"Alright, kid," Anko greeted me as I stepped out of the restaurant. She gave me a quick up-down. As much as I wanted it to be because she was finally falling in love with me, I knew what it was—she was trying to gauge my combat readiness. "Walk with me."

You see, before, Kakashi had been her main attraction, so to speak. I was just some random kid in there. I could've been a mop with a painted face on it, a baby, or even a cat, and I would've gotten the same reception.

Well, maybe not the cat one. She probably would've given me more attention in that case.

Can't win them all, though. Still, I took her interest in me as a good sign. She wasn't immediately writing me off. Kakashi's endorsement probably counted for a lot, despite my, um, interesting comments. I had my reasons for being outspoken, though.

Aside from honestly meaning what I said—to my newly formed hormones, she was the sexiest woman I'd seen in the last two weeks—the other reason I wanted to grab her attention was to let her know I wasn't just some random kid. Any normal twelve-year-old would've been frozen in there, and I needed her to know I was a bit above that. Not a lot, mind you; I needed to act mature enough for her to give me a shot, but not mature enough to raise eyebrows.

I needed plausible deniability. Now, more than ever. And, while the subject matter was most definitely altered, that sort of brain-to-mouth disconnect was on par with something that the old Naruto would do.

"Sure," I returned evenly, falling into place beside her as we walked further into the Shinobi District. Even though rectifying my diet had helped me grow an inch or two over the past month, I was still barely up to her shoulder. "Where to?"

"Meeting the rest of the team," Anko answered, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her trenchcoat. Her sandals scratched against the ground as we walked. "I sent out a message while you were finishing up with scarecrow in there. Since we have the whole roster locked in, I figured we could meet and go over the basics. You're good to leave whenever? You don't have, like a playdate you're missing for this, or something?"

"I'd leave any play date for a play date with you."

"As long as you know this mission won't be a playdate," Anko snarked, fumbling a cigarette out of her pocket. She popped it in her mouth and spoke around it, "This is going to be a real mission. Like, with killing, and stuff. And bad guys? You know the type? With swords and kunai and shit."

A couple of ninja that were mulling about turned not-so-discreetly to look at Anko as she stretched. Not that I could blame them.

Anko's words sparked a hint of curiosity. My conversation with Kakashi had thrown me off my game. I would've asked for more information by now. I glossed over Anko's insult for the moment and asked, "What is the mission?"

"Simple information gathering. Some of our contacts in the Land of Grass have mentioned some forces have been moving around, so we're going to go check up on some things."

"I thought you mentioned bandits?"

"Well, that's what we're checking up on."

"And by checking up…"

"Killing them, burning their bodies so they can't be identified, and looting their camp for information," Anko grinned, licking her lips and shooting me a challenging look. Did she really expect me to fold because she used some scary language and talked about doing some 'icky' things? Her tongue slid over the top layer of her teeth in a way that sent a pleasant shiver down my spine. "Rethinking things yet, goldilocks? Not too late to back out. We can go back to Kakashi right now, and I'll cover for you. I can tell him the team didn't feel comfortable with you out there."

"Sounds like a good time," I returned defiantly. "Say, if I do well, will you go out with me?"

"You're, like, five."

"Even you don't believe that," I scoffed. Streams of Minato's knowledge curled through my mind, shaping my next response like a lump of clay turning into an artisanal jar. Kami, I loved having a Hokage's memories. "You're a toketsbu jonin, right? Isn't a big part of becoming a real jonin learning how to motivate your team? Come on, give me some motivation. I'll put in a good word for you after."

"I'm not into little kids," Anko's left eye twitched. "And what the hell do you need motivation for? You think you're going to get in on any of the action? You don't know shit outside of the little pamphlets they give out at the academy. I'm not risking having you freeze up out there."

Action.

She thought I didn't know what action was?

I'd seen more action than her. Easily more action. By the time Minato was Anko's age, he'd killed someone in almost every way you could think of.

He'd burned people alive. Cut their throats. Slashed their stomachs open. He'd even curb-stomped people. When Minato came across people he really hated, he'd legitimately make them bite the ground and deliver a chakra-enhanced kick to the back of their heads, crushing their necks and watching their brains explode around the ground like fireworks at a Full Moon Festival.

Reign it in.

I exhaled slowly. One thing I was going to just have to get used to for a while was the fact that people were going to talk down on me.

I knew they'd see me and assume I was some little kid playing ninja, a toddler holding a kunai because it looked cool and not because I respected the throats I could carve out with it.

