I do not own Naruto

Hokage's tower

As Risu entered the Hokage's office, he was surprised to see another jonin in a green spandex. greeting him with a dazzling smile and a thumbs up.

"A, welcome to this meeting, my friend! I am Maito Gai, Konoha's Sublime Green Beast of Prey."

"It's a pleasure to meet Konoha's taijutsu expert and one of the few men capable of opening the seventh Hachimon." He greeted politely

"Yosh! So you've heard about me! How youthful! We should be training together one of these days!"

Risu nodded, before turning to the Hokage.

"I'm glad you two could make it with such a short forewarning. I'll just skip the formalities and go straight to the point: I have just received an aid request from team 8. Their client was attacked by two missing nin, jumping the mission from C rank to B rank. From what she was able to gather, Wave country is currently under the stranglehold of a businessman named Gato. Tazuna-san, the client, is building a bridge that would threaten Gato's monopoly on the nation. We have already negotiated trading benefits from the village once the bridge is completed, we only need to make sure that the client is safe and the bridge's construction is completed. Gai, you and your team will assist Kurenai in protecting the client. Risu, you will gather information regarding Gato's business and, should you deem it necessary, make sure that the businessman is killed by the same missing nin he hired. Your team can assist you or provide additional support with team 8 and 9. Any questions?"

"Just one. I was wondering if, since we're in the area, I could take my genins on a two to three week survival exercise before heading back." asked Risu.

"You might. If Gai has no further questions, you leave in two hours. Dismissed"

Risu and Gai both disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

Risu arrived at the hot springs.

Kage bunshin no jutsu

"Hatchlings! We have been assigned an emergency mission to the land of Waves. Run home, pack everything for a month-long mission and meet me at the village gate in two hours. My clones will check your bags to make sure you got everything you need."

It took a few seconds for team 7 to fully understand what Risu-sensei told them. Before Naruto could shout his excitement at their mission, sensei's clone had already grabbed him and Shunshin'd him away to his house."

Two hours later, Konoha gate

"Yosh! My name is Rock Lee! Let's go out together! I'll protect you till I die!"

Sakura stared at the boy in spandex smiling in front of her "No way."

Lee slumped, causing Naruto to let out a nervous laugh, while a girl with a white sleeveless dress forced his head down in a bow, apologizing to Sakura for her teammate.

"Sorry about that, it'll get better with time, I promise."

Naruto shrugged "It's not a problem. I'm Naruto and these are my teammates Sasuke and Sakura. Are you here to support team 8 as well? Do you know what happened?"

"We are. I'm Tenten, this is Lee and over there is Neji. Our sensei should be here in a moment."

The last member of Gai's team nodded. "It's good to see you well, Risu-san"

"It's a pleasure to see you too, Neji-kun. I hope your training proceeds well. I hope to see you grow into a fine chunin and eventually jonin."

Neji smirked. Gai emerged from the gate office, appearing in front of the group as a green blur.

"Yosh! Now that we're all here it's time to head out! We shall run at full speed and catch up to Kurenai-san's team before dusk! And if we can't do that, we shall run from Wave to Konoah twenty times! Let's go!"

"Yes, Gai-sensei! And if we can't do that, we should run to Suna on our hands!"

"That's the spirit, Lee! Let's go!"

Gai and Lee started running ahead of everyone, immediately followed by Neji, Tenten and Risu, with team 7 closing the group only a few meters behind.

The trio swiftly caught up with their sensei

"Sensei, what can you tell us about this mission?" asked Sasuke

"B, possibly A-rank mission, got classified as a C rank and assigned to the wrong team. They have already encountered two missing nin hired by shipping magnate Gato of Gato Transport. Team 9 is sent as combat backup, while we are to investigate the situation in Wave country and what influence Gato Transport has on the locals. If deemed necessary, You three are to assist team 8 and 9 to protect the client. I have been assigned to spy and possibly assassinate Gato. Once we link up to team 8, I will leave you three in charge of the other sensei and will follow at a distance in order to not to tip Gato off of my presence."

