3.
I would watch for years, first thing in the morning standing outside my Academy classroom, shy but eager, clutching my binder to my chest, as the adult ninja made their way down the hall past me and into a spare classroom across the hall, to be handed missions by the Hokage and official Chuunin inside. I would gaze in awe and wonder what it was like to be them. So the first time I walked into that room myself and up to the assignments table with Team Seven, I was pretty excited. Proud of myself, even.
Then the Hokage handed us our first assignment: a D-rank.
Let me explain. Missions were assigned to ninja by whoever came to their Hidden Village and paid to have them do their dirty work. Ninja were essentially hired help. The client paid the village, the village paid the ninja. Pretty simple, right? Missions were assigned into ranks according to the level of difficulty and risk, and missions of appropriate rank were given to the appropriately leveled ninja on a first come, first serve basis. A was the riskiest, followed by B, then C, then D - the lowest. (S ranks were practically myths. They were world changing missions supposedly only given to the absolute elite.) I knew all this from my memorization at the Academy. And I knew that as Genin, we would be assigned D ranks first.
But even I hadn't expected the D ranks to be so... boring.
"Aww, I know, it's okay..." I jiggled the screaming toddler up and down in my arms, desperate. We were in the vast summer mansion of one of the Fire Daimyo's lords, being paid to take care of his son. I was around soft velvet purple carpets and expensive vases, and I couldn't even enjoy it.
"Please stop crying," Naruto begged the wailing infant, covering his ears. "Please stop crying. Why won't it stop crying?!"
"Don't yell at it, Naruto, that's not going to make it any better!" I snapped, and grabbed a bowl of baby food mush from off the table. "Here, you want something to eat?" I said in my best cutesy voice. "Here we go, say 'aah'..." I made a noise as I moved the spoon toward his mouth - and he knocked it away with one of his flailing fists, getting the food all over the front of my blouse.
I stopped, my eye twitching. Do not kill the baby. Do not kill the baby.
I turned to my teammates, wondering why no one was helping me. Naruto was in the fetal position with his ears covered. Kakashi was sitting in a corner, bored and reading, like he always was when he was supposed to be watching us complete missions. Sasuke had his arms crossed and was facing the wall as if he couldn't even hear the infant in the room.
"Sasuke," I begged, "could you please help me by holding the baby? This is your mission, too." I tried not to sound accusatory. Even if I was really frayed and annoyed.
Sasuke twitched. He slowly looked around at the baby, as if it were his mortal enemy. Then, at last, he walked over reluctantly, grabbed the little boy underneath the arms, and held him at arm's reach with a distasteful look on his face.
Well, at least it was something.
"What could he want -?" I wondered, running a hand through my hair. (I had given up on looking nice on these missions about halfway through the first one. They were all simple, local paid tasks, but for all that they tended to leave someone dirty, messy haired, sweaty, and gross. That was why the clients paid other people to do them.)
"Try changing him." I looked around. Kakashi-sensei had taken pity on me, after a fashion, and was watching the goings on with vague, dry amusement. "His diaper probably needs to be changed."
"You're telling me I'm going to have to change a diaper?" I asked incredulously. (Of course it was going to be me. Because the boys on my team were apparently wimps.) "That's my big assignment as a ninja?"
"Yup." Kakashi-sensei still looked irritatingly amused. He seemed to take great joy in watching me get angry.
"But - but I don't know how to change a diaper!" I had no siblings or younger cousins. The closest I'd ever come to handling shit was when I helped Ino and her mother in their flower shop with the fertilizer.
Kakashi eyed me for a moment. "I'll walk you through it," he sighed at last, standing and stretching languidly.
"You'll do it?" I asked hopefully, perking up.
"Oh, no, you're changing the diaper. But I'll talk you through it," said Kakashi.
"How do you even know how to change a diaper?" I asked as we began walking down the hall to the changing room, Sasuke and Naruto with the baby I'd vengefully left them with walking along behind us. "Do you have kids?"
"Single and enjoying it that way," said Kakashi simply. "But I was once a Genin, too, you know. It's these special experiences that make up your fondest memories of being a Genin."
"Really?"
"No."
It was a long hike through a lot of forestry, down a lot of dirt trails, and up and over a lot of hills to get to the next town after Konoha. By the time we made it there, it was in the heat of the day and we had no idea where the big warehouse we were supposed to visit to pick up supplies at actually was.
"I think it's this way," said Naruto seriously, squinting at the map and pointing.
"Naruto, that map is sideways," I said.
"... Oh."
Sasuke sighed, apparently too tired to make a sarcastic comment. "I know where it is," he offered. "I've been here before." And he led the way.
As we walked along, I watched the civilians pass to and fro around us, a flurry of color and life. I had never been outside the military base of Konoha. Things seemed so much different here: not as harsh, easier going. People our own age acted like kids, laughing and playing in the street, and inconvenient fashion replaced the ninja and kunoichi outfits of Konoha.
What would my life have been like, I wondered, if my parents had decided to live here instead...?
It was just about as hot when we were knelt in an old lady's back garden in Konoha a few days later, digging up potatoes. I had known nothing about gardening vegetables at all before this afternoon, but the little old lady who'd requested the mission had taken us out back and given us a crash course in how she planted and ran her vegetable garden, how to know when the vegetables were ripe, and how to dig them up out of the earth. Then she'd left us to it. The digging up, the hardest part, she had trouble doing for herself now that she was having back and hip problems.
