A/N: Let me start with my sincerest apologies for missing out on publishing a chapter in September. It was mostly due to being busy with irl stuff. I feel really bad for missing out and I don't intend to make excuses. However, I hope for all of your kind understanding.

Also, this chapter was actually scheduled to be released on the 10th of October. However, once again unavoidable stuff caused certain delays and well….here we are.

From RaNK001 and GBAboy313, a very happy birthday to the most inspiring anime protagonist, the embodiment of 'never giving up', loyalty, willpower and of course, intelligence. Yeah, I know few would ever associate Naruto with intelligence. But let's make it clear, employing both 'talk-no-jutsu' and 'kick-your-ass-no-jutsu' in tandem and destroying the opponent both mentally as well physically is a stroke of genius. Besides, negotiations are an integral part of international politics. Naruto is a damn good negotiator. As long as people keep making fun of the talk-no-jutsu, I will keep restating this point. Apart from that, let's not forget painting graffiti on the Hokage monument regularly, how many have been able to pull that off? And these are just two examples of Naruto's smartness and intelligence. Maybe it was by instinct rather than by formal education. Sorry for the belated wish.

Back to the chapter, well we don't have any action here unfortunately, we are just setting up the Bikochu beetle arc here, we will get to the action part of it in the next two chapters. So, without further ado, let's get on to the chapter.

CHAPTER 44: BEETLE! HERE WE COME!

*Naruto's mindscape*

Naruto and Hinata were both back in the mindscape on Minato's instructions.

"You remember me mentioning a 'Foundation' when I talked about the Uchiha massacre with Itachi?" Minato asked his son and to-be-daughter-in-law.

The two kids nodded. "Yeah kinda…"

"Hmm…well and that woman you two fought off, the one that had tried to kidnap Utakata?"

"Of course! I don't understand her at all! Why the hell was a Konoha ninja acting against her comrades!?" The whiskered blonde asked.

Minato and Kushina couldn't help but sigh, even when thinking about talking of the ROOT.

"Hmm…well, to put it simply, that woman was a member of this 'Foundation'."

"What is the 'Foundation', tou-san?" Hinata questioned.

"A complicated organization." Kushina cut in. "And a bunch of creepy…creeps… who talk like drones because any free will they had got sapped away." The redhead couldn't help but snarl; she had a lot of hatred for them and making it hard to not go into a profanity laden rant. Kushina was trying to be a good example.

Also: the hatred was justified. It was hard not to hate Danzo and his organization once you knew of how deep that hole went.

"Let's start from the beginning. The story goes back to the days of the Nidaime, Senju Tobirama. He had some students, Sandaime-sama and Danzo Shimura being two of them, two of his best students in fact."

Naruto and Hinata bent a bit forward to listen carefully and with interest. Who didn't love a good story?

Minato continued.

"Once, during a peace conference in Kumo, between the Second Raikage and the Second Hokage, the summit was endangered by a coup launched by two brothers, Kinkaku and Ginkaku, also called the Gold and Silver brothers."

"Two human dumbasses descended from the Sage of Six Paths who thought they could best me in combat and tried to challenge me. I ate the idiots." Kurama cut in. "But instead of being digested, they began eating my chakra rich flesh before I expelled them out of my body…but they acquired some of my chakra, enough to acquire a version-2 cloak."

Minato nodded. "They were power hungry warhawks who opposed an alliance between Konoha and Kumo; hence the couped and killed the Raikage. The Nidaime and his squad managed to escape, but they were cornered in a forest by a large faction of elites; Kinkaku and Ginkaku included. The Hokage and his squad were outnumbered severely. What I know is that to save them, Nidaime-sama made himself a decoy and faced the entire force by himself and took them all down, though he died as well. However, he named the Sandaime his successor before his sacrifice. Danzo was a rival to Hiruzen-sama and was bitter about being sidelined, which some believe came about because he was too hesitant to volunteer to sacrifice himself while Hiruzen-sama did so without hesitation. Whatever the truth was, the Sandaime still trusted him and allowed him to take care of all of the clandestine work that was needed to sustain our village and our power. To that end, Danzo formed a group of elite ANBU, better trained than even most of Konoha's elite ANBU members. They were trained to discard all their emotions and act like tools who only carried out orders."