The genin remained silent. This was a big mission and the consequences, whether they succeeded or not, could have massive ramifications. Massive enough for a field promotion, maybe?

"Don't worry, I'll have my summon keep an eye on you. I will infiltrate the enemy forces, so if anyone is sent after you, I will know. You three are capable enough to handle most threats and, should you find yourself overwhelmed, the three of you together carry enough Kibaku Fuda to destroy a small village. Just use Shinkiro to hide, release all your tags, and send 50 tags per Kibaku Enjin against your target."

Tenten snapped her head "How many explosives tags do you three carry!? Where did you even find that many tags?"

Risu smirked "I taught them how to make them. Sasuke and Sakura carry about 300 each, while Naruto here is extremely trigger happy and has about a thousand of them"

The blonde laughed, scratching his head in embarrassment.

After a few hours, the group reached team 8 and Tazuna, who had set up camp on the side of the road. Risu called his genin to the side, pulled out his fuinjutsu supply and gestured to them to show him their back.

"Like I mentioned before, I will not travel with the group. I should be close enough to intervene in case of danger, but I won't be able to respond immediately. Should you be wounded, I want you to channel as much chakra as you can into the seal I'm applying to you right now. It will heal your wounds or at least prevent you from dying."

Tensha Fuin: Shosen no jutsu

An elaborate pattern spread across Sasuke's back. Risu moved on to Sakura

"The Tensha Fuin is one of the most advanced seals I know, and allows me to store a pre-prepared jutsu, all someone needs to do to use it is to pump some chakra into it, even if they normally wouldn't be able to use said jutsu. In this case, I stored Shosen no jutsu, the only healing jutsu I know. You can only use it once and it will drain your chakra. Not as bad as the Dama no jutsu, but close. Only use it if you absolutely need it."

"Why don't you put another one?" asked Naruto

"Multiple Tensha Fuin interfere with one another. You only get one."

"Can this seal store any jutsu?" asked Sasuke

"Theoretically yes. But it does increase the chakra cost exponentially, so it's best used to store support type jutsus or jutsus you cannot use yourself." Risu stepped back

Kuchiyose no Jutsu

Three orange centipedes, almost a meter in length, appeared right next to the genins

"These three will follow you around. They are very proficient Doton users, so they will hide underground until you reach the shore. They won't be able to help you while crossing the water, but will link up as soon as they can once you reach Wave. Be careful, listen to the other sensei. If you can, get some tips from Maito Gai, he's Konoha's taijutsu expert. Whatever happens, stay calm, follow orders and act like the professionals I know you are. I have faith in you."

And with that, Risu-sensei disappeared in a Shunshin and team 7 joined up Kurenai's team.

The following day, Wave country

The team landed on the shores of the Wave. The boat owned by Tazuna's friend was too small for everyone to fit, so a few of them had to follow on foot via water walking. Gai and Lee had immediately volunteered, while Naruto, Sasuke and Neji had agreed to do the same shortly after. About halfway there, Sakura has offered Sasuke to swap, and despite the initial reluctance, the boy had accepted, while Tenten had offered the same to Naruto. While pretty good, their water walking wasn't perfect and the two tired themselves far faster than the others. Once on land, the group had proceeded to the edge of the village, where they were introduced to Tazuna's daughter Tsunami and grandnephew Inari.

About an hour after, Risu had snuck into the house, scaring Tsunami with his sudden appearance.

"Sorry about that, miss Tsunami, scaring you wasn't my intention."

"It's alright, you just surprised me." She took a few deep breaths to calm her heart. "Can I offer you something, ninja-san?"

"Afraid not, I'll report to my colleagues and I'll be off." he said, sitting down next to Gai and Kurenai.

"You were followed by Zabusa Momochi."