In a lot of ways, this mission is my first chance to show everyone I mean business.

I bit my tongue. Well, no, it isn't. Not really.

Kakashi is already suspicious enough of me, and chances are, if I punch too high above my weight and something that really ruffles some feathers, the part of him that's curious about what's up with me will be outweighed by the part of him that's logical.

And then everything will be lost. I'll never get back to where I was, let alone get good enough to fight the Masked Man.

"I mean, ideally," My heart started beating a little faster, and I stuffed my hands into my pockets, relaxing when I felt the comforting metallic base of my kunai. I ran my thumb over the circle. "I've got to learn sometime, right?"

"You really think you can handle real ninja shit?" Anko asked. Some of the smoke from the end of her cigarette billowed into my face as she turned to face me. The tangy smell burned the inside of my nostrils. "It's a dog-eat-dog world, kid. And you're still just a puppy."

"I know I can handle it," I answered. As long as I didn't show off too much, I'd be able to maintain the illusion of growth and impress some fresh names, all while keeping Kakashi off my back. Or, well, more off my back than he already is. "This puppy's got claws. But I can tell you don't believe me. So, we could make a bet."

Anko smirked and turned away, "Kid, you can be the next coming of the First and I'm still not fucking you."

"A kiss?"

"You're really pushing your—"

"On the cheek?"

Anko mulled it over for a bit. She bit the end of her cigarette, forcing out a plume of smoke. "Deal. Impress me, and I'll kiss you on the cheek. Just keep it in your pants out there."

"You got it—" I was cut off as Anko grabbed my shoulders and cut off my walk. Her fingertips dug into my bare skin as she turned me around. We were standing in front of a hookah bar, "Am I allowed in here?"

"Now you're going to start asking questions?" Anko rolled her eyes. She spat her cigarette out of her mouth and crushed it under her sandal. "Just don't make it obvious you've never been there before, and no one will care."

"You really shouldn't litter, you know."

THWACK!

Anko smacked the back of my head. "I'm going to take our deal off the table if you keep being this annoying."

I made a zipping motion across my lips and threw the imaginary key away. Anko rolled her eyes and pushed me through the door. "If I knew it was that easy to get you to shut up, I would've made a deal back at that restaurant."

The air was thick with the scent of sweet tobacco mingled with fragrant fruits like apple, mango, and strawberry. It instantly gave me a headache—one of those headaches that kind of sits at the side of your skull like a bowling ball. Not painful enough to care about, not subtle enough to ignore.

"This sucks already," I mumbled to myself, squinting my eyes.

The dimly lit interior cast a cozy ambiance, with walls adorned in vibrant tapestries of samurai, ninja, and other images that screamed: HI SHINOBI! WE APPRECIATE YOU! SPEND YOUR HARD-EARNED MONEY HERE.

Soft, ambient music filled the air, a gentle melody that seemed to drift like a warm breeze. It wove through the chatter of the crowd, smoothing the edges of conversation and wrapping everything in a calm, almost dreamlike haze. The sound was distant, yet somehow intimate, like the soft hum of a lullaby meant to soothe rather than to entertain. It was the kind of music that made time feel slower, moments stretching out just a little longer as if the world had paused to take a breath.

Minato remembered it from somewhere. I couldn't tell you exactly where.

Low-slung couches and cushions were scattered across the room. Each seating area was adorned with ornate hookahs, their glass bodies gleaming softly in the warm glow of flickering candles.

The sound of bubbling water drew my attention to the center of the room, where a collection of intricately designed hookahs sat atop ornamental tables. Wisps of fragrant smoke rose lazily from their slender stems, swirling and dancing in the air like ephemeral spirits.

I couldn't remember ever being in this specific hookah bar, but it wasn't my first time in them.

Though, I was used to them being called shisha bars.

I guess in the new age, these kids liked the word hookah better. As far as I could tell, it didn't make much of a difference.

Smoking shisha involves the burning of various items (usually charcoal) to heat flavored tobacco. The tobacco, after being heated, produces smoke that bubbles through a large basin of water at the bottom of a shisha pipe. Finally, said smoke is inhaled through a mouthpiece-fitted tube.

I guess it doesn't sound that appealing when I lay it out like that. Or, well, the part of the that's Naruto isn't that into it. The other part of me loves it.

Minato liked shisha a lot when he was alive.

His old sensei, Jiraiya, had a penchant for it. Though, it wasn't entirely for personal reasons. Sure, half of it had to do with the fact that lots of, um, loose women used to hang around in bars like this, and the other half had to do with the fact that it was his designated meeting area for contacts.

