained look in Kurenai's eyes as she placed the money back into the seal, and then handed the scroll to him. the young could be free with the fortune they had found, mostly due to their inability to comprehend its size.
"If that is all, Hokage-sama. My team and I have been invited to the Hyuga compound for the evening meal," she said, rising, and the Hokage held out his hand to stop her.
"I'm afraid, Jonin, that you will not be able to attend. Yourself, along with a small group of other jonin, are to report to the tower's secure meeting room in three hours. There is a matter to discuss," as the Hokage spoke, he got a very serious look in his eye, and the woman nodded at him, before leading her team outside without another word. They quickly compared notes, estimating how long it would take them to get cleaned up, and finally decided to meet up outside the Hyuga gate in two and a half hours, with the youth hoping that the business was nothing too serious, but offering their support for any mission the Hokage might have for her, a thought that made Kurenai feel far safer than she should have, considering their rank.
OoOoO
"You guys did what with that money? Do you idiots have any idea how much you had in your hands?" said Shikamaru as the teams met at the table. Interestingly, the other teams jonin senseis were called to the meeting as well as Hiashi, which allowed the thirteen young genin to dine basically on their own, ignoring the various branch family members that served the meal. Of course, most tried to insist that they sit and dine with them, but the servants assured them that would be against their training, and left the group of youth to their gossip.
"We know it was enough to buy a clan name, but Kurenai said it wouldn't have been right to keep it," said Naruto innocently, and Shikamaru just stared at the idiot, before slapping his palm against his forehead and groaning.
"Right? You could have made your own right if you had that sort of cash," he complained, before Ino shut him up by shoving a bit of food into his open mouth, nearly choking the pineapple headed boy.
"You greedy bastard, you have an animal boss on your land, and now you want money too?" complained the blonde kunoichi. The others agreed with her assessment, as they all began to trade stories again, as apparently, Team Fourteen wasn't the only one to have run into trouble on their assignment. In fact, all of the Konoha genin teams had had trouble on their missions, which had been way outside their rank, but other than Team Ten, they'd all succeeded at them beyond expectations, and even Team Ten had come out far ahead.
"So, you're saying that your guy lied to you too?" asked Heero as he chomped down on some dumplings that tasted sweet on his tongue going in, but somehow left a salty aftertaste as he swallowed.
"Yeah, but unlike your guy, this one was just being an asshole. He hired us because he was having trouble capturing the Deer Boss, Aspen, but failed to tell us that's who he was hunting, otherwise I don't think any of the villages would have agreed to it," said Choji, who scarfed down three bowls at once of...well a lot of various foods. Oddly, despite the speed at which he ate, it was obvious he was enjoying the taste of everything that touched his tongue.
"Not that we realized that at first. We only knew there was a white deer in the woods he wanted caught, and while the thing was good, we were better, with Choji driving the thing in front of him, my coordinating with him, and finally lazy bum here trapping them with a shadow jutsu," added Ino, and Shikamaru looked for a moment like he wanted to complain about the title he'd been given, but then just shrugged it. An argument with Ino was too troublesome to fight for him, and he went back to eating what he could before Choji ate the whole meal.
"Once we had King Aspen good and caught, we took him back to this wicked awesome castle the guy lived at. Of course, it was there that was realized who it was we'd caught, and learning that, Asuma refused to let us deliver him to the guy, who tried to skewer us like pigs with a rain of arrows that blotted out the sun," as Choji spoke, he raised his chopsticks over his head, and made an arcing motion with them like they were arrows, ones that plunged into a dumpling that then vanished into his mouth.
"But I thought the boss animals were huge? Isn't the Boss Toad the size of a mountain?" asked Sakura, as she very delicately sipped from a small cup in front of her, showing far more manners than most of the clan heirs around her, especially considering her origin as a civilian.
"Well, yeah, normally. But they get that big because of chakra build up. King Aspen was nearly out of it by the time we caught him. This asshole warlord had been hunting him for years, without stopping, and depleting him. Even when he was a normal deer by looks though, the idiot's henchmen couldn't catch him, so he decided to hire ninja to finish the job. Of course, we was too cheap to hire anyone but the cheapest mission for it," explained Ino.
"Anyway, we fought our way out of there, knocking guards and walls down as we went, and Sensei Sarutobi even blew his weapons stockpile up on our way past. We protected King Aspen the whole way too, with Shikamaru doing most of the heavy lifting for once," added Ino, looking proudly at the pineapple head, who seemed to blush for an instant under the praise.