The two jonin hardened their features.

"That complicates things. If Gato is willingly to hire someone with a price tag that high he'll probably spare no expenses. One of us needs to be with Tazuna-san at all times, regardless of the situation." pointed out Kurenai.

"Yosh! Do you have a plan, Risu-san?"

"I have a pretty good idea as to where Gato is located, I'll infiltrate and try to get as much information about the man as possible." He turned to his team. "Hatchlings, I need you three to investigate the town. Naruto, you're the team leader on this. Gather up all the useful information, write them down and hand them to one of my centipedes, they'll take that info directly to me. I want a report before tomorrow afternoon."

Naruto nodded

"Very well. Zabusa has an apprentice of sorts. Young, long black hair, pale complexion, was posing a Kiri hunter nin for some reason. I don't think he will approach you, but if he does, act cautiously." Risu said, before disappearing in a swirl of leaves

"Sensei, who is this Momochi guy?" asked Kiba.

"An S-rank missing nin from Kiri. Was nicknamed the Demon of the Bloody Mist after slaughtering his graduating class. He joined ANBU and became a member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, before attempting a coup against the Mizukage. He's been on the run ever since."

The genin went white, and Tazuna started to sweat. If that was the caliber of ninja Gato was willing to send after him, he was going to die. But then again, the third sensei said Zabusa had only followed them, that meant he was hesitant to fight them because the senseis here were just as strong as him, right? Right?

Naruto and his teammates got up, ready for their mission

"Should we go as ninja or try to mix with the civilians?" asked Sakura

Naruto frowned, thinking about it.

"I think we should start as civilians." he finally decided, hiding his hitai-ate in his pocket and started to remove his shuriken holder. Sasuke unsealed a jacket, one of the few clothes he owned that didn't have the Uchiha logo on them, and wore it to cover up the clan symbol on his shirt. "So, what's the plan?" he asked the blonde.

"It's simple, just wander around and try to catch any news. We head out together until we find a plaza or a decent meeting spot, then we split up and regroup there every 30 minutes. After two hours we go in as ninja and try to expand on anything we gathered."

"Just like the retirement home." muttered Sakura.

"If it worked there, it should work here." replied Sasuke, opening the door and leaving the house with his team.

Three hours later, Wave plaza

The search had been rather uneventful. They had learned that Gato opened up a port in Wave about two years ago and started to slowly grow, strangling the competition one by one with cheaper services and buying out everything once they went bankrupt. Once he had total control over the port, he marched in with a small army of thugs and started running the country like a dictator. There were a few riots, but after he publicly executed a man named Kaiza, who they discovered was Tsunami's late husband roughly six months ago, the country essentially gave up. Tazuna had started working on the bridge about a year before Gato arrived, and once Kaiza was gone, the magnate's full attention shifted toward this project, forcing him to flee and try to complete the bridge by continuing the work on the Fire country's side of the border. Materials were already being delivered there, he only needed to smuggle some workers over. Once the bridge was completed the fire Daimyo was planning to station a contingency of samurai to collect his half of the toll and they would be more than capable of dealing with Gato's thugs.

"So essentially, if the bridge is completed Gato will either lose his monopoly or have to deal with an angry fire Daimyo" commented Naruto. "How did you even find this information, Sasuke?"

The boy shrugged. "Found the guy that drew the contract when they suggested it to the fire Daimyo."

"Well done, Sasuke-kun" praised Sakura

Naruto wrote down everything on a piece of paper, folded it over and gave it to the yellow centipede sensei placed on his head every time they went for a mission. He had not gotten used to the critter just yet, but he was getting there. With a small puff of smoke, the centipede disappeared.

"Now what?" asked Sakura

Sasuke started walking away.

"Hey, teme! Where are you going?" shouted Naruto

"Sensei said that Maito Gai was the Konoha expert in taijutsu. I'm asking him to train me until sensei gives us another mission."

