The clear sky over Konoha seems to mock them as they stand there in the cemetery watching as the coffins containing their comrades, their loved ones were interred. The arctic light of the late-Autumn sun seems to almost call Spring to mind, but holds none of the warmth that comes with the season of rebirth. It was just as well, considering that this was a funeral. Just as well that this day would come as the year died, as dark clouds gathered on the horizon, threatening to strip away the last of the blue from the sky much as the passing of the deceased had stripped the joy from the hearts of those who loved them.
Aside from the friends and the family of the deceased, only twelve other shinobi bothered to attend. In a village that boasts about ten thousand shinobi on its rolls - most of them Genin who've gone on to do other things until they are called up in an emergency or time of war - that seems surprisingly few to turn out for the deaths of three of their own, but the truth was that despite the fact that they'd kill to protect one of their own from an outsider be they foreigner or suicidal civilian the ninja forces weren't as tight knit as some would think, and most didn't see the point in turning out en masse to see the burial of a virtual stranger or three. Those of the acquaintances of the deceased who had been unable to come due to missions or other obligations would likely drop by and pay their respects in their own time.
No mission ever goes without a hitch of some sort, be it a stubbed toe on a D-Rank or the death of an entire team on an S-Rank, and the mess in Saida was no exception. The loss of only three of their number and ten of the Saida townsfolk not counting those who died before Konoha had gotten involved could be considered reasonably good, considering the way such missions often go. Trained fighters of any stripe will be able to spot when they were outclassed, and when someone who knows that they wouldn't be walking away from things alive was backed into a corner where they had available hostages at hand, things tended to get messy, much as they had done in Saida when the last knot of Mercenaries had been alerted to the attack by a screaming civilian.
Let it not be said that the Konoha shinobi hadn't given at least ten times as good as they got however. All of the mercenaries who had occupied the small border town of Saida at the time Konoha had attacked had been killed. Those who had fled had been hunted down and slaughtered over the next couple of days, and the merchant who'd hired them had been publicly executed just that morning as a warning to those who thought they might try something like that within the borders of the Fire Daimyo's lands in the future, and the fat man's head had been placed on a pike and put on display soon afterward. But, all of that was a cold comfort to those that had been left behind by the fallen.
Eventually, the coffins had been lowered into the graves and the bodies had been buried, and the last of the loved ones of the fallen had made their way back to continue their lives even though an integral part of them was missing. Hibachi, who had found himself staring at his father's grave until the clouds had finally swept in as they'd been threatening to do since morning and a freezing rain had started pouring down, was the last to leave.
At that point, he was just to numb to cry, though he knew that the tears would come again later. He'd always known that there was a chance that since he was a shinobi, his father could die in the line of duty, but he'd never really considered what that had truly meant until now. Before then, it had always been someone else's father, or uncle, or mother, or sister, or aunt, or brother who'd died. Now, it wasn't. Now it was his turn to look up every time the front door opened before realization hit and that closed look came upon his face, his turn to come out to the cemetery every day until duty pulled him away and he finally stopped coming, his turn to be "The boy whose father died while...", and the only thing he could think was that he wanted his father.
As he silently made his way home where his mother who'd not stopped crying since she'd received the news would undoubtedly have a cold meal waiting for him, he barely registered the fact that someone had approached him when he was still three blocks away from his house, and didn't bother to acknowledge this person's presence until they tapped him on the shoulder.
"What do you want?!" he snarled at Ami, whose presence was rather unwelcome at that moment.
"I-I just wanted to say how sorry I was that...that..." Ami stammered.
"Whatever, just go away." he said coldly, turning his back on the girl and storming onward towards the home his father would never return to. He didn't want or need Ami's pity, or anyone else's for that matter.
Being a medic of near-unparalleled skill, there were many things that Kabuto could do that most humans could not. If he received a blow that wasn't fatal, he could, if given time, regenerate from it. If poisoned, he could recover and so on and so forth. One thing he could not do however was cure the common cold.
As he stood there under the freezing rain in the northern reaches of Fire Country near the Sound border, he idly noted that the cough that had started a couple days before had settled into his chest and gotten worse, and that the current weather which looked like it would be staying indefinitely if past years were any indication wasn't helping. That couldn't be helped though, since he and his team of over-aged "Genin" who'd repeatedly been told that they should pack it in and give up already were on border patrol, and therefore he would not be able to get out of the rain for another week.
He would most definitely be having words with the man who ran the supply shop that he usually frequented, since the waterproof cloak he'd sold him clearly wasn't despite the fact that it had been marked as having been tested to the point where one could pretty much go swimming in the damn thing, shake it off, and have it be completely dry within five minutes. The reality when it came to the garment was nowhere near as advertised, seeing as it had become completely soaked through after three hours out in a steady downpour, and the clothing underneath fared no better. He was completely soaked to the skin, and wouldn't be able to dry off until he and his team made camp in another two hours.
As soon as his and his teammates' true loyalties were made known and they returned to Otogakure where they belonged for good, he was going to make damn sure that he never ran another border patrol mission again. There was a reason that the older shinobi left this assignment to the older Genin and newbie Chunin when they had the opportunity to do so after all.
As he ducked under what little shelter a nearby tree provided as his team took a break, and he coughed so hard he could barely breathe, Kabuto once again cursed the bastard who had gotten him sick. If he ever found out who was responsible for his current condition, he would kill them slowly and painfully.
Naruto nervously stepped over the border into Suna where he and his team would be taking a joint bandit clearing mission, half expecting he'd explode or something the instant he did so. Even Tetsuo-sensei was watching somewhat nervously as he stepped over the invisible line that separated the Land of Wind from the Land of Rivers, marking the absolute end of the border patrol mission that the team had taken. His and Tetsuo's nervousness as they made their way out of River Country and into Wind had practically been palpable, and it was making the rest of the team edgy. All three of the others found themselves sweeping for threats, and not relaxing as they found none, wondering what it was the other two had sensed that they could not.
The reason for Naruto and Tetsuo's state of nervousness was because the border patrol mission had been a completely routine one on which absolutely nothing had happened. Just about everything was poised to go wrong, what with the pissed off team of Tani ninja tailing them on their side of the border, and the rumors of a band of bandits being in the area, but despite all of that, absolutely nothing had happened aside from everyone getting rained on. Even as the team had made their run through the land of Rivers, passing several ninja teams as they skirted around Tanigakure, nothing happened. The Tani ninja had been positively well behaved, and had limited themselves to the occasional rude gesture whenever they came into view. Heck, they didn't even say a single goddamn word when Sasuke had decided to return several of their gestures with ones of his own that had been made in International so there would be absolutely no doubt as to what he was saying.
With all of that nothing, both Naruto and Tetsuo had found themselves growing increasingly tense as they waited for the first shoe to drop and squash them absolutely flat. The crossing into Wind country was completely uneventful however, as was the short trip to the rendezvous point where they would be meeting the team fron Suna that they'd be working with for the next several days.
When he first caught sight of them, Naruto thought that the Suna team that had been sent to work with them looked rather interesting. The teacher appeared to be missing an eye based on the way that half of his face was covered, the girl whose dark blonde hair was tied back into four ponytails carried a fan that marked her as either a Wind or a Fire user, the taller boy was wearing Kabuki makeup and dressed like a Bunraku puppeteer, and the third boy...
"Hey, are you an Uzumaki?" Naruto called over to the red haired boy who had a massive gourd strapped to his back.