"My family likes deer," he said, as if that explained it.
"After we scattered every guard he sent after us, we hightailed it back to Konoha, and King Aspen accepted our apology for what we did to him. Shikamaru's family then extended an offer to him, to make his court on their land, along with the deer they care for, and he agreed. He also offered us the chance to make a contract with him," said Ino, and held out her thumb which had the telltale bite mark of a summoner already starting to form on it. Choji and Shikamaru, when she turned to them, did much the same, showing off similar marks.
"Wait, why did he need a new place to hold court? I thought the animal courts all had their own land?" said Kiba, who emerged from the carcass of an elk he and Akamaru had buried themselves in at the beginning of the meal, seemingly obviously to the conversation around them as they loudly chewed.
"Most of the animals have a set place for court, like the Mountain of the Toads, the Castle of the Cats, or the Swamp of the Snakes, but the Deer Court is migratory, like the deer themselves. Of course, while he and his recover from the whole being hunted down thing, we'll be hosting them here in Konoha," explained Shikamaru, and Kiba looked very thoughtful for a moment at that.
"Okay, cool," he said rather flippantly, before diving into the meat again, causing Sakura to shake her head in despair, and Ino reached out a hand to pat her on the shoulder in a gesture of sympathy.
"What about you guys? Didn't you six end up on a mission together?" asked Naruto at last, and Sakura nodded.
"And three other teams as well, including the overseeing jonin, that gave Konoha two score extra eyes as the border, should Iwa try anything," said Neji.
"Yosh, it was quite the sight, to see so many of our fellow Leaf-Nin together," declared Rock Lee, as he took a large swallow from the jug of non-alcoholic beer provided by his sensei.
"Yeah, but we kind of expected so many of us gathered together would keep Iwa from trying anything. It did keep Iwa from moving, but it didn't keep that crazy lady from coming after us," explained Tenten.
"What could one person do to twenty ninja?" asked Naruto, and everyone from that mission looked dour for a moment, as a shadow crossed their faces.
"She used some genjutsu on some of the Iwa genin. It made them think they were jonin in the Third Ninja World War, and they fought like it, shouting about how we were going to kill them, and using all sorts of techniques no sensible genin would even try to use," said Sasuke darkly, before taking a long pull on a saucer of sake he had somehow been given.
"They fought like monsters, even when they burned themselves out, they still tried to kill us, and ignored every injury we inflicted," added Sakura, her tone showing how much the event had hurt her.
"Were you forced to take their lives?" asked Shino, nearly startling everyone, as it was the first words he had spoken all evening. The response was immediate though, as everyone shook their heads.
"We fought to disable, jonin's orders, while he and the rest of our teachers took on the woman. She….she was the only fatality, but her actions have made so many Iwa genin unable to use chakra ever again," answered Tenten, and a long explanation of the battle followed, with the genin telling tales of their counterparts using techniques that shattered their coils, or broke limbs. The other Konoha genin had trouble sometimes dealing with the sheer ferocity of the techniques, but those of the Thirteen had been able to assist them, making it so no one from Leaf suffered any lasting damage.
"Once the genin were all down, we went to help the jonin, but they didn't need us. The woman was already down, taking on all those jonin at once, there was no way she was going to win. Then she pulled out her trump card, her whole fest was lined with explosive tags, enough to take out a block," said Sakura.
"Might Guy, he saw her activate them, and then did something, his body turned all red, and he charged her, faster than I've ever seen anyone, even Heero, move. He punched her so hard she went flying, and then he ordered everyone to get down. When the tags went off, there was a deafening blast and a blinding light, followed by hurricane force winds that knocked down trees all around us. When it was over, though, everyone was alive, and we gathered up our prisoners and returned to Konoha," finished Sasuke, and the meal became very quiet, even Kiba stopped his gorging to contemplate how far that woman had gone to hurt them, and for reasons that no one would ever know now.
"Such is the life of a ninja," said Neji at last, and the others all nodded after a time. Death was something that one faced every time they went out on a mission. No matter how that death came though, be it for an enemy or an ally, it was sobering, and the meal continued in silence for a long time afterward, as their young minds considered all that they had experienced on these missions, and considered what lay ahead.