Jiraiya had a special brand of shisha made from some herbs he got on Mount Myōboku—the land of toads and the place where all the toads that Minato and Jiraiya have summoned live.

The herb mixture was ground into a fine powder, something that was barely detectable unless you looked specifically for it. Jiraiya and Minato would meet with a contact, Minato would gather their attention with a joke or something, and Jiraiya would sprinkle the powdered blend into the hookah bowl, layering it with the precision and care of a heart surgeon.

As the coals were ignited and placed atop the bowl, the herb mixture would evaporate into the air, mingling with the tobacco and shooting into the contact's mouth. The taste wasn't distinguishable, and most of the time, the smoker was none the wiser.

The herbs themselves weren't anything too dangerous, either. Just a light blend of hemp and other relaxants made to give the smoker a feeling of calm that lowered their inhibitions just a teensy, weensy bit.

Minato used to wonder why Jiraiya didn't just find a way to make a truth serum. The frogs had the knowledge for it, after all, but Jiraiya always claimed that he didn't need it. It was almost an affront to his pride every time Minato mentioned it.

No, according to him, once the contact was relaxed, information extraction was easy. You're probably wondering why that extra coercion was needed when dealing with trusted contacts, but Jiraiya claimed he'd been burned too many times in the past.

Most of the time, the shisha went unnoticed. People tended to attribute their sudden lightheadedness and pleasant fuzzies to the tobacco itself. The only time anyone really noticed it was when they blurted out something they didn't want to say, and if that was the case, they usually had much bigger problems.

Plus, shisha bars were a great place to avoid being caught by local authorities when you had to lay low. Like, when Jiraiya and Minato would be undercover in some of the more notorious towns, like Tanzaku, they would always hang out in bars like this until the fuzz died down.

It's easy. A guard can't ask you a question if you're in the middle of making out with someone. No ID? Someone must've stolen it. What are you here for? Well…what does it look like you're here for?

Anko and I walked to a table in the back, where two guys were sitting. The soft glow of charcoal embers illuminated their faces, casting a warm, intimate light that reminded me of the first time Minato got active in a bar like this.

"You'll get used to the smell," Anko must've assumed my grimace was from the heady smell of tobacco, and not the fact that I was reliving Minato pound a townie in the booth. "Gentlemen. I bring you our final team member: Naruto, er..."

"Uzumaki."

"Right. Naruto Uzumaki," Anko amended as we sat at the table. One of the men passed Anko the mouthpiece, and she said, blew on it a bit as she said, "Let's all introduce ourselves to the rook. Shimon, start us off."

"Shimon Hijiri. Chūnin. I'm a member of the Analysis Team in the village's Intelligence Division. I accepted this mission to aid in the reporting and analysis of the information we find, as well as providing a genjutsu element to the team," Shimon answered robotically, bowing his head. He wore a black long-sleeve under a light gray vest, and his forehead protector cast a shadow over his eyes that made them almost impossible to see.

The man next to him wore a standard Konoha vest and rounded sunglasses. Strands of brown hair peeked out from under a bandana. "What's up, kid? The name's Ōkei. I'm a chūnin too. More of a long-range specialist, I guess, but I'm also a fair hand at medical stuff. Just don't lose an arm out there, yeah?"

"I'll do my best," I grinned. The table looked at me expectantly, and I said, "Naruto Uzumaki. I'm a close-range fighter."

"Going to need a bit more than that," Anko said, puffing out peals of smoke that drifted toward the light fixture dangling overhead. Her lips curled around the mouthpiece. "We're all somewhat familiar with each other. You're an unknown."

I tapped my chin, "I know the shadow clone technique. I'm fairly comfortable with my sword. My elemental affinities are wind and lightning, and I've been learning combination fighting from Kakashi."

"Bullshit," Ōkei gave out a bawdy laugh. Anko smirked as she popped the mouthpiece out. "Right. A little kid like you knows shadow clones. And I'm the Hokage."

POOF!

A mold jumped out of my skin and spawned behind Ōkei, smacking the back of his head. He yelped and pushed the clone, but to the surprise of everyone at the table, the clone stumbled back.

"Told you," The clone grinned before smoking out of existence.

"How—why—" Ōkei whirled around, turning back and forth between me and the spot where the clone disappeared. His eyes were so wide, I thought they'd pop out of his head. "You're shitting me."