"…like…Haku…" Naruto mumbled.

Minato nodded. "You are right, Danzo took a lot of inspiration from the training methods of Kirigakure from the time before it was called the Bloody Mist and improved upon them, ending up with a deadly force, loyal only to him, though he would proclaim that they are Konoha's protectors and its last line of defense."

"Hmph, some 'last line of defense' they are, where were they when the Kyuubi attack happened? Or even the more recent Suna-Oto invasion!" Kushina questioned in an irritated tone.

Minato shook his head. "As I said, in name only they serve Konoha, while they only serve Danzo in reality, or more accurately: Danzo's vision for Konoha. They are programmed to think that only Danzo knows what is best for Konoha, and Danzo even sincerely believes that what he does is for the best of the village which makes him dangerous beyond reason. He believes in no moral compass or ethics, holding to a system of standards that is utterly alien by most metrics but regrettably very common in the system we live under: what is good for the village is for the best. Assassinations, betrayals, genocides, killing Konoha's own who are considered too soft. Nothing is beyond him, and his vision is basically world domination under a Konoha that is ruled by him. He in short wants to become Hokage of the whole world and his dream, to be honest is a very dark alteration of what you or your mom or even myself dreamed of." Minato explained.

The young lovers didn't know what to say.

"Well, you might be thinking why I am telling you all of this, and I'm getting to that. It is because you two seem to be already on their watchlist. Remember that masked ninja you faced, the one with an implanted Byakugan?"

Naruto and Hinata nodded.

"She was a member of Danzo's foundation. Her objective, well it is most likely to capture jinchuuriki and mold them into ROOTs, or bring them back to their headquarters to have the Biju extracted for reallocation to an individual deemed trustworthy by the Foundation, in their sense of the word 'Trustworthy.' After all, for Danzo and by extension the Foundation or ROOT as its more widely known thanks to kanji found on Foundation Operatives' ANBU masks, the jinchuuriki are just tools with a lot of power that is easily applicable to many of the operations that ROOTs would be sent on; as well as a means to accomplish world domination. I think they are certainly very interested in you right now, Naruto. Earlier, you were…I'm gonna be frank…not the best of ninjas: you didn't stand out in any regard outside of sheer endurance and tenacity, and so ROOT had no interest beyond keeping you out of enemy hands due to the difficulty of finding a vessel capable of containing Kurama's power. However, with your recent improvements, they are bound to be very interested. That is why they have sent one of their own to watch you closely, under an official cover, since you already recognized that ROOT woman you fought." The fourth Hokage calmly stated.

Naruto and Hinata thought as to what Minato's words implied, and they could come to only one conclusion.

"Sai!" The two called out simultaneously.

Minato nodded. "Yes, that boy is a ROOT. It seems that they have figured out that you are going to stick with Team-7 for a while, despite your promotion to chunin, so they sent one of their own undercover as a member of the Team to keep watch over you and Hinata while also using the opportunity so they can take note of how we are acting regarding Sasuke." Minato added.

"No way!" Naruto mumbled with wide eyes.

Minato nodded. "Unfortunately, that is how things stand right now."

"What do we do then?" Naruto asked.

"Don't worry kiddo, Hinata-chan and Kakashi were already suspicious of him and so they are keeping watch, isn't that right, Hinata-chan?" Minato questioned.

The Hyuuga girl nodded. "I did tell you, Naruto-kun, that I will keep an eye on him."

"Now that you mention it…yeah you did say that." The blonde said rubbing the back of his head.

"Since he is watching you, he is bound to send reports from time to time. What we need to do is find a way to intercept those reports, or manipulate him into reporting the wrong happenings."

"And how would that work?" Naruto asked.