"Naruto, you're ruining them," I said quickly, leaning over and grabbing his hand to pull it back from where he was yanking the potatoes too hard out of the earth. Too late, we realized our hands were touching and I pulled mine back quickly, burning. That had been happening a lot lately. Whenever I brushed against Naruto, or looked in Sasuke's eyes too long, I felt a sudden thrill and I wasn't sure if it was horror or embarrassment or something else.
Naruto looked up at me in puzzlement, discerning. He was distracted by Sasuke's exasperated scoff.
Naruto whirled his head around to glare at his friend. "What?!"
"It's not that hard."
"I wasn't doing it wrong!"
"Yeah. You were."
"Boys..." I said, feeling the familiar headache coming on. They'd been snapping at each other a lot lately. If we didn't get a better mission soon, they were going to go stir crazy.
"I swear, everyone on my team is lazy!" Ino was fuming. She, I, and Hinata were sitting at a little table outside a cafe, having a morning tea. We'd been so busy it was the first time we'd met up since officially graduating. By a stroke of luck, each of us was on one of the three active-duty teams chosen, and so was constantly being sent out on D ranks. "Asuma-sensei has us do, maybe, three missions a week. And then he just takes us out to lunch! And Chouji eats enough as it is! And then Asuma-sensei and Shikamaru sit around and play shougi together."
"Lucky," I pouted. "Kakashi-sensei assigns us an impossible number of tasks and then reads while we finish them like it's no big deal. And they're all so boring."
"Kurenai-sensei pushes us really hard in training. We've been concentrating on that instead of D ranks. She already has us going out of the village on a C rank this coming Tuesday," Hinata said softly.
"Really?"
"That's great!"
Ino and I were surprised, but supportive.
"Yes," said Hinata quietly. "She's a very reasonable person and she gives good advice. I'm afraid she's not going to think I'm a good enough ninja, though. I'm working very hard to impress her."
"Then I'm sure you're doing fine," said Ino dismissively. "It's the hard work that counts."
"Yeah, she's not your father," I said. "Don't worry too much about it. You're really going out on a C rank? That's so... cool," I decided, envious once more.
Then Ino sat up and smiled mischievously. "You're just about to go meet your team for missions, right?" she asked eagerly. I nodded... "Do you mind if we come and say hi?" she asked next.
What could I say? I said they could come.
I had been making some head way as far as making friends with Sasuke and Naruto went. As for my other mission... I had asked Sasuke how he tried to defeat Kakashi-sensei, and he said he'd used a combination of traps, elemental ninjutsu spells, and taijutsu hand to hand combat. (Not that it had worked, and that reminder seemed to make him distinctly sour.) I went out and bought a special kind of paper one could buy that told what spell element you were affinitied to when you channeled chakra through it. My element was fire, which did me little good because I had no scrolls to learn fire ninjutsu spells from, and it would have felt strange asking Sasuke to show me his. He didn't seem the type to share. Sasuke's element was also fire, and he had an additional affinity to water that I didn't have, so it wasn't like learning fire ninjutsu spells would have been very effective in the context of my group anyway. Sasuke already had that covered.
I did ask Sasuke if he'd taijutsu spar with me on the bridge over the local river that we waited at each day, sometimes for hours, for Kakashi-sensei to finally get around to showing up. Sasuke did, and he showed me how pitiful I was at my own hand to hand combat by beating me soundly and painfully, every time. It didn't feel like I was getting any better, which was a little depressing. But I stuck with it, because I needed to be better at close combat. For now, I could only do long distance: ninja equipment strategies and basic genjutsu illusions. I tried to experiment around a little with illusion spells as well, but I couldn't get very far. I didn't have a good teacher.
So Ino and Hinata walked with me in the morning sunlight up to the bridge, and when it was in sight, there were Sasuke and Naruto, waiting quietly. Ino gasped in delight when I called out, "Sasuke! Naruto!"
They looked around in surprise as I waved from my place beside Ino and Hinata.
Ino barged past me and went right up to Sasuke. "Hi, Sasuke-kun!" she enthused, clasping her hands before herself and batting her eyes in a way she probably thought was alluring. Sasuke gave her a weary and bewildered sort of look in return.
"You guys remember Ino," I said dryly, coming up behind her. "And this is Hinata." Hinata was half hidden behind me.
Sasuke nodded to her, vaguely curious, and Naruto said, "Hi, quiet girl who has a name." He grinned. Hinata seemed to catch her breath, her trademark silvery eyes flying open as she gazed at him.
"He's so bright..." I heard her whisper.
Naruto frowned. "You okay?" he asked her.
Hinata blushed and nodded, fiddling with her fingers and looking down. "Y-yes," she said. "Thank you..."
"She's a little shy," I explained to Naruto's puzzlement.
"Oh," he said, his face changing in understanding. "Okay."
Hinata didn't speak for the rest of the meeting, and Ino spoke too much. As I watched them leave, I gazed particularly after Hinata. I might not see her again till after she got back from her first away mission...
Why wasn't Kakashi-sensei giving us any of those?
