Sasuke was woken up bright and early in the morning by a kunai landing a couple of inches away from his head. Startled, he rolled and sprang into a defensive position only to find that there was no threat, and that it had been his new sensei who had thrown the kunai. If he hadn't gone through a number of training sessions which had taken most of the night to complete, and been forced to wake up in time to get to the Academy the morning afterward before, he probably wouldn't have been able to function after getting only a few hours of sleep after being dragged on a twenty-five mile hike with a full pack, and that was even with the additional surge of adrenaline his sensei's unconventional wake-up call had given him.

Today, he would be undertaking his first mission with the new and unwanted team which he was going to be stuck with indefinitely. The nature of this mission you ask? It was to repair a bunch of fences on a farm that belonged to Konoha for some strange reason. If anyone had cared to ask him, he would have told them that it was a chore that was beneath someone who held the title of ninja. He'd say that it was completely beneath a Uchiha as well but, he'd seen one or two of his civilian relatives mending fences in the compound back when they were alive.

Because the pink haired fangirl was so weak, and had been completely unable to handle yesterday's hike, it would be just him and the Uzumaki who were stuck with the job today. Fortunately for him, the Uzumaki seemed to be familiar with this sort of work, because he wasn't, and had had a, now unfortunate, tendency to ignore the lessons on how to pass oneself off as a laborer during a mission when they came up back at the Academy. The written tests for those classes, which he'd aced since they were all multiple choice, had left him decidedly unprepared for this sort of mission.

Grumbling as walked because his legs were sore from walking all day and night at the pace of the group's slowest member because neither Tetsuo nor Kakashi would carry Sakura despite the fact that she was slowing them down, he made his way over to where Tetsuo and the Uzumaki were seated.

"Eat something, and we'll report to Tanaka-san." Tetsuo said when he reached the pair.

As Sasuke, Naruto, and Tetsuo were getting a start on their D-ranked fence mending mission, and Kakashi was watching Sakura to make sure nothing happened to her, like her dying in her sleep for instance, Sakura's mother was getting an early start on her campaign against Sakura's new sensei. There was one thing that Haruno Barako was good at, and that was that, despite being a mere civilian housewife, she could run a whisper campaign against someone that could put the best efforts of the Misinformation department to shame.

She hadn't needed to go to the market for anything that morning, but Konoha's central marketplace was the best place to get the ball rolling as she spread bits of gossip amongst the other housewives and the old biddies who had nothing better to do. Setting out bright and early so as best to be amongst the elderly early birds who would spread her story far and wide across the village because they had nothing better to do with their day, she made her way to the marketplace. Once she reached the market, she made sure to wander despondently amongst the various stands and stalls as she "searched for what she needed".

Eventually, one of the old ladies who frequented the early-morning market nibbled at the bait.

"What's wrong?" the old woman asked.

"My daughter." she sighed, knowing that those two words would perk up the ears of any woman, as there was a good chance of news of a new scandal to follow.

Sensing something juicy, the old woman took the bait whole.

"What sort of trouble are you having with your daughter dear?" the elderly woman asked sympathetically, obviously gearing up to offer some sort of stock advice from her repertoire in exchange for the gossip she was going to take and run with.

"The girl's so called sensei stole her from me and dragged her out of town on a two-month "Training mission"." she said sadly. "Considering the fact that he brought a strange man along on the trip, and they had forced her to be on a team with that...boy who has already hurt her and threatened to hurt her worse, anything could be happening to her!"

"Someone stole her?" the old woman asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

"When I brought my daughter along when I went to speak to her new sensei whose name is Shimura Tetsuo in order to object to the fact that he was taking her on a two month camping trip without even so much as consulting me first, he yelled at me, saying he could do anything he wanted to her, and that there was nothing I could do about it. He then grabbed her and dragged her away, not even letting her say good-bye. When I tried to take things up with the Hokage, nobody would let me see him, and that old cripple at the Complaints Desk that I went to as a last resort was completely unhelpful." she replied, putting the right amount of drama in at the right moments.

The old woman she was talking to was appropriately shocked and scandalized by what had happened to her when she had tried to protect her little girl. Sensing that she'd run into the right person, she continued to spin her tale of woe, talking about how the old man at the Complaints desk who really should have retired long-ago since he was missing an eye and an arm and obviously needed a cane was obviously a drunk, and how he'd been completely unhelpful, and how the ninja had all given her the run around while her poor daughter was dragged further and further away from home with nothing but the clothes on her back by a pair of obvious perverts and the demon brat.