"Deception, one of the most important aspects of shinobi life. We have to carry out an elaborate deception campaign against him. Act before him, as you usually do, but just talk about things in a different way, try to downplay your achievements, manipulate any narrative that you know he cannot confirm directly, especially in cases when you are separated from the team for a long enough time period." Minato suggested.

"But if we pull off something like this, we will be going against everything Kakashi-sensei taught us about teamwork." Naruto complained.

"Indeed. But remember that a surveillance campaign and a possible ROOT intervention wasn't brought on by any of you…and I think Kakashi already has suspicions and a plan." Minato responded.

"Minato-kun is not talking about knowingly dragging him down during something like the chunin exams, but just be careful that he doesn't get an idea of your true abilities, and if he does, try to make it appear as some sort of fluke. If Danzo comes to know that you two are becoming formidable, then he could make some moves that could really complicate things for us.…" Kushina mused.

"And what if that masked woman has already told him what she saw?" Naruto asked.

Minato and Kushina did consider that. It wasn't impossible especially if she was watching Naruto for a while already.

While it was possible that Danzo was not really interested in Naruto, due to the boy being generally just a goof and rather unimpressive in his shinobi abilities, but that didn't mean he wouldn't be keeping an eye on Konoha's resident jinchuuriki, if for nothing else then to make sure that someone else doesn't get him.

"If she has been watching you long enough and reporting everything that she observed no matter how minor…" Minato mused "…Then it is entirely possible that Danzo already knows a good bit of what you are capable of. That woman was able to basically mask her chakra signature to matching the ambient environment and your negative emotions sensing didn't work on her either, most likely due to her conditioning as a ROOT. All of this together meant we don't really know for certain if she was on our tail or not up until the day we confronted her." The fourth Hokage contemplated.

Naruto nodded an affirmation.

Minato shrugged and continued "Well, in that case, the only thing we can do is to make Sai think that you are not as good as he expects, in hopes that if ROOT makes a play; then they will be underprepared due to faulty information. Don't display your most powerful moves before him unless absolutely necessary, like an Akatsuki member or something like that. The same goes for Hinata-chan I am afraid. While you are not a target of the ROOT yourself, they could definitely be thinking that you would be an obstacle in their way of getting to Naruto, which means you are a threat to them. And if the threat is gauged to be too skilled or powerful, they might take measures to eliminate you. Danzo simply doesn't care; everybody is fodder for him." Minato explained.

"I understand, tou-san." The Hyuuga girl said with determination.

*At the same time, Hokage tower*

"Hmm…your proposal is not bad, to be honest." Jiraiya mused.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama." The bearded jonin stated. "I believe that even if the reformed team-10 still needs some training to be battle ready, I am positive that this is a mission they can take."

"You are indeed correct. Unfortunately, though, I can only allow the kids to go."

"What?"

"Yes Asuma. We are running very short on staff right now. Despite managing to get on top of the invasion during the chunin exams, we lost quite the number of our ninja. Add to that the losses we took during the Kyuubi attack and the Third Great Ninja War before that were never really compensated for, and add to the mess that the Iwa-Suna border is full of activity for some reason and Kiri being volatile as ever as well."

Asuma nodded. It was the truth: the village was in a precarious situation. They should be thankful that Kumo chose to mend ties at such a time. Perhaps, Kumo itself was in a precarious situation as well.

"I need you to go to the border regions of the Land of Water." Jiraiya stated.

"Understood, Hokage-sama."

"You might get visits from the resistance." The white haired sannin added, making the chain smoker jonin raise his brows.

"We are unofficially allied with them…" Jiraiya said in a low tone, with a smirk. "What cemented it was the news that the Foundation made some moves against the rebel leader Terumi Mei quite a while ago, and that was enough indication for me to decide which side we should be on. Danzo's mismanagement of a similar situation in Ame has been identified as a flashpoint that created the Akatsuki organization, and everything points to him not learning a damn thing from it so the correct choice is now to put some support behind the ones causing him to worry about another village advancing towards a situation where Konoha can't dominate them in combat or manipulate and coerce them like puppets."