"He's Kakashi's student for a reason," Anko waved her hand, but I could see the curiosity brimming in her eyes. "We're settled then. Now since our cell is complete, we'll leave toward Kusa in an hour. Pack for a day or two."

"So, how fresh are you, kid?" Ōkei asked me as we skipped through the trees, blurring toward the Land of Grass. We were an hour or two into travel, and it had been mostly silent. Pretty standard for a ninja mission. There was only so much talking you could do, and most people wanted to save their energy. "You can't be that fresh if you're keeping up with us."

"Nah, I'm pretty fresh," I returned, the smell of pine wafting up to my nostrils as we hopped from branch to branch. "Kakashi is just a really intense teacher."

"Now that, I can believe," Ōkei chuckled. He shot me a glance, "You ever been on a mission outside of Konoha before?"

"Once or twice. We just got back from the Wave."

"Oh shit, you were in that team?" Ōkei's voice was colored with surprise. "What even happened?"

"The client lied. Instead of a light escort mission, he ended up being hunted down by a missing-nin," I recalled. Tazuna's worried face swam into my mind's eye, blurring into the graves we'd set up for Zabuza and Haku. "We probably should've turned back, if I'm being honest."

"A missing-nin?" Anko, who was in front of us with Shimon turned back. Her backpack rustled as she turned herself completely around, skipping backward through the trees without even looking. What a showoff. "Kakashi didn't mention any missing-nin."

"Yeah. Zabuza Momochi and his little sidekick. They were hired to kill the bridge builder, and we stuck around to protect the guy."

"You're fucking with me," Anko called, her thumbs digging into her waist. There was a teasing lilt hiding in her tone, but her eyes told me a different story. She was beginning to piece together the oddities surrounding me—Kakashi's seemingly insane request, the Wave, and everything else. "You fought Zabuza and lived to tell the tale?"

"I didn't personally fight him for more than a few minutes. My teammates and I were more focused on his buddy," The evening sun wove its golden threads through the thick canopy of the forest, casting enchanting shadows that danced upon the moss-covered ground below us. "But yeah. The fight ended with Kakashi killing him."

"I don't believe you could have fought against him," Shimon commented, his eyes still glued to the treeline before us. His voice was flat and lifeless. "You'll have to excuse my skepticism, Uzumaki-san."

"What's the big deal with this Zabuza guy anyway?" Ōkei threw his hat in the ring. He licked his lips. "If blondie here says he fought him, I believe him. The kid can spawn shadow clones, for fuck's sake! Why the hell would he lie about something else?"

Anko frowned, "Not that simple. Blondie being able to spawn shadow clones is fucking weird, yeah, but you're forgetting a key fact; he's only a few weeks out of the academy. How many kids do you think could graduate from the academy and survive in a fight with one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen? Even if it's just for a few minutes."

"I agree with Mitarashi-san. Zabuza Momochi was one of Kirigakure's most powerful shinobi ever produced. Even as a child who had yet to begin in the Academy, he killed over one hundred trained students single-handedly. They call him the Demon of the Hidden Mist," Shimon recited. I caught a glimpse of a black book in the palm of his hands—a Bingo book, maybe. "A-rank ninja by the most conservative assumption. Do you see why it's so unbelievable?"

"I mean, shit," Ōkei grumbled. He looked at me again and raised an eyebrow. "So? Is it true? Did you really hang around with the big boys?"

"Listen, I don't want to seem like some little kid trying to talk big and impress you guys, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions," I said evenly. The air was alive with the symphony of chirping birds, the gentle rustle of leaves, and the distant calls of unseen creatures. "Just ask Kakashi when we get back. I'm sure he'll be more than happy to tell you the story."

We kept moving in silence after that.

As the last rays of daylight caressed the towering trees, the forest exhaled a sigh of tranquility, preparing for the nightly symphony of nature. Fireflies emerged from their daytime slumber, painting the forest with fleeting bursts of emerald light.

Their soft glow illuminated the path ahead.

Above, the sky blazed with hues of orange and pink, a canvas painted by the hand of a master artist. The fading light cast long shadows that stretched across the forest floor, weaving a tapestry of darkness and light.

"Well, here it is," Anko said abruptly, and the four of us perched on the same branch, overlooking a bandit camp.

The camp huddled in a dense, hollowed clearing, the air heavy with the acrid stench of burnt wood and sweat. Low voices rumble through the night, blending with the sharp scrape of metal on stone, a sound that lingered in my ears.

Flickering torches cast warped shadows across stained tents and weathered gear. The fire cast a soft glow over Anko's face that