The masked woman to the front of him knelt down to pick up a torn piece of blue cloth from the ground, giving the tattered thing a cursory sniff before subtly directing his attention to the treeline a distance to their left. Must have been an Inuzuka naruto supposed. Damn useful lot to have on a scouting mission he supposed, if you could get past how much of an asshole most of them were.

"How many do you suppose there are ?" Naruto whispered quietly to the woman.

"Three to five, I think" she sniffed the air in a slow drawn breath "could be more though, it's really hard to say with how fucking damp everything is here."

"So we're at a distinct disadvantage then eh" a voice said from behind Naruto, mirth rolling off of the man

Looking over his shoulder Naruto eyed the third member of their little team. Short and stout, no taller than most genin. Though as unimposing as the man may have looked, he knew more than most just how effective he was when involved in a group confrontation.

"Don't sound so pleased about it Joru, none of us are so powerful that we don't have at least a little risk here" the Inuzuka said.

"Oh don't be worried now" Joru said with a little laugh "We have our little demon here to protect us if anything goes horribly wrong"

Joru made a quick few hand signs out of sight, with his back to the treeline. Holding his arms out to either side, with a shit eating grin on his face, he spoke loudly

"We have Naruto Uzumaki, Demon of the leaf, the iron wall of the leaf village" he paused for dramatic effect before continuing louder than ever.

"THE FUCKING RED DEATH"


Naruto walked slowly through the campsite they had set up in at the northern outskirts of wave country, his left leg dragging his gait to a slight limp, his healing had been tested to its limit for the day and in order to not fatigue himself any further, he had decided to limit its use for the moment, having finished fixing anything vital.

Looking to his left he saw a medical ninja taking a long slow drag from her cigarette, ignoring the faint chorus of groaning and begging coming from inside. The putrid nicotine smell invading his nostrils, almost making him gag.

'Fuck thats strong' he thought to himself.

He stepped over the legs of a man leaning against a tree in the main pathway, his eyes staring at nothing and everything all at once.

Ahead of him he could see a group of medical assistant genins carrying a legless jonin, or former jonin he should say, toward the tent now behind him. Their eyes looked so much older than their faces would tell you they were. The jonin was mumbling incoherent sentences, his voice hollow and almost absent. On closer inspection it looked like his legs had been ripped off from his knees rather than cut or anything conventional

'I wonder if they have someone on their side that fights like I do.' he thought. An unpleasant concept to think about, his style was not a pretty or elegant thing. Could be another jinchūriki, that would be anything other than good.

"Hey are you listening to me, Earth to red, come in, come in red"

"Uh ?" he said smartly looking to his right, almost staring through the medic nin.

"We need you to come to…" he trailed off slowly, looking awkwardly around for a second before focusing back on him "Sorry, didn't realize it was you Sir."

He smiled at the man in as disarming a way as a man with tattered clothes and who was almost completely covered from head to toe in blood could. And judging by the small flinch, he had succeeded extraordinarily.

"Don't worry about, go see to the other two that are coming in now with my clones, they need it more than i do okay"

"Yes sir, i'll get on it right now" the medic said, sounding very glad to be out of his presence.

Moving toward the command tent naruto spotted the battalion commander, an ex anbu captain named yamanto, or something like that, standing out the front heatedly discussing something with a couple of envoys from the hokage. Before he could reach them, their conversation had apparently come to an end, with the envoys jumping away from the camp back toward the hidden leaf.

"I see that my presence still brings great fear to all around me" Naruto shouted after them "Run, Run away little leaf ninja, run and hide from the great and powerful Naruto !"

"I see you still try to hide the pain with humour" yamato said, the drawl of his voice much more judgmental than he deserved to receive.

"Now's not the time for a psychology session with me, you don't have the kinds of explosives needed to break my walls captain" Naruto responded

"Maybe, maybe not Naruto" he looked to where the envoys had disappeared.

"The hokage has decided to recall you, joru and mimiko" he said, a small amount of worry creeping into his tone. "He's giving you three a few weeks reprieve back at the village before you are moved to the heavy fighting at the eastern fortifications"

"I see, is it something my skill set is needed for, or is it the teams?"