Once she was done telling her story, she sat back and watched in satisfaction as the old biddy ran off to share her newfound gossip with a group of her friends. Soon, she would have her revenge against that upstart ninja who was most likely the son of a pair of foreigners considering that accent of his, and there would be no place in the village where the Shimura family was welcome.

While Team Tetsuo and Kakashi were eating their lunches, Sakura having been forced to climb a tree and pick several apples for hers, Shimura Danzo was listening to a report that was being given to him by one of his operatives in the village about a whisper campaign that the Haruno woman had started against him and The Boy that morning, calling him an old drunk and several other uncomplimentary things to boot just because he wouldn't jump when she'd tried to order him to.

Well, two can play that game. he thought as he sent Koharu an invite to lunch at a rather popular restaurant which was frequented by an appropriate audience, an audience that was a damn sight more influential than the one the Haruno woman had at the moment.

The best part about it all was that he wouldn't have to tell a single lie as he spread his own little whisper campaign against the Haruno woman, one that would turn just about every ninja in Konoha against her, with the name of the poor daughter she'd been sobbing about as their rallying cry. By the time he was through, at least half of the village would be wanting to protect that poor Haruno child from her mother.

Forty-five minutes after he'd received the report from his agent, he was being seated with his fellow Council member at a table at a restaurant that was popular amongst Konoha's shinobi elite. In order to gather a discreet audience, he made sure to start in on the conversation with a bit of chatter about the Uchiha boy, being sure to make his part of the conversation loud enough to indicate that he wouldn't mind too much if people listened in because what he was talking about wasn't any sort of official secret, but anyone listening in just might find what he had to say interesting. He then moved onto the topic of Uchiha boy''s teammate, as the Weapon was always a popular topic of gossip in the village. When he was sure of his audience, he moved in on the topic which had been his purpose in partaking in the rather tasty but otherwise pointless meal which had been set before him.

"I almost feel sorry for that Haruno girl." he said with a slight sigh that was very carefully not too overdone.

"Why?" Koharu asked.

"Well, aside from the fact that her mother has been actively sabotaging her training for the last year at the very least..." he started.

"Sabotaging her training?" Koharu asked, sounding scandalized that anyone would do that to a Genin, considering how easily the poor little dears were killed off when their training wasn't sabotaged.

"I'm sure you could read between the lines in her file just as well as I have." he replied lightly. "The woman either put the girl on or encouraged the girl to go on some ridiculous weight reducing diet so she could retain her "ladylike figure" right when the girl was starting to gain some actual muscle mass. The girl's Taijutsu scores subsequently took quite a dip, and continued to get worse. If the child wasn't so intelligent, she would have lost her position as the class' Top Kunoichi then and there."

Koharu, being a Kunoichi born and raised in the old ways, looked appropriately disgusted at this, and he could feel the general disgust that was spreading amongst his barely perceptible audience, many of whom were also Kunoichi.

"If that wasn't bad enough," he continued. "When The Boy tried to get a change of scenery for his team in hopes of breaking his new students of their destructive habits, the woman had attempted to hold her back, even going so far as to delay the completion of the girl's packing for the trip until it was far too late. Since the team was on a tight mission schedule, and The Boy didn't know how fast his new students could travel, the poor girl was forced to leave the village with nothing but the clothes on her back, leaving her dependent upon the kindness of her teammates, one of whom can barely afford to feed and clothe himself, and the other of whom is notorious for being selfish and completely unhelpful in regards to his peers."

Koharu, and everyone else who was listening in for that matter, was appropriately scandalized at this. The few who had probably lost supplies on missions back when they were Genin probably found themselves remembering how their teammates had begrudged them every item they loaned them. He himself remembered how borrowing kunai from Uchiha Sasuke's great-uncle Kagami had been like pulling teeth.

"Of course, this is the same woman who chased a family with a son with a Kekkei Genkai out of the village through some sort of harassment campaign because the boy's mother accidentally tripped and knocked her over, so I shouldn't be too surprised." he finished.

He could feel the near-palpable outrage of the restaurant patrons who had been dawdling over their meals just a little too long over this, patrons who included Main Branch members of the Hyuuga clan amongst others.

Hook, line, sinker, and success. he thought as he indulged in a small smile.

That ought to teach the woman who had tried messing with him and The Boy. And best of all, he had just used that harpy's best weapons against her.

Edited 10-5-12