I voiced this question suddenly to my teammates without looking at them, and Naruto said, his eyes widening, "Yeah, I've been wondering that too! We're too awesome not to deserve a better ranking mission!"
"We could do more," Sasuke agreed, with that thoughtful, dissatisfied frown.
"We should ask Kakashi-sensei," I announced.
"You should ask Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke corrected.
I scowled. "Why me?"
"'Cause he'll just make fun of us," Naruto muttered.
"And why wouldn't he make fun of me, might I ask?" I questioned, putting my hands on my hips.
Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other and then looked back at me, smirking.
"What?" I suddenly got the feeling I was missing something.
"Oh," said Naruto. "Nothing. Just trust us, okay?"
On our next mission, we had to hunt down the Fire Daimyo's wife's lost cat. We used all our tracking and stealth skills to find Tora the cat and surround him in one of the forests around Konoha. We were hidden in various positions, in trees and behind bushes and tree trunks, watching Tora walk unsuspectingly along below us. We were communicating with each other via walkie talkies, Kakashi directing our proceedings from afar. The seriousness to the situation was almost comical.
"Sasuke, arrived at point B," I heard.
"Sakura, arrived at point C," I breathed into the walkie talkie.
There was a pause.
"... Naruto, arrived at point A," came the response at last, to his credit, quiet.
"Be faster, Naruto," said Kakashi-sensei immediately. "Are you all ready? ... Go!"
We leaped out from our hiding positions. I had Tora from left, Sasuke had Tora from the right, we moved together to pin the alarmed cat in at the front, and Naruto jumped out from behind and on top of the cat, pinning the hissing feline to the forest floor.
"Do we have the target? Does it have the right collar and the ribbon on its ear?" Kakashi asked through the walkie talkie.
"It's Tora," Sasuke confirmed, looking over the cat without care as it mauled his friend. I went over to Tora and removed him from Naruto, cuddling him in my arms until he stopped scratching them and calmed down. (I was a cat person. With a dog, I would not have had the same luck. We had done a dog walking mission the other day... the dog kept pulling me along and yapping. It was awful.)
"You shouldn't have asked for the lead role if animals don't like you," I told Naruto in dry amusement as he stood, brushing himself off. (Naruto had taken the big dog the other day, too. It had pulled him right into a training field rigged with explosive tags. We had been trained to get our way out of such eventualities, but Naruto's clothes had still gotten a little singed.)
"I wanted to be important! But, yeah... Animals hate me. Don't understand why. They must think I smell funny or something," said Naruto.
"Imagine that," said Sasuke dryly, and I covered my mouth with a hand to hide my smile.
Naruto glared at his friend. "Someday, I'm just going to beat the shit out of you and you won't even know what's coming."
"I look forward to that. We should head back."
We met up with Kakashi-sensei and began heading back to the Academy, Kakashi calling ahead to make sure Fire Lady Shijimi was there in the mission assignments room when we got there. "Kakashi-sensei," I said, a bit nervous, walking up beside him. "Do you think... we could get a higher level mission?"
"Nope." Kakashi had gone back to his book. He didn't even look up.
"Why not?!" Naruto asked from up ahead.
"Because it is my and the Hokage's considered opinion that you're too incompetent to handle it," said Kakashi dryly. Naruto was right, he had only made fun of them. Huh. Was it because I was a girl?
"That is bullshit!" said Naruto.
"Actually, this time Naruto's right," said Sasuke, seeming deeply unimpressed.
"But Kurenai-sensei is already putting her Genin out on C rank missions," I revealed.
Kakashi actually paused a bit. "Is she now?"
"Yeah. She thinks the Genin she's been training can handle it," I said on a sudden inspiration. "Come on, Sensei, how are we going to show we can handle this if you never give us the chance? We've been doing a lot of missions and are pretty aware of how we work together and how to move as a team..."
I expected Naruto to butt in at any moment, but he and Sasuke were silent, waiting with bated breath...
"I'll tell you what," said Kakashi at last. "If you three can convince the Hokage you're ready for a C rank mission, you can go."
Once Naruto had cheered, getting excited and charging ahead, and while Sasuke was watching him in amusement, I asked Kakashi-sensei something else. "Sensei... you're around to train us... right?" I asked, shyly. Kurenai's training her team had given me an idea.
"Yes," said Kakashi at last, raising a curious eyebrow. "I am."
"I've been interested in learning more about spells... I recently found out my element is fire... And I think I'd be pretty good at illusions. Could you maybe... help me with one of those?"
Kakashi looked at me piercingly for a moment. I felt pathetic, not at all like someone who would impress him.
But at last, he said, "... You've been training in close combat with Sasuke, correct?" I nodded. "If you can show me during our first C rank mission that you can fight close distance as well as long distance, and if you can also show me that you've taken my advice about remaining calm to heart... If you show me both of those things, when we get back from the mission, I'll help you with both."
"Deal," I said immediately, and a pact was struck.
Fire Lady Shijimi was a loud, vastly overweight women in bright clothes and lots of face paint.
("Do they just eat well at the capital?" I asked in a mutter. Sasuke muttered back darkly, "Not exactly. Picture the exact opposite of Fire Lady Shijimi with a sickly face. That's the Daimyo." Sasuke came from a clan and would know more about these sorts of things. It was probably why he'd traveled more, too. Then Naruto snickered at the given image, and Kakashi kicked us in the shins and we shut up.)