"Oh I can't be totally sure, the envoys are obviously never given that much information beyond what is needed, but from what I can guess it's a bit of both."

Yamato opened the tent flap, urging him in.

"Your team to make them take strong action, and you to capitalize on that action"

"At your leave then captain" naruto said entering the tent, a small smile working its way onto his face. "I can't wait to get out of this shithole for a little while"

"I'm sure you can't, I'd love for a reprieve, but I still have another 3 months on my deployment" yamato said with a sigh while rubbing at his temples.

yamato pointed to a small wooden table at the corner of the tent

Naruto felt some relief to see a wash basin sitting atop the thing as well as a fresh set of clothes on the ground beside it.

"Oh captain yamto, you're the best captain ever, who would have thought that some random orphan would gain a captain as a personal butler" naruto said with a gleam in his eye as he waited for Yamato's reaction.

"It's Yamato" he said dully

What a fucking killjoy he was, always such a stone of a man. Honestly Naruto would bet that he actually could make a stone react more strongly than this man.

"When do I leave?" Naruto asked, peeling the soiled shirt and pants from his sticky body. His clothes were little more than rags at this point disintegrating before his eyes as he removed them. Removing the washcloth from the water he began scrubbing the viscera from his face first, the cool water taking some of the miserable day away with the blood.

"Immediately after you finish your report"

"Ah yes, that." he said tersely as he scrubbed down his arm, the blood turning pink as it rolled to his fingers before dripping to the ground.

"Using the anbu you gave us, we tracked the insurgents to a small clearing about 12 clicks south of our lines. They knew we were coming though"

"How exactly do you figure that?"

"When we got to the clearing they had encircled us on all sides except the one we came from"

"And weasel didn't pick up on that with her nose?" Yamato asked, confused.

"We were tracking one group of 3 to five using the scent they had left outside of camp, she was able to detect them easily enough" naruto said, now moving the cloth down his legs, removing a piece of what looked like brain from the hairs there. "She was even right on the money for that group, exactly 4 chunin level nin."

"That group?" Yamato inquired.

"That group" naruto said, heavy emphasis on that. Looking over the clothes, he was disappointed to find that they still weren't letting him wear any orange. "There were two other groups in the treeline waiting for us. 3 jonin among them." Naruto looked himself over and was surprisingly pleased with Yamato's taste, plain black pants and a dark gray heavy shirt, dropping a good length below his waistline so it wouldn't come untucked easily during combat

"How many total Naruto? You're skimming details again." He said with a look of disappointment.

"Sorry, sorry. There were a total of 10. Seven chunin, 2 standard jonin and one elite level jonin." Naruto said hastily.

"Better" yamato said, nodding slowly to himself while running god knows what through his head. "Anything else of note that you're leaving out?"

"Oh yeah, the elite one was a seven swordsman I believe, one of the newer ones. He reverse summoned his swords away before I managed to kill him." naruto prattled off quickly, hoping yamato would ignore his oversight. "Tricky bugger he was, using the Kiba i think they are called"

"Naruto, thats a ridiculously important thing to leave out of a report" yamato growled at him. Looks like he didn't quite get away with it.

"I didn't leave it out though, I just told you didn't I?"

"You know what, i don't care, do better next time" yamato looked toward the top of the tent his shoulders tense and mouth drawn into a thin line. "Did any of them manage to escape?"

Naruto's brow furrowed as he looked down at his feet. He started scratching vigorously at one of the whisker marks on his left cheek, tearing some of the skin as he did. Looking at the blood under his nail Naruto began to speak.

"No, after i dealt with the swordsman, one other jonin and 2 of the chunin, I killed any that tried to escape from the others" naruto voice was flat and controlled.

Yamato put a consoling hand on his shoulder.

"You did well. Do you have anything to pack?"

"No i don't, those were the last of my clothes"

"Okay then. Take the coat of the hook by the entrance and head off, Joru will be following shortlyl once he has healed." Yamato said, a proud look on his face.

Looking toward the entrance Naruto saw the black coat. It looked mighty warm with fur lining the inside and being long enough to come to his knees. But the greatest part was that the cuffs and hem were orange.

Yamato was the best.