OoOoO
"Ah, Guy, it's good to see you up and about," said the Hokage as the last of the jonin entered. The bowl haired man smiled at his elder, trying to put on a good face, but everyone present could see the slight limp in his step. He'd opened the Fifth Gate on his mission, according to reports, and would likely not recover fully for several weeks, even with regular visits to the Konoha Hospital for medical treatments. Still, it was obvious he had saved the lives of everyone on the mission doing it, and the other jonin gave him a respectful nod as he took his seat amongst the other three.
"I'm sure you're all eager to learn why I have summoned you here this evening," began the Hokage as he pulled his pipe from his mouth and set it aside.
"You want to see if we think our genin are ready to take part in the chuunin exams that are coming up in three weeks," said Iruka, surprising everyone sitting there, as to date, there had been no official word on when the exams would be taking place. Even the Hokage was taken unawares at this announcement, and the youngest of the four jonin smiled at his peers.
"My father is helping a friend run his hotel, and they've been getting reservations from across the hidden villages for their best rooms," explained Iruka without needing to be asked, and everyone nodded at that, while Sarutobi seemed amused by how mundane a source it was, especially considering how tight security was supposed to be for such an event.
"Sometimes, it is the most mundane of leaks, that give away the whole game," said Asuma, causing everyone to nod again, as the Hokage rose to his feet, and then laid several files out on his desk.
"Regardless, Iruka has the right of it. Normally, ones as inexperienced as your charges would not find themselves participating in the exam so soon, after all, the majority of them haven't even been genin for a year, but I'm sure by now, you all are aware of how special those children are," he told them, and then opened the files with a wave of his hand. The folders then spread out a few pages each, showing statistics of each child, their estimated chakra capacity and skill level, not one of which had a stat that was lower than chuunin, and some were jonin across the board.
"I would typically allow you, their teachers, to determine when they were ready to take the promotion exams, but in this, I feel I must insist that they are put in the running, especially considering how they performed on their recent missions," this got everyone to stare at each other. Stories had already been trade amongst the older ninja in regards to their mission. While they had, for the most part, downplayed the accomplishments of their students to their faces, this was only to prevent them from growing overconfident.
Sasuke, Sakura, and Kiba had held off fifty genin, all using techniques and skills that exceeded that rank, and were closer to the level of chuunin, in the recent border skirmish. Better, despite their opponent's overwhelming number, they had kept casualties to a minimum, and of those that had engaged them, only five were rendered incapable of using chakra, and then only because the techniques they had used were simply too much for the Iwa genin's young bodies, and not because the Leaf Nin had done wrong.
Neji, Rock, and Tenten had fought twenty apiece themselves, though separately, rather than as a unit. They had shown proficiencies that were far beyond their years, however, disabling their opponents quickly, and easily. It had gotten to the point that Rock Lee had fought his way to the other, much more normal genin who'd been struggling, and saved a number of his peers, while Neji helped coordinate counter attack efforts, and Tenten provided not only additional weapons, but long range support as well.
Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji were just as impressive. Not only in catching King Aspen, and then convincing him to make Konoha his court for now, but also in escaping the warlord's castle while carrying the Deer Boss with them. While Asuma had merely said he was proud of them, he knew that any other team of even chuunin would not have come out of that sort of fight unscathed, and seeing the skills of his young charges made him swell with pride, even though he knew most of their skills were not of his doing.
Shino, Heero, Hinata, and Naruto were equally impressive. Even if it had been a single opponent, rather than dozens, Zabuza was still an S-Ranked Missing-Nin. That meant he was amongst the most dangerous in the Nations, and to fell not only him, but his apprentice in so easy a manner, without killing themselves or unduly injuring either of the pair, well it was incredible, and made even Heero and Naruto's capture of the toughs pale in comparison, as those mercenaries had lacked training or cohesion, with only numbers on their side.
"I take it, you agree?" asked the Hokage as he watched their faces change and alter with their thoughts and emotions.
"Hai, Hokage-sama, all of them are ready to wear the vest," said Might Guy, and this got unified nods from the other jonin.
"Then prepare them. The other candidates will be arriving within a fortnight," he told them simply, and they all stood, bowing to the Hokage, before racing out the door. Smiling after the, the Hokage began to gather the files on his desk up, and place them back into the shelves where they belonged. He smiled at them, as he placed the last one in the 'special interest' section of his organization, and then got back to his own paperwork, while considering just who would be running the betting pool on this years exams, and how much money he would have to throw at the bookie.