The minute she saw her cat, the Fire Lady's entire face transformed. Squealing, she moved slowly toward Tora with her arms out... Tora began panicking, trying to claw out of my arms... but it was too late. As if in slow motion, Fire Lady Shijimi grabbed the cat, suffocated said cat between her breasts, and began shouting in a loud, enthusiastic voice, "Tora! Mommy was so worried about you -!"
"Ha," Naruto muttered vindictively.
"It's just a cat, Naruto," I muttered back. "No wonder it tried to run away."
"Good job, well done Team Seven," said the Hokage from behind the mission assignments table, taking up his list of requested missions. "Next, we have -"
"Actually, Hokage-sama..." I twisted my hands before me and stepped forward, nervously. "We wanted to talk to you about something."
The Hokage lowered his paper, raising an eyebrow. "Yes?"
I looked backward at my teammates. Help me.
"We'd like to prove to you and our Sensei that we can handle higher level missions," said Sasuke, stepping forward with remarkable calm.
"Yeah! Give us a better mission! These are boring!" added Naruto, unhelpfully.
"That's far too dangerous! You're not ready yet!" said Iruka, who was one of the Chuunin handing out missions that day, standing immediately from his place behind the long table.
I noticed that he was only looking at Naruto.
"What about the two of us?" I asked, for me and Sasuke. "Are we not ready yet?"
Iruka looked over at me, torn. "... You know what I mean," he said heatedly, looking pointedly over at Naruto, who scowled. Abruptly, I felt sorry for Naruto. Protection could sometimes be condescending.
"I'm not sure I do," said Sasuke defiantly, and I went off with that.
"Sasuke was the best in the class. And I... well, I always got good grades on your tests. But you're the one who's always telling me I doubt myself!" I argued. "And as for Naruto... he's not what you think." He's not what I thought. "And how is he ever going to get any better if he's just stuck here in Konoha all his life?"
"See! Thank you!" Naruto waved a hand at me. "I learn better when I'm doing stuff! You know? You have to give me room to grow, Sensei." With only a slight amount of sarcasm in his voice, he raised his arms all-encompassingly.
"Actually, technically, he's not your Sensei anymore. Why should he get a vote?" Sasuke pointed out.
"Because I used to be your Sensei!" Iruka snapped, defensive, growing desperate.
"Used to be," Kakashi echoed, to our surprise, because he'd been staying silent and objective on the whole matter. "I'm their Sensei now. And I said -" He turned to the Hokage, almost apologetically. "It's up to you."
The Hokage had been sitting back, his wood pipe in his mouth, his hands steepled, listening to the whole conversation objectively. Strangely for such an important man, I'd almost forgotten he was there. He paused, watching us searchingly.
"Come on, Grandpa," Naruto said then, in an actually soft voice, meeting the Hokage's eyes. I almost gasped, but neither party seemed to find anything special in the casual name usage. Everyone called the Hokage Hokage-sama, or Lord Hokage. Or, perhaps, sir. No one outside his family was ever allowed to call him Grandpa. But somehow, Naruto was not punished for saying that exact thing.
(How did all these higher up people just know Naruto?)
"I'm not that stupid little kid anymore," Naruto was saying pleadingly. "Just give me a chance."
The Hokage looked at him for a moment... and then at last, he smiled. "Alright," he said. "I'll assign you on a one-month guard escort mission to another country. Would you like to meet your new client?"
A beam lit up my face, and even Sasuke briefly looked happy. "Yes!" Naruto shouted, jumping up in the air. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Is it someone cool? Is it the Daimyo? Is it a princess?"
The questions were absurd, but in that moment anything seemed possible. "Not so fast," the Hokage said, with something oddly like a smirk. He leaned over and called out, "Bring the man from Wave Country in!"
And then the door slid open and a shabby old man with a pot belly and a bottle of alcohol in his hand stumbled his way into the room, leaning heavily against a wall. "... 'S with the midgets?" he slurred, his face flushed heavily from drink, looking over the three young ninja who would be in his employ. Then he smirked. "Hey, who's the pretty girl? She your girlfriend?" He was so wasted, he turned to, of all people, Kakashi.
"She's a little young for me," said Kakashi flatly, and I had never heard anything so polite and so dryly funny at the same time.
I attempted to focus on this and smile, instead of flushing in embarrassment or letting my anger show. Attacking the client was not such a good idea.
Naruto had no such reservations.
"... Hey, one midget's shorter than the rest! And he looks like an idiot. How young are these... ninja?" said the client next.
Naruto started laughing. "Who's the shortest one, guys?"
And then we both looked at him.
And understanding flashed across his face.
"Why, I oughta pound you!" Naruto shouted, like something out of an old movie, and Kakashi physically had to restrain him from vaulting across the room and punching the drunk old man in the face. Said drunk old man snickered childishly.
"This is Tazuna, everyone," said the Hokage. He was still smirking, and maybe just a bit vengeful. "He is a construction manager in the Wave Country. You will be leading him back to his home and guarding him until he finishes a bridge building project there. You will then return home. It should be a nice, easy mission: you're just guarding him from possible bandits and thugs. No ninja involved."
Tazuna looked away, stumbling out of the room.