Asuma's eyes narrowed a touch at the mention of Danzo's outfit as well as the sponsors of Itachi and Kisame. "I see."

"Yes, our men posted on their borders help them with material, medical help, and sometimes intelligence. That is why the ones patrolling the border of Mizu-no-Kuni are usually Jonin or ANBU, and the ones I personally trust."

"Heh, good to know that I am among the trusted, sir." Asuma stated.

Jiraiya waved him off. "That's a no brainer. Anyways, you will be needed there, though make sure never to engage with Yagura's loyalists or take any escalatory steps. Last thing we need is getting involved in a conflict that either Danzo or Akatsuki will be sure to jump in on to make use of the chaos."

"Understood, Godaime-Sama"

"Good. As for this Bikochu Mission, Shino can lead this one. He is the one with the most knowledge about insects and bugs, he knows the location and he is worthy of a promotion anyways, he only missed out because his match got over too quickly for the judges to make an advisory decision or see enough of his skills, so he can manage a low-risk mission like that."

Asuma nodded: "I'll explain it to them." Asuma was already getting ready to light a cigarette when Jiraiya waved him off.

"Take care of it. Now get out of here before I have to deal with another Sarutobi blowing tobacco smoke in here. I got enough of it off of your father." Jiraiya mock-complained.

Asuma left laughing at that.

The next day at dawn, the reconstituted Team-10 left the village, heading for the special insect reserve of the Aburame clan in the north-western edge of the Land of Fire.

What they didn't know was that they were not the only ones vying for the highly sought after Bikochu beetle.

A clan of bee-keepers from Iwagakure were vying for it as well.

The Kamzuru were once a venerated clan in Iwa. It was said that the first Tsuchikage was related to them, indirectly if not directly. What was known was that the First Tsuchikage had a close relationship with the clan head of the Kamizuru during the last years of the Warring States and the first few decades of the Hidden Village era, and the two worked to meld the First Tsuchikage's extensive knowledge of Earth Release with the Kamizuru's Bee-Keeper arts. This relationship was rumored to be romantic but nothing was ever proven, to the point that it was believed that the Kamizuru Matriarch's heirs were sired by the First Tsuchikage.

(It wasn't, the Kamizuru clan head of the Village founding years did indeed share a deep companionship with the First Tsuchikage, but her children were fathered by other men. Her connection with her bees was so strong that it warped her mind in ways never done before or since, which led her to view the Village as a collection of hives with each clan head as the hive's queen with the Kage being the queen that united the queens, and so she viewed him as an ally and friend but also as a rival to be upended or eventually supplanted…needless to say: this particular Kamizuru was a unique individual who marched to her own drum tune though the Kamizuru Clan had been oddballs ever since their founders discovered the ability to host bees like others had done with parasitic insects and other bugs. The rumor of her children being fathered by the First Tsuchikage was actually started by her children who felt outclassed by other clans and even the non-clan ninja in Iwagakure despite being a founder clan, with their one saving grace being not that notable due to hosting bees being not that unique with how many other clans did that with other bugs and some even hosting a variety of specialized divergent evolutions of a species)

Hence, they commanded a lot of respect in the village, like the Hyuuga did in Konoha. However, it all went downhill when many of their men were killed by Kumo during the Second Great Ninja War; and by Konoha, especially by the Aburame clan during the Third Great ninja war.

In their present state, the Kamizuru were hardly a shadow of their former self. They had lost their influence in Iwa's council, with the final blow being them never getting a seat in the village's ninja council and quite a chunk of their land being nationalized and redistributed.

And now, they were desperate to get their former glory back. What better way than to infiltrate a precious land of their rival, the Aburames' insect reserve and take away their most prized possession, the Bikochu beetle. Take some and then destroy the whole insect reserve, it would be a nasty blow to Konoha and the Aburame while landing a prized bug in their hands, hence the Kamizuru were keeping watch. And when they understood that it was nearly the time for the Bikochu to lay their eggs, they immediately set off.

