The following morning, which was a Saturday was not particularly eventful for Lu. He'd unraveled his hair and went to a nearby hair salon to get his hair washed and coiled. Finger coils were one of Lu's favorite styles, although he didn't have them, he saw some models from the Cloud Village on a newspaper cover that made him interested in them. He still wondered who did his hair when he was asleep at the library two days ago and he still couldn't put his finger on who exactly could've done his hair. As for team seven, they all were awake early, about the crack of dawn, and were all in the Hokage's office. They waited for about thirty minutes until Kakashi entered, late, but somehow earlier than their client, a drunk man with a wifebeater under some dirty blue construction overalls, and some beat-up wooden sandals that had to give the man blisters.
"You're telling me this group of runts is going to escort me to wave country?" he dismissively remarked, stumbling his way to the center of the room. The genin were unimpressed, Naruto nearly let out a snort, but a leer from Sakura kept him silent for the time being.
"...As you can see, this is your client for your upcoming C-rank mission," the hokage coughed.
The posture of all three genin straightened and they quickly became sympathetic for the man. If there was anything to understand in the scene before him, the client was drinking heavily because of stress from the impending monopoly over his country.
"I'm," the client paused, hiccuping and nearly dropping his beer, "Tazuna, and," he paused again, putting down his beer and stabilizing himself a bit, "I'll be staying here for a week before I got back to my village to build a bridge. I need escorting to go there as there will be bandits al…ong the way and I'm fairly unequi…ped to defend myself," the hazily explained. With that, team seven left the Hokage's office and returned to their usual training grounds.
"Do you think he'll be okay?" Sakura asked with a concerned look on her face.
"I honestly have no clue," Naruto mumbled, throwing a rock into the river with the intention of rock-skipping.
"I can somewhat understand his situation, but if the stress is that bad and causing him to drink that heavily, he'll need our protection from more than just Zabuza," Sasuke retorted emptily, before throwing another rock, intercepting Naruto's and ricocheting away from the point of impact.
"Must you always show off, teme?" Naruto dryly complained.
"It's only a dobe, such as yourself, that would see a simple rock-skipping trick as "showing off," maybe you're just too untalented," Sasuke teased.
"I'll show YOU untalented, asshole," Naruto said before putting his hands in his signature handsign for the multi-shadow-clone technique.
"Both of you ought to SHUT UP," Sakura bellowed before clobbering both of them on their heads, leaving a comical knot that lasted for thirty seconds.
When Lu walked into the salon, he noticed an attractive woman doing hair, but he quickly shook his head to stop himself from deterring from his goal of getting finger coils. After fifteen minutes of waiting, he finally sat in a chair to have his hair done. He noticed a meek girl in the corner, who seemed to be staring at Lu, not that it bothered him, anyway.
"Alright," A tall woman, with a similar face to the girl he'd just noticed called to him. "What do you have in mind for your hair?" She queried.
"I'd like finger coils, I have a full head of hair, he described, "I hope that's not too much of an inconveni-" he was cut off by the woman leaning forward, sort of snarling at Lu below herself.
"Are you saying that this salon isn't capable of doing that simple hairstyle?" she growled, before leaning further toward the boy, causing him to blush a little.
"I…uh…" he was at a loss for words, "I just didn't want to be a problem…." he finished.
The woman seemingly accepted this comment and went along about doing his hair.
Fifteen minutes later, he found himself talking with the girl that was staring at him and it was revealed that she was the stylist's younger sister and had been practicing on Lu in the library, and that was why, until this day, his hair was braided.
It was the following week, six days later to be exact, and the mission to the waves would begin. Team Seven's genin had to go home and gather their materials, so when Sakura got home and informed her parents that she'd be gone for about three weeks to a month, her mother silently accepted the information and her father became concerned for her. She had to debate with her father whether or not she was well-equipped enough or even fit to be a shinobi, which she initially felt insulted by, but she realized in their conversation, that he was trying to discourage her in order to keep her safe. She was his only daughter, and child for that matter, after all. Upon realizing this, Sakura waited five minutes for her father to stop trying to convince her, but when she noticed that wouldn't change, she threw a smoke bomb and went to the rendevous point, the village gate.
As for Sasuke, it was a quick trip in and out. He still pondered whether or not Naruto's joke was a cry for help or a genuine dark joke, out of humor of his "situation". He never considered the energy-filled, beaming blonde to have such dark humor. To be fair, it was only once in the past week, but it sort of worried the dark-haired teen. Was his friendship with Naruto based on a mask he created… or was it real? He simply couldn't tell. Despite his time spent thinking, the Uchiha proceeded to the village gate and spent his time walking there thinking of strategic ways to use his new ninjutsu, not that he was extremely proficient in them, yet he still wanted to have plans for when he encountered Zabuza.