"You'll all meet by the gates out of the village tomorrow morning, with ninja equipment, camping gear, rations, and changes of clothes. Break."
As we left the room, I asked Naruto, "Do you always talk like something out of a TV show?"
"I've watched too many old movies," Naruto muttered, still a little sour. "I've always liked a good story. At first, I thought we were going to be the heroes in some cool action adventure flick. Now I'm kinda thinking this is more like the sort of movie where an old man sexually molests three young teenagers in some dark back alley."
Even Kakashi winced.
"Thanks for that," said Sasuke dryly.
"So you're going to be gone for a month?"
I winced. "We knew this was going to happen eventually, Mom."
Mom's hands were on her hips in the kitchen, her face concerned and a little angry. "But I didn't think it was going to be this soon. Sakura, you're only twelve years old!"
"I've graduated! And Kakashi-sensei will be with us. That's what he's there for." My voice started out fervent, but it ended small. My parents were civilians and they didn't understand the world of the ninja. Every time I tried to explain it to them, I felt stupid, a true case of culture shock.
"So they applied you for this themselves, the Hokage and these... other people?" Dad asked from the table, trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about.
"One of my teammates wanted a better mission," I said, deciding not to mention that I had as well.
"It wasn't that Naruto boy, was it?"
I turned to my Mom in surprise. "Why would you think that?" I asked rather than responding.
"Hmph. He's just always seemed like a troublemaker, that's all," said my mother suspiciously. "I never approved of your being placed on a team with him."
A tall, smooth wooden wall grew up and over, surrounding the entire village. It met in the center to form gates on the north side. My team and I had been through those gates before, but never to go farther than a few miles in any one direction. We'd certainly never left Fire Country before.
So when the doors were opened before us and we walked on through, it was kind of exciting.
Naruto, as usual, expressed everything he was feeling. "Alright!" he shouted, jumping through the gates and pumping his fists. "Let's go!"
I laughed a little. "Excited, Naruto?"
He looked over at me like a drug addict and nodded really fast. "A little."
"Why?" Sasuke was the one to finally ask, looking from one grinning nerd to the other.
"We're leaving the country!" I reminded him, smiling and nudging his shoulder. "You could at least look a little happy!"
He rolled his eyes, but there was a tiny smile lifting the corners of his mouth and I felt a moment of triumph.
"They're just kids," Tazuna said then, as if in realization. He was sober now. He turned to Kakashi. "Will they be able to handle themselves?"
"Don't worry. I'm a Jounin and I'll also be accompanying you. There's nothing to worry about," said Kakashi, and I felt a strange moment of shame.
"Hey, what's wrong with acting happy?" I asked, strangely annoyed. I looked to my teammates.
"Just ignore them. We'll prove him wrong eventually," said Sasuke, though a little tic had formed between his eyebrows.
Naruto whirled around, pointing. "Yeah!" he shouted. "Someday I'm going to be the Hokage and then you're going to be sorry you doubted me! Me and my teammates are awesome!"
Only Naruto could make me feel proud and embarrassed at the same time. It was a sensation unique to him.
"Even if you were Hokage, I still wouldn't respect somebody like you!" Tazuna snapped.
Naruto was about to vault himself forward in fury again, but I said, "What do you mean 'somebody like him'?" and Naruto stopped, turning to me in surprise. My eyes had narrowed.
"You know..." Puzzled, Tazuna waved a hand irritably. "Someone so..."
"Open with his emotions? Unlike you, who hasn't told us anything about yourself. Is that really any better?"
Tazuna immediately got defensive. "Hey, I don't have to tell you guys anythi -!"
"Alright, let's cool it." Kakashi stepped neatly between us. "Sakura." He gave me a look. "Tazuna-san..." And here, when Kakashi turned to the other, his eyes were surprisingly narrowed. "You're right," he said sharply after a moment. "You don't have to tell us anything."
Tazuna looked away, and this time I thought I understood a little of what Kakashi was driving at. Was Tazuna hiding something?
Testing this theory, I walked up beside Tazuna while we were all traveling down a dirt road through a forest together, the five of us, the day above us hot and dry. "Tazuna-san, do you have a family?" I asked, sweet and polite.
"I have a daughter and a grandson," he answered, proudly.
"And did you leave them behind in the Wave to travel?" I asked.
"I didn't just wantonly travel! I came out here, to get ninja so I can go back and achieve my bridge building project," said Tazuna, frowning.
"So... if you came all the way out here just to get guards for your project... someone is after you," I guessed.
Tazuna immediately shut down. "I don't have to answer these questions! I told you no ninja and that's what I meant!" he barked. I was taken aback. Tazuna turned angrily to Kakashi. "Is this girl always like this?"
I was embarrassed, but Sasuke, who had been listening closely, frowned. "Actually... Sakura never said anything about ninja. For all she knew, the people who were after you could have been a group of thugs."
Kakashi and Naruto were both staring between us, one with a little more poise than the other.
Tazuna straightened and cleared his throat, flushing. "Y... yes. O-of course. That's what I meant. Thugs."
But even Naruto looked a little unsure now.
There was an awkward silence as we all continued down the road together. My curiosity burned, to know more about who was after Tazuna, but also to know about something else. Finally, I just decided to risk asking, the second question at least. "Tazuna-san... and you don't have to answer this if you don't want to..." He gazed sideways at me suspiciously. "Why didn't you turn to the ninja in your own country for help against these... thugs?"