Some of the survivors thought that they were going to use the bug to track down their Founding Era clan head's secret technique scroll…the eldest among them knew that no such scroll existed and was just an attempt at coping and trying to use nostalgia to comfort themselves.

*Two days later*

"What!" Jiraiya almost yelled. He was reading a report from one of his sources in the Land of Earth. 'The Kamizuru, 4-5 of them. This won't be good. Team-10 by itself can't handle them.' The toad sannin thought to himself. 'But who to send as back-up? Team Guy is out on a mission. Team-8 is even more restructured than Team-10 and they are not yet ready to take up missions. Kakashi is out on a patrol too…and his team…well…I guess it's time to put our team captain experiment to a realistic test and see how the gaki handles leading a team.' Having decided that, Jiraiya went through hand-signs. "Summoning jutsu!" And a small green toad appeared.

"Call Naruto over."

"Got it boss." And the toad left immediately.

*Sometime later*

"Hey Ero-Sennin!" Naruto greeted grinning. "Seems like you are making good use of the clones, eh?" The blonde asked as he glanced around and saw five copies of Jiraiya at work.

The self-proclaimed super pervert sighed. "I can't help but admit that it was thanks to you, gaki."

"Hehe…I guess you can pass me the hat a bit early as a thanks then."

"Not so fast kid, this old man still has a lot left in him. I am the greatest ladies' man in all five nations after all! Hahaha!"

'He says but is still single somehow.' Naruto thought to himself with a deadpan expression but didn't say it out loud as he still respected his teacher…somewhat. It was very shaky.

"Anyways, how is being the team captain?" Jiraiya asked.

"Hmm…well…I guess it's okay. Would have been really fun if not for that asshole Sai."

"Language!" Kushina warned from the mindscape.

'Sorry, Mom.' The blonde apologized mentally. "I…I mean isn't there any way to get him off the team?" The blonde asked.

"Hmm…well, since you are young and this is probably very early in your career to take a commanding role, you need to understand this." Jiraiya raised his index finger. "If all jonins were asking for teams to be replaced because of them not liking one or more genin in the team, then do you realize how big of a mess the team assignments would be?"

"I mean…but you still reassigned Hinata-chan to Team-7 and Kiba too?" Naruto asked.

"That I did, but after consultation with the jonin instructors. And personal preferences aside, I couldn't have done it just to keep you two lovebirds together. The valid reason was Kakashi's inability to teach anything to Sakura, with her improperly motivated state not responding to his teaching methods as effectively, and his lightning affinity which allows him room to teach Hinata more than Kurenai could. You understand?"

"Well, Kakashi-sensei did talk about something like that when we were about to leave to track granny Tsunade down."

"Yes, now what would be a valid reason to reassign Sai? He is well trained in all basic ninja arts and he can learn from Kakashi as well. Also, he comes with some high recommendations."

Minato sighed in the mindscape.

"When the council is unanimous about some team assignments, the Hokage can't overrule them. Jiraiya-sensei's hand was forced, no idea why they have anything to do with that outside of advisory opinions. And if we were to remove Sai from the team, it would require him to give a lengthy explanation to the council with valid reasons. Bad teamwork can't be one, unless it persists for 4 to 6 months…or something critically damaging to the team dynamic occurred and being a ROOT doesn't count." The yellow flash explained.

'Really now? And what if: due to this bad teamwork, the team gets slaughtered on a mission?'

"Good point, but the minus side is if bad teamwork was a reason for immediate team reshufflings, many teams would remain stuck in reshufflings after reshufflings and would never get a chance to do missions or train." Minato replied. "So, these two extremes have to balanced out."

'Yeah fair. And with Danzo and the council messing things up even more, looks like that teme Sai is here to stay.'

"Unfortunately." Minato concurred.

'Dammit!'

"Fine, I get it. But since you asked me my feedback about the team…"

"That I did and it is duly noted. If you and Kakashi's opinion about Sai being a bad team player remains the same, I will reshuffle the team on account of bad teamwork. That I promise."