"Oh yeah, sensei said that…Wait for me! I'm coming too!" shouted Naruto, following his teammate back to the house.

Sakura frowned, but followed them. She had no intention to be anywhere near someone wearing something like that… monstrosity both Gai and Lee wore. Perhaps she could ask Kurenai to teach her a genjutsu or two?

Tazuna's house, the next morning

"Yosh! Let's go, my youthful students! Another ten laps around the town and we're almost ready to start the real workout!"

"Yes, Gai-sensei!" shouted Lee.

Naruto and Sasuke were panting, cursing each other for deciding to ask the man for help in their training. As they passed by Tazuna's house, they spotted Sakura practicing, probably some kind of genjutsu, with Kurenai instructing her and team 8. With a bit of regret, the two continued their run after their crazy sensei.

Risu smirked, observing his students with his Byakugan. He had followed Zabusa and his apprentice to their hideout, a large structure suspended between the trees within the massive park that surrounded Gato's mansion. For such a short man, Gato seemed to really enjoy massive buildings. He was tailing the man on his way to Zabusa's hideout while one of his shadow clones was rummaging through the man's office. The businessman looked pissed. He had no doubt heard of Tazuna's return and of Zabusa's inaction, and if Risu was lucky, maybe he could have been convinced to break off the contract with the man. Unlikely, but he had seen stranger things happening to Kiri ninjas. Yagura's bloodline purges had certainly taken him by surprise. He had half an idea that something in Kiri just pushed people to go crazy. Perhaps something in the water?

Shrugging off his musings, he jumped to another tree, leaving Tazuna's house out of the range of his Byakugan.

After tailing Gato for another good 15 minutes, they reached the hideout. He could see some traps hidden among the treetops and lowered himself to the ground, scanning the building and positioning himself behind a wall, observing Zabusa thanks to his Byakugan. Straining his eyes, he could see Gato's mouth flapping and started reading his lips. Reading Zabusa's reply was not as easy, mainly due to the nuke-nin's annoying tendency to move his tongue in random directions while talking. He had always hated that trick. A rather simple way to prevent lip-reading, but one he never got the hang to counter properly.

As Gato tried to get closer to Zabusa, the man's apprentice, an extremely effeminate boy, grabbed and broke the man's wrist. Zabusa himself stopped the samurai from drawing their weapons. Threats were exchanged, demands were put forward, blame was pushed, excuses were made and at the end of the day Gato left with nothing but the promise that Zabusa would handle things. Eventually. He smiled when he read Zabusa's apprentice talking about how it was too early for them to kill Gato. This job would be a lot easier than expected. If he could just find some evidence Gato was planning to remove Zabusa from the equation, or at least forge such a proof, his job would be pretty much complete.

Notes

Yes, the Wave arc will be very different this time. While extremely entertaining in its own right, there are quite a few things that bother me on how it's handled in canon, mostly on how Kakashi doesn't report to the Hokage about the increase difficulty of the mission and the total lack of backup. Let's be honest, if Haku had decided to deal with Kakashi while Zabusa was recovering, everyone would have died. So... in this situation the sensei actually called for backup. And Risu being an infiltration and espionage specialist, as opposed to Kakashi being a combat specialist, deals with the problem in his own way. This time you got cheated out of a jonin battle, but I can assure you'll see more than enough fights during the Chunin exams.

Believe it or not, the Tensha Fuin already exist in canon Naruto. Somewhat. It was used by both Itachi and Madara to implant a jutsu, Amaterasu and Izanagi respectively. Now, I have no clue why this thing is another sharingan ability and not a fuinjutsu, but to me it makes far more sense as one of the strongest possible uses of fuinjutsu. So, in this story, Tensha Fuin will be the ninja equivalent of Contingency. If you play Pathfinder (or D&D i guess) you know what I'm talking about, if you don't you should probably find some friends and start playing Pathfinder (or D&D i guess)