Tazuna snorted. "Don't they teach you anything? The Wave doesn't have ninja."
My eyes widened. "I -" For once, I had no idea what to say. The Academy taught us the basic layout of a Hidden Village, the rules of being a ninja, the ninja arts, ninja strategy, and the ninja history of our own village. That was it. Even learning how to write essays, for example, was a happy byproduct of the intense focus on being a ninja. Sure, people from big ninja clans were usually taught international relations and diplomacy by their families, along with ninja myths and legends and other things besides dry historical facts. But I'd had no such training. It had never occurred to me that a whole country could exist that didn't have a huge Hidden Village like our Leaf in it.
Naruto looked as confused as I did.
Kakashi decided to take pity on us. "Look. There are lots of countries in the world, right? Each named after something to do with nature. Some countries have Hidden Villages, some don't. A country's Hidden Village is the equivalent of their military power. The Wave is a small, remote island surrounded by water. It does fishing. It was never surrounded by other countries, so it never needed to build up military power. Fire Country just happens to be, ironically, close to the ocean. So we were his nearest mainland country that had a Hidden Village."
"So... what other countries have Hidden Villages?" I asked.
Kakashi nodded; he'd expected the question. "A Hidden Village is separate from, but equal to, the country it lives in. The country is ruled by its Daimyo, but the Hidden Village is ruled by its Kage - in this case, our Hokage, or Fire Shadow, who has a council to guide him that the Daimyo has a seat on. The Kage is the best ninja the village has to offer, par excellence. This goes for all Hidden Villages. Different countries and villages have different customs and cultures, but the basic layout and structure of each Hidden Village is the same. All Hidden Villages have a Kage.
"Many, many countries have Hidden Villages, but the biggest five are Fire - which has our Leaf, or Konoha - Wind - which has Sand, or Suna - Lightning - which has Cloud, or Kumo - Water - which has Mist, or Kiri - and Earth - which has Rock, or Iwa."
"And who are we closest to?" I asked. "I mean, there must be alliances, right?"
"You catch on quick. That's what the ninja wars were fought over - inter village alliances. We are currently closest to Sand - Suna."
"Sand and Wind?" I asked.
"It's a desert place," he said cryptically. "An Arabia. Very strict, and very spiritual. The village is small and the land is harsh, but that's what makes them formidable."
"Do the Kage ever meet?" Naruto asked, suddenly. "What?" he added at our stares. "I get to ask questions, too! If I want to be Hokage, I should know."
"Occasionally. It's always a big thing, when some of the best ninja in the world meet," said Kakashi.
"... Grandpa's really one of the best ninja in the world?" Naruto muttered after a while.
"Stop questioning Hokage-sama," said Kakashi immediately, reflexively. I wondered if that was just part of what made him a good ninja.
I was reminded of the first time I'd seen the famous Professor - of how small and old he'd looked. And of what I'd thought.
"He's a ninja, Naruto," I said. "We hide."
So we were walking down the road, and it was hot and dry, but I didn't want to complain. Ninja were supposed to have good endurance, right? We'd been walking for hours, but we'd probably be walking for the rest of the day as well, and through half a day after that. I had to get used to this.
We passed some more trees, down another dirt path, past some more trees, past a puddle which was kind of weird considering it was so dry but okay. And then after I passed the puddle, there was this weird sound behind me, so I looked around...
Just in time to see two tall, dark, masked ninja with slashed missing-nin hitai-ate (the mark of a traitor) rise up out of the puddle, which hadn't ever actually been a puddle at all but an illusion, and wrap a chain weapon - a shuriken chain - held between them around Kakashi-sensei.
Note to self: The next time I see something weird? Say so.
"One down," the missing nin said as one, and then they tightened the chain, and the sharp metal pricks on the inside ate into Kakashi-sensei's skin, into his eyeballs, the sounds of all his bones snapping, until he collapsed into a puddle of blood and gore there in front of us. I saw the whole gruesome scene up close. And me? I had never been good with scary movies.
I stared, afraid to look, afraid to look away, horrified, nauseous. I couldn't even speak. The cool, the calm, the fearless Kakashi-sensei had been killed. I heard Naruto scream out our Sensei's name, and then the two ninja with the chain had disappeared and in a flash of black - they were just that fast - they were behind Naruto. "Two down," they said as one, and the chain was coming out there for him, and Naruto was looking over his shoulder, frozen in fear.
"Naruto, move!" I screamed, and before I could even think about what I was doing, I threw myself forward, shoved Naruto to the ground, and threw myself on top of him. I could feel him trembling underneath me. I waited with my eyes squinted shut for an attack... that never came.
I looked up. Sasuke had pinned the chain to the tree behind it with a perfectly thrown kunai and shuriken. He leaped up and kicked outward, kicking the two ninjas' heads, separating them. He engaged in a taijutsu fight with one of them, a formidable whirl of fists. I saw the other's feet run past us toward... Tazuna.
Who was also frozen in fear.
Tazuna. Of course. People were after him; they were just ninja. That was what he'd been hiding.
And I had been right next to him and I'd just left him there.