"Got it, Ero-Sennin! I will be holding you to that."

"Sure kid. Now then, on to business. You are going to lead a mission."

"What!? Me, leading a mission!"

Jiraiya nodded.

"You have been promoted to chunin so it's about time that you lead missions, all chunin have to do that."

"Yeah!?" Naruto asked in excitement.

"Yes. And with your appointment as team captain, you basically are the commander of Team-7 in Kakashi's absence. Makes sense?"

"Hell yeah. I'm so excited, dattebayo!"

"I like your spirit, gaki. Now then, recently, Team-10 was dispatched on a mission to retrieve a special beetle from an insect sanctuary in the northwestern edges of the Land of Fire. They had to leave solo since their jonin sensei was needed on another mission. And since it was a low risk, non-combat mission, Shino was allowed to lead."

"Hmm…" Naruto looked on. The memory of his low risk missions going wrong already rearing up.

"But things have changed, I just got intel from my sources that possibly hostile Iwa shinobi are heading towards that insect reserve as well. Team-10 is not ready yet to be engaged in combat by themselves, with Asuma being absent. So, they need backup. And hence you are going to lead Team-7 as the backup team, to catch up to Team-10 and guard them as they carry out their tasks."

"Sounds like a good mission! Dattebayo."

Jiraiya nodded. "At least C or B rank depending on the situation." Jiraiya said with a little smirk.

"Awesome!"

"Then what's the delay?! Gather the team and prepare to leave. By the way Naruto, keep a good watch on Sai and his actions, okay?"

"He is already getting on Hime's and my nerves, of course we are keeping watch on him."

"Good, now get going."

Naruto rushed out of the office and sent toad summons for his team members.

(Jiraiya chuckled and smirked: "Just like Minato and Kushina both back in the day. Wonder how proud of him they are…" as he returned to work on his perverted novels now that his urgent business was done)

The New Team-7 was at the gates within 20 minutes.

"So, captain dickless, what was the urgent summon for?" Sai asked smiling creepily.

Naruto only rolled his eyes in response and the other members of the team chose to ignore the jab.

"Well team, guess what, we have a mission." Naruto stated. "Shino, Ino, and Choji are out collecting some bugs and we are to back them up against possible baddies. Here's the location on the map." Naruto showed the group a map with their destination marked.

"And guess what, yours truly gets to be the leader. Hehe." The blonde said rubbing the back of his head.

"You can do it." Hinata said with a smile.

"Thanks, Hime. Well, like Kakashi-sensei does before leaving on a mission, let's do an equipment check."

The group all opened their equipment bags one by one, they were well prepared.

"Hime, you stay on front and…lets go, Dattebayo!"

Hinata gave Naruto's cheeks a little rub before taking the front as the blonde took the rear, with Sai on the right and Kiba and Akamaru on the left in a diamond formation and the team made haste.

It was going to be a long and challenging journey. They had to move fast since they needed to catch up to a team moving through the trees at an efficient speed (not fast as possible to cover ground quickly but paced to get the most ground covered while also conserving energy for both travel and potential encounters) up ahead. It would be lucky if Team-10 was a bit more relaxed in their pace.

Well, that aside, Team-7 made haste towards the northwest with Naruto officially commanding for the first time. Time would tell how this mission was going to go.

Editor's Note: this was finished on October 11, 2024 at 10:12 AM. Since last update, I played Insomniac's Spider-Man game. It really drives in how much Spider-Man relies on the New York City terrain to do what he does…which also applies to…a lot of characters who rely on terrain for unique traversal.

A/N: And done! As stated earlier, no action unfortunately since we are setting up the arc here. Well, it won't be that hard for anyone to guess that with skill levels of Naruto and Hinata here, this mission and the Kamizuru won't be a very big issue for them, but still easier fights can be interesting in their own way. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Sorry again for the delayed release and thank you all for your patience, understanding, love and support.

See ya all in the next chapter.

Cheers and peace.