I happened to meet up with Zaku at the designated location at the same time. The whole team assembled relatively quickly, considering the time. I was already tired and wanting to crawl back into bed. The sky was just beginning to lighten up on its bare edges.

"I would like to inspect each of your packs before we depart to ensure we are not caught unawares. I already inspected Dosu's pack before you two arrived." He holds out his hand in expectation.

Zaku grimaces, so I give Sensei my pack first.

He opens it and begins to dig around, meticulously removing each object to examine it briefly before putting it back. Somehow my pack felt a little lighter after he rearranged everything.

"Next."

Zaku begrudgingly offered his pack. Almost immediately Sensei found something wrong with it.

"I told you, I will provide rations! Cooking in the field can be dangerous by giving away your position."

Sensei throws Zaku's pans, cooking knives, and spatula on the ground. Zaku seems seriously offended. He starts to say something but just sighs and crosses his arms.

"Can I at least put them back in my room before we leave?"

Sensei takes a few seconds before answering. He turns his head to the horizon.

"Yes, but if you do not return within 5 minutes we will leave you behind."

Without acknowledging the concession Zaku hurries to gather up his utensils and dashes away.

Silence.

"So, where exactly are we going Sensei?"

"I will not brief you all twice, so wait for your teammate patiently. And quietly, if you would."

'Great. He's in an amazing mood today clearly. Does this asshole seriously get personally offended at every little annoyance in his life, or something?'

Chirpurp chirp chichi chichi...

The distant warble of a foreign species of bird... I wonder what the bird looks like, all I see are crows around here.

'Maybe there are some bird watching books around...'

The rocky terrain around us is familiar. Though I don't look forward to that rock climbing... Sensei is probably going to make us practice our Chakra training again.

I turn to attention towards our team leader. He is slouching as normal, Dosu clearly doesn't mind super early mornings...

"Sigh."

Before I know it I can hear Zaku's hard pants as he dashes back, sans cooking implements of course.

"Alright, now that we have all gathered and are properly prepared I can brief you all."

"We are going to be going deep into Hot Water Country. They used to have a small elite militia back in my day, but now it is regarded as tourists country for mostly Lightning and Fire nobility due to its multitude of hot springs."

That seems to perk Zaku up immediately. His eyes go comically wide and he punches his fist in the air.

"Sweet! A mineral bath or whatever sounds cool-"

"Do you seriously think we have time in the field to take a bath, Zaku? You are being even more moronic than usual today."

'Ouch.'

That comment causes Zaku to freeze in place and adopt a pained expression. He crosses his arms and stares at the ground.

"Sorry, Sensei."

"Let's move."

He puts on his pack then starts off in the direction of the sunrise. We follow suit.

"So, if there are a lot of nobility in the country, wouldn't there be other ninja too?"

"Asking the hardline questions as usual, Dosu. Yes there is a rotating unknown quantity of foriegn ninja mixed in with the population at any time all throughout Hot Water. But, we only need to be concerned with the roadsides and trying to root out what are merely just temporary settlements."

"Hot Water country is also known for being an ideal location for roving bands of homeless. The lax laws regarding citizenship and need for foriegn traffic... in short, the country has completely open borders so we will not have to worry about sentries."

"How long will we be traveling for, Sensei? And how would we find these, erm, "settlements"?

"We will reach the border by late afternoon, then we approach and see if it is wiser to set camp in our own borders or if it would be better to trek out for more distance today. We can shave off a few hours on the total mission time if it does not seem like there are many village affiliated Ninja."

He smiles.

"And here we are, our first real exercise on our techniques thus far."

I see a huge cliff, maybe a kilometer high, in the distance.

I gulp.

'I hope my rope is strong enough.'

"Now, this is the longest and tallest mountain in all of Rice Country, named Raimei One since it is the first in the four mountain chains that snake up before forming Lightning Country. Interesting sediment since it formed due to volcanic activity, and the border to Hot Water is one hour directly across this exceedingly long range."

"Let us get started, yes?"

-xxx-

Four hours later we get our first allotment of rations. It is a small field kit with tasteless crackers, beef jerky, and a dried fruit of some kind. Apparently Sensei prefers these over these things called "ration bars" but free food is free food and I am exhausted.

"I wish I had some sprouts to go with this..." muses Zaku.

"Yes, it is a little salty but you should not expect a lot out in the field like this. You can drink a little extra water... ah that reminds me. We should take a small break I suppose."

Even though we haven't gone very far to our destination, the hike up the cliff face was straightforward. Tie rope to Zaku, myself, then Dosu, to Sensei at his bemusement, then he re-did my knots saying that would dig into us when I fa-

'Terrifying and I don't want to go back down that mountain if it's the last thing I do.'