Cursing myself, I made a hand seal. I had never had to pull it out under this much pressure before, but there came the genjutsu, silent. It wrapped itself around Tazuna and he disappeared from the missing nin's view. The missing nin paused. Startled for just that split second I needed.
I had no idea if this would work. I kept the genjutsu up with one hand and I reached around to my equipment pack with the other. I was inspired by what Naruto had said, of hanging, virtually invisible, below the viewing platform on the Hokage Monument. I tied a piece of ninja wire to the end of a kunai knife and threw the kunai knife outward. It arced around - and embedded itself deep into the front of the missing nin's ankle. Then I used the wire to trip him, pull him over onto his stomach, and start reeling him in.
He struggled, looked around, furious - Tazuna was visible now - the missing nin was going to come after me - shit, I really hadn't thought this through -
Then, of all things, Kakashi-sensei appeared before me. Not in the spiritual, guiding sense. In the literal sense. Like, he leaped down nimbly from a tree and right to the ground before me as if he wasn't dead. He picked the missing nin up by the scruff of the collar, knocked him unconscious over the head, and swung him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes - casually.
Apparently, Hatake Kakashi had some serious muscle when it came to corpse-like forms.
Then he zipped at high speeds softly over to Sasuke's fight, picked up the other ninja bodily, and slammed his head against the nearest tree branch - also casually. I winced at the horrible cracking sound it made as the other missing nin fell unconscious. That made me remember the cracking sounds of Kakashi-sensei's bones, and the spikes eating into his bulging eyeballs, and all of a sudden I felt shaky and nauseous and jittery and I realized I might be panicking belatedly. Just a little bit.
I got up off of Naruto, shaking, and I swallowed, my face pale, and I tried to just sit and breathe for a minute.
"Kakashi-sensei," I said, "how -"
He turned to me, and then he saw my condition. "Sorry about that," he said. "I had to fake my death to hide and assess objectively who the missing nin were after. I used a combination of the replacement spell and an illusion. All there really is over there is a broken log. My genjutsu can be a... little harsh, sometimes."
"No kidding," I gasped. Would he be teaching me that?
Sasuke came over, frowning in concern, and rested a hand on my shoulder. "Are you alright?" he asked. I realized it was the first time he had ever voluntarily touched me.
I swallowed back the bile and nodded. "Uh - yeah. A little." Panicking belatedly was better than panicking during the battle. Perhaps I had improved. "How are you alright?" I added incredulously to Sasuke.
A grim smile flickered over his already gaunt dark features. "I've seen worse," he said, and I wondered what he meant. Surely he didn't mean his parents. But perhaps it shouldn't surprise me that someone whose goal in life was murder had already seen it firsthand.
"Kakashi-sensei was impressive, wasn't he?" I asked as Sasuke straightened and we watched Kakashi tie the two unconscious missing nin to a tree.
"Eh." Sasuke seemed a little grumbly. "He was alright." He looked away, gruffly.
I smiled. "You were impressive, too, though," I said knowingly.
"You both were," said Kakashi, looking around to us. "Good job, Sasuke. Good job, Sakura."
"I showed you step one," I said, smiling, remembering our pact.
"That you did. And silent spells, too. Very nice. But remember step two." Prove I have better hand to hand combat skills. I nodded."You might not be able to show me on this particular mission, though. This just went out of our parameters."
I frowned. "But -"
Even Sasuke spoke up in protest. "Sensei -"
Kakashi gave us a warning look and looked around to... Naruto. I had almost forgotten he was there, and that wasn't normal for Naruto. I looked around.
Naruto was standing there beside Tazuna, looking very small and lost and scared. He glanced with big eyes from one of his teammates to the others. "Sorry I didn't come help you right away, Naruto," said Kakashi. "I hadn't predicted you being unable to move. Sakura and Sasuke had to come save you instead." His tone was one of frank surprise, and in that moment I felt sorry for Naruto, because that was even worse than disappointment.
Sure enough, as Kakashi-sensei looked away, Naruto closed his eyes and fisted his hands.
Suddenly, Sasuke spoke up. He'd been watching Naruto, like me, but less sympathetically. "Are you hurt, Scaredy-Cat?" he asked suddenly, and Naruto looked up, his eyes snapping open, blue rage filling them.
"Sasuke!" I stood up quickly, frowning. "Don't say that!"
"Why not? Look at him. He lays there underneath you and now he's just standing here feeling sorry for himself?" Sasuke gave a contemptuous sneer.
Naruto opened his mouth. "I -!"
"What happened to all your great plans to be Hokage? What, you couldn't even do anything?" Sasuke kept on viciously.
I was about to get so angry with Sasuke. But then I looked around to Naruto, and I shut up. Because miraculously, Naruto looked like himself again. He was angry, he was indignant, he was full of energy and life and ready to prove everybody wrong again.
Sasuke was what he'd needed, all along.
Naruto growled and then forced out, "... I swear to you!" A pause. Quieter: "I swear to you. That will never happen again." The look on his face was deadly serious.
I'd had that moment, but it had been both less impressive and less dramatic. It was Naruto's peculiar ability to make things impressive when he said them.
Naruto straightened and lifted his chin. "And I'm going to prove it to you. Which means this mission is still on."
Sasuke's expression had retreated back into one of calm. He was satisfied.