Naruto himself wasn't worried about that at all. He was excited to finally go on a mission that wasn't an errand that was labeled as a "D-rank" for the sake of making the genin feel accomplished. His practice with fuinjutsu would finally pay off along with his time spent training his kenjutsu. For some odd reason, they clicked just as well as taijutsu did for him. The blonde seemed to naturally be good at certain aspects of being a shinobi and he noticed this when he began to understand fuinjutsu closely.
"I am so PUMPED to go on a mission," he began as he leaped out of his window, "GOODBYE KONAHA, AND HERE I COME WAVE COUNTRY!" he announced aloud to no one in particular. His neighbors angrily scolded the boy for his noise but he ignored them on his way to the village gate.
Lu kindly thanked the stylist, and paid her 3,000 ryo, adding a 500 ryo tip from the original 2,500 ryo he initially had to pay, and went home. He collected a few scrolls and his usual equipment along with rations and camping equipment. His time spent training with Sakura and sparring against Naruto and Sasuke allowed him to modify his bubble style jutsus and he somewhat could apply it in his taijutsu similarly to a Hyuga. When he got to the village gate, he realized he was on time, but team seven save for their sensei were earlier than he was. Naruto seemed to be trying to control his excitement, but anyone who knew the boy was aware he was psyched. After twenty minutes of waiting, the copy ninja finally arrived. He seemed to have basic equipment but knowing he was a jonin, the genin expected that he had some kind of seals to conceal his equipment. It helped that he arrived escorting Tazuna and they were on time to leave, rather than early like the genin were.
"Are you all ready? This is a C-rank mission," Kakashi asked, but the way he asked implied he also was aware of the true nature of the mission. He was surprised when they found out about it before him and were already preparing, even more so that they didn't turn down the mission upon being asked, knowing the difficulties of the mission.
"Yes, Kakashi sensei," the genin replied in unison.
Over the course of a three day trip, which would've been maybe a few hours without Tazuna, they finally arrived at the border to wave country and were about to cross when a kunai soared past Tazuna's face. The man froze in fear and Lu immediately casted bubble style:disperse, or a variant of the bubble style technique that created 150-300 small bubbles that would disperse into the surrounding area, coating anything they came in contact with and it allowed him to sense the chakra signature of anyone who came in contact with the jutsu.
"I count twelve enemies," Lu signed to his team, "4 are genin level combatants, 3 are chunin level combatants, the last 5 are basic bandits," he signed again. Team seven understood and Kakashi threw down a smoke bomb and activated his sharingan, but in that same moment, he also told the genin that he was going to handle two of the three chunin, but they could handle the rest of them. Naruto left three shadow clones near Tazuna and then instructed them to do the sealing jutsu: three directions seal around the man. This jutsu should've been at a B rank, but Naruto's chakra amount made the jutsu easy to execute with merely three clones rather than two clones and himself. This seal trapped Tazuna in a pyramid, but it also protected him from jutsu below the chakra amount put into the seal; and seeing as Naruto had so much chakra, that seal was as good as locked.
"I've locked down Tazuna-san, we can go further," Naruto called out to his comrades.
With this call out, both Sasuke and Lu simultaneously let out a barrage of their respective elemental jutsu. Sasuke used the phoenix flower justu and Lu used a combined version of bubble style: disperse, which acted as a chakra sapping emission of ten bubbles with the radius of three square feet, taking up enough space to occupy two or maybe three people. With the addition of his ability to filter his jutsu to only target enemies, he effectively useda technique that sapped the bandits and genin on the opposing side's chakra. Sakura followed up by tying the dropped enemies up and sending for a escort squad to retrieve them within a week. After this she reunited with Naruto and Kakashi, fending off the two chunin. Kakashi noticed the arrival of his kunoichi student and faked his death to see how the genin would react. They didn't even flinch, but they did wonder why the man gave up on them and handed the responsibility of three chunin to the four genin despite what he originally said about taking two of them down.
"Lazy ass," Sasuke grumbled, rolling his eyes and signaling for Lu to fall back and reunite with Sakura and Naruto.
"You're joking," Sakura rolled her eyes, before signaling for for Naruto to shunshin and follow her back to Lu and Sasuke.
"So, what's the plan," Naruto asked before drawing his tanto.
"It's a three versus four situation, they're higher ranked than us and they're missing-nin so we could likely get a decent added bonus for catching them," Lu surmised. Team seven nodded slowly, but they were starting to worry if Lu was only thinking about money when he was on his missions. He seemed to always have enough for himself and extra for his friends when they were out, so they all shook that thought off.