...Assist me in case I lost concentration on my Chakra.

Sensei sits down and pulls out an empty metal cup, then makes a hand sign. It fills with water.

"Bother me, and I will not be happy. I will return."

He disappears in a gust of wind.

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I think we should have taken a break as soon as we climbed up the mountain, I wish I could hav-"

"I want some quiet time too..."

Dosu mused, then proceeded to walk aways away... though I could probably shout and get his attention.

Zaku seems uncomfortable suddenly. He isn't breaking the silence...

"Pretty early morning! I wish i could have gotten more sleep in."

"Yeah and now I won't even be able to cook... ugh I have to eat crap again for almost a month."

I take a seat on a rocky outcropping.

"You really like cooking. What got you into it? Did your mother make really good lunches with you or something?"

"...No."

Zaku turns pained for a second then cools his features and closes his eyes.

"I lived on the street since I was 4, and lived off scavenging scraps from dumpsters and stealing from stalls if I was lucky not to be caught."

'Shit.'

"Ah... well... that's certainly very formidable circumstances. I'm-"

"Don't say anything like 'I wish you didn't have to go through that'. Seriously."

He sticks his hands in his pockets and leans against a boulder. His cheek is lying against the dark surface.

"I just respect Otokage-sama too much to say I didn't have to live that life to meet him. He is my salvation, Kin. I was on the verge of death and he taught me, he improved me, and now he is going to improve the world next."

'Super brainwashy...'

"Kinda tough what happened earlier, huh? At the team meeting before we started off I mean."

Zaku was surprised.

"Um, well, yeah. That stuff was pricey for my budget you kn-"

"That's not what I mean, it is kinda tough being the target all the time... huh?"

"Sensei is such a dick."

Then he stiffens and looks around nervously.

"I didn't hear anything."

I tease. He visibly relaxes then chuckles.

"Yeah... anyway, it's fine. It's better than being on the street, I just hate the torture days... he may be crabby but he's no where near the levels earlier this mo-"

"Ugh I almost forgot about that... I threw up that day."

"You up chuck way more than before, that's for sure."

We start to laugh together.

We spend the rest of our break cracking jokes.

-xxx-

The entire group travels to the edge of a long strip of mostly flat terrain, it's actually a pretty pleasant trip. I approach the edge to see shear drop that curves inward then a huge gust of wind knocks a rock and carries it off before the rock plummets even further down than the climb up.

I back away.

"And so that's why we will be tying ourselves together just as Kin did before. We did not need it the way up, but this route will be treacherous. Two small wind streams are known to converge onto this side of the mountain."

As we tie ourselves together I start breaking out into cold sweats. Zaku puts his hand on my shoulder as I am tying the rope in a "bowline" to myself.

"I'll catch you, OK?"

I manage a smile and finish the knot.

"Yeah, thanks. That helps."

Sensei takes the first step, then Zaku, I activate my Chakra cycle on my feet as I am about to step onto the surface, and Dosu trails behind me.

As we descend, little pebbles start to fall and pelt my face, which while not dangerous is annoying. I can see Sensei holding his arm up for cover as he keeps pace.

It takes a good ten minutes before I lose my concentration to a particularly sharp rock pelting me. Zaku tried to catch me but he was too slow and so I wound up being carried by Sensei and Zaku the rest of the way down.

At the foot of the mountain Sensei addresses us one more time.

"We have been going toward the border for the majority of time on the mountain, we are only thirty minutes away from official Hot Water territory. I want to scout ahead first then I will return. I will be back within two hours, then relay whether or not we can proceed today. You can do whatever you want, take a nap, I do not care just consider this a break. Absolutely no cooking!"

He glares at Zaku.

"I will leave each of you a portion of rations. Just keep yourself from wandering too far. I expect to see you all here when I return."

And without further fanfare he dashes off into the presumed direction of Hot Water country.

"He's been ditching us and leaving all day today..." Zaku muses.

"Well, as team leader, I say we spar." Dosu pipes in before Zaku could go on a rant.

'Well, not a terrible idea...'

"I'd spar, but we should keep ourselves from going too hard, you know?"

"That's obvious but I suppose verbalizing unwritten rules is a good idea. No excessive Chakra usage?"

"No way, then I can't use my abilities! And Genjutsu is super famous for people who use small amounts of Chakra."

"I don't think we should handicap ourselves... but limiting our Chakra usage is probably a good idea Zaku. We don't want to exhaust ourselves."