Then Kakashi's sarcastic voice broke in. "Well, as much as I appreciate your spirit, Naruto - not so fast." Naruto opened his mouth in protest, hurt or angry, but Kakashi raised his hand. "It's not about you. Tazuna-san." And Kakashi turned deadly, narrowed, cold eyes onto the previously silent Tazuna, who straightened in nervousness and something like preternatural fear. "I need to talk to you."
"The ninja we fought are -"
"Missing nin," I cut in.
Kakashi nodded. "Ninja who betrayed their village and ran. Outlaws. In this case, from the Hidden Village of the Mist, in Water Country. I have seen them in my Bingo Book. They are known as the Onikyoudai - Demon Brothers. They are of at least Chuunin level. They are well known to keep fighting even at great personal risk, even when it would be wiser to stop. And they were after you, Tazuna-san. Which means someone with the ability to hire ninja really wants you dead." He smiled falsely.
Tazuna swallowed, looking down.
"You did not tell us ninja were after you," Kakashi continued, gaining steam. "You told us bandits. Thugs. Thieves. Gangs. Robbers. Civilian people, in other words, were after you. But not ninja. That would have made this mission a higher rank. A B rank, at the very least. But that would also have made it more expensive. Wouldn't it, Tazuna-san?" Everything about the words was polite, and everything about them was also threatening.
I examined Tazuna's clothes, his shabbiness and his alcohol problem, and for the first time I understood. "Is it normal, for people in the Wave to be this poor, Tazuna-san?" I asked worriedly. I had no experience with civilian fishermen. Perhaps this was common?
But Tazuna sighed, still looking down. "It didn't used to be," he said. "It didn't used to be."
There was a heavy pause. I felt pity for him - sympathy. He just looked so ashamed of himself. "We should at least get him home," I said, though I must admit I felt an inward nervousness at the idea of possibly encountering more ninja. "Then we can decide whether we want to face any more dangerous opponents or not." It seemed like a good middle ground.
"You are all Genin," Kakashi reminded us. "That would put you all in abject danger."
"But we can't quit!" Naruto sounded flabbergasted. Sasuke seemed to agree, in a quieter way.
"He's right, you know, in a way," said Tazuna, still looking away. "I look down on him for putting children in danger like he just did, but in reality I'm no better than he is. I'm the reason you're all here."
He saw us as children. A difference, I remembered, in culture and priorities. Like with my parents.
"Mommy, I want to be a ninja."
My mother looked down at me, flabbergasted, from where she'd been cutting an onion in the kitchen. (My father spent all day working with his hands and my mother was the cook.) "... What?" was all she could get out after a moment. It was as if her heart had stopped.
"I want to be important," I said, holding myself up, "like Sasuke-kun and Ino-chan are." (I knew Ino even before the Ninja Academy. My friendship with Hinata would come later; she was a new student introduced to the class a few months into my first Academy year; she was shy, but she was sat next to me and we became friends. But I always, even before deciding to become a ninja, always knew Ino. She was one of my inspirations for wanting to become a ninja. She was so powerful and confident and had such a bright future ahead of her. I also already knew of Sasuke, through Ino's crush on him, and I thought privately that I had never seen someone with such beauty and poise.) But there were other reasons why I wanted to become a ninja. "I want to fight important people and do important things! I want to help make decisions about stuff." Only the ninja could vote in our Hidden Village, only the ninja mattered, which I knew bothered my father because he read the news religiously and frequently complained about his own lack of social power. Some of it must have sunk through to me. That's why I started reading.
"But, honey..." My mother folded her skirts and kneeled down to look me in the eye. "Ninja are trained to do horrible things at young ages. Ninja kill people. Ninja die before they even hit sixteen. Why would you want to be a ninja?"
"Because I want to be important!" I said again, frowning stubbornly. I was an emotional, short tempered little child, impatient and not fond of repeating myself.
"W-well..." My mother was unsure what to say, surprised by my fervor. "Sometimes, that's not the biggest thing, honey. Why don't you just take a couple of years at civilian school and see how you like it. Maybe you'll find a boy you'd like to marry. Or," she said, as if trying to placate me, "if you really want to be important, you could become a scholar! I know you like reading. You could live at the capital and do... say, sociological research. You don't know what that is, but you'll learn! You could study people. Doesn't that sound interesting?"
I took a page out of Ino's book and tried to think of how she'd respond. I'll never forget what I said.
"I'd rather beat them up!"
Tazuna-san was another example of who I could have become if I hadn't decided to become a ninja. He hated the idea of endangering children, but was forced to do it anyway because he could not defend himself. I was glad, suddenly, of all my training.
It was a ninja's world, after all.
"Someone was after your life, Tazuna-san," I said. "You couldn't help it."
Tazuna looked up at me, his eyes flying open in surprise. "... It's not just me," he forced out after a moment, as if trying to justify himself, or justify my forgiveness. "They're after my family and my country. Everything. But you - you're right, you should just abandon us. Just leave us to die, it's fine." Tazuna looked away pointedly from Kakashi.
"... Thank you, for that dramatic little guilt trip," said Kakashi. "But I've thought about it, and I agree. We'll take you to your home, where we fully expect to get your entire story before deciding whether or not to help you further as you complete your bridge. So be thinking about that."