"They're going to underestimate us," Sakura added.
"So, do we want this to look flashy or should we just take them down?" Naruto queried.
"You're truly a dobe, Naruto," Sasuke drawled. "But I suppose we can," he grinned.
The rest of the teens also smiled and their killing intent leaked out heavily.
"You're seriously idiots if you think your killing intent is stronger than ours, or even intimidating," one chunin called out.
"Especially against us, " another called out.
By this point, they dropped down and announced who they were.
"We're the demon brothers and our powerful gauntlets laced with venom strong enough to drop two hundred men with the tiniest drop of the venom dead," they announced in unision.
"...Hey teme, you called me a 'dobe,' but if I'm even half as dumb as these dumbasses, please stab me in my leg after we're done," Naruto winced at the odd display ahead of him.
"...Dobe, you don't even compare," Sasuke deadpanned.
Naruto heaved a sigh of relief before shunshinning directly behind one of the brothers to the silent chunin that was ahead of the team. Sakura followed in pursuit, making sure Naruto wouldn't do anything too brave.
"You have got to stop bursting ahead of us at random times," She chastised, before firing off three water bullets directly at their opponent. Unsurprisingly, they dodged by leaping out of the trees and directly ahead of them in the clearing, with a handsign ready to fire some type of jutsu. Naruto stopped Sakura before she attempted to dodge and pointed out that there was no chakra being built up.
"Trying to fake us this early in the battle is a blunder so hilarious that it has to be a way to lead us in," Sakura grinned.
"Shut it, brat. I'm expecting to get a hefty paycheck out of Tazuna after we kill all of you off," the man remarked before firing off a multibarrage of water gun bullets from his finger.
"Those are fast…" Naruto commented before turning to his back and noticing the damage they left.
"And strong," Sakura added. "This is likely because it's a compressed version of the water bullet, so it's probably comparable to a laser or strong wind jutsu. With that in mind, he's not firing directly at us so he must be trying to trap us," she deduced. "Buuut… I have a plan," she informed the blonde.
Once their plan was set, Naruto rushed the man with his tanto in hand and a kunai in the other, he forced the man into a taijutsu situation and jumped back, summoned two clones, and bursted back at him with the compressed chakra in their palms and his feet, propelling himself forward like a cannon, catching the man off gaurd. His opponent dropped two smoke bombs and let off a barrage of his water gun technique, this time from two places. Naruto was hit on his shoulder and he gasped. Once the man heard this, he lunged at Naruto with his kunai in hand and pierced his throat. Naruto then dispelled in a puff of smoke and Sakura expanded the chakra in her hand, creating a water prison and drowing the man to the point of unconsciousness.
"He actually fell for that?" Sakura deadpanned.
"Of course I didn't," the man said before stabbing her in her back and grabbing her neck, snapping it. There was a painful crunching sound.
"SAKURA!" Naruto called out in fear and denial.
"Face it brat, you're too inexperienced to kill an experienced killer such as myself. Give up and I might make it painless for you," the man grinned before wiping off his kunai.
"Painless?" a voice, that seemed to belong to the pink haired kunoichi that he had just killed said, "...As if," she laughed before a wild torrent of water from five directions filled up about 200 square feet in circumference around them, and had a depth of seven feet.
The man noticed that there was a circular space that the water filled up, which made no sense unless it was a genjutsu, so he did the sign to release a genjutsu but noticed it had no effect.
"Those deaths hurt, I get those memories back ya know?" Naruto growled. "And for that, we'd like to pay you back," he said with the added sound of 15 Narutos in unison. "LIGHTNING STYLE, LIGHTNING BALL JUTSU," they all boomed, sending a volley of 750 lightning balls about the size of someone's head at the deep pool below them.
Sakura, for her part was already in a tree and was shielding herself with the terra shield jutsu in order to not get caught by the volley of lightning balls that rained down on the missing-nin.
"I think that was a job well done, but I should really get Lu over here to absorb my water back, so until then, that barrier stays up and we can't help them," Naruto rubbed his head.
"Do you honestly think that Kakashi, Sasuke,and LU of all people would get hurt fighting a mere two chunin level missing nin?" Sakura rolled her eyes, before noticing a field of killing intent that disturbed her more than the likes of Kakashi's when he was mildly upset at her blonde teammate for playing a prank on the man during training.
"...You just had to jinx it, didn't you, Sakura," Naruto sighed.
"HEY! THAT'S MY FIRST TIME DOING THAT," she retorted defensively.