I'd been recently reading about the symptoms of Chakra Exhaustion in both of my books. Apparently it can range from being merely tired to completely fatal so I really would rather not risk hitting that point.

"OK, sounds like a plan then. We will spar until Sensei come back then. Now then... let's start!"

Dosu leaps forward and clocks me in the face. In the same moment, Zaku blasts Dosu off of me and begins to pepper both of us with kunai.

I focus on dodging, and trying to get distance from Dosu. When he has his back to me and seems to be changing focus from me to Zaku I start a set of hand seals.

Boar. Monkey. Snake.

"Demonic Illusion: Snake Paralysis!"

This is an edited version of the basic Demonic Hell Viewing, instead of seeing generally traumatic experiences the target believes that they are being constricted by large constrictor-type snakes. The advantage of this is that it does exactly the same thing as Demonic Hell Viewing, but instead focuses more on the paralysis portion of the technique.

Dosu is a sitting duck, and so I start to pepper him with Senbon, of which the pain causes Dosu to break from my Genjutsu.

'It may not be so sporting to focus on only Dosu over Zaku...'

I shake my head, Dosu is stronger than me or Zaku, it would only be natural to gang up on him.

By the end of one and a half hours we are panting and exhausted. We didn't fight the entire time, but we did spar several times in the internim. Despite mine and Zaku's best efforts Dosu "won" each bout handily.

By the end of two hours, Sensei still isn't back. He seriously isn't the type to be late.

We all decide as a group to give him another hour before we try to track him down. The strange thing about all this is that the mountain was supposed to be the dangerous part, not entering the peaceful tourist-trap nation.

By the time thirty minutes go by we're already planning on whether to go ahead and search for Sensei or to go back to the village. Dosu's main argument was that it is unbecoming to cut and run, essentially leaving an ally to the wolves. Zaku's argument was that he's so much stronger than us that if he wasn't able to handle something it would be suicidal to blunder into Sensei's direction.

'I can easily see them both being correct...'

"So, whaddya think Kin? Should we go forward or back?"

'I hate being pressured! I just want this mission over with already.'

"Maybe we can flip a coin? I don't really mind either way..."

"So lame! You have to choose, you can't cop out of this one choice!"

"Indeed, as if I would let the fate of my team depend solely on dumb luck."

"If it matters to you guys so much, let's just draw lots. You each get to pick one, and whoever gets the short stick gets to decide where we go next."

"That doesn't solve anything, Kin. Just pick a side so we can go to help Sensei."

"No! We shouldn't bother, if he isn't strong enough to..."

"Yes, yes, we heard it before, Zaku. But that's precisely why we are on this squad. We need to be able to depend on one another in times of hardship, at least on the mission."

"How come you can interrupt me, but anytime anyone interrupts you, you get all butthurt and pissy. Such BS, man."

'I have to stop this before it gets out of hand.'

I don't particularly like Sensei, he's a pretty hard person to like. But if I was stranded would he want to go save me?

'Probably not of his own volition. He only cares about impressing the Otokage... in his words.'

"Can we get into trouble if we leave?"

That seems to put Zaku in a desperate state.

"You... but he's such an asshole!"

"And if we failed a mission without even trying what kind of message does that send to our dear, beloved Otokage-sama? That we're cowards, or that we're lazy?"

"You're full of shit."

Well, I guess that solves that question.

"We should go forward. We don't want to bring unnecessary attention to ourselves, right?"

"Man... why can't things just go my way for once..."

I chime in and put my hand on his shoulder.

"Think, if you save Sensei, you can lord it over him."

"Whatever."

He brushes my hand away but his smirk betrays his real feelings about that idea.

"Gross. Don't touch teammates when not necessary, new team rule."

"You can't decide something like that! And when exactly is 'necessary', hm?"

"Let's just go, guys. I don't want to hear these arguments anymore, we are being so unprofessional right now."

Dosu stalks into the pine forest. We follow him, though I do note that Sensei appeared to have marked his path with a cross carved into the bark of the trees.

Sensei's path stops cold at a river.

Dosu finds Sensei's headband stashed in a tree hollow. With a note. Dosu read it aloud.

"I went ahead. You all obviously had the sense to approach when a clearly marked path is ahead of you. This is when the true test begins... basically he doesn't want to babysit us for this mission... he says he will capture 10 targets... we are expected to find 10 collective targets and detain them. Then to bring who we 'manage' to haul back here... within 3 days time."

"He seriously ditched us!?"

All three of us cry in unison.

-xxx-

The first C-Rank already hit a snag! But you could probably guess something like this was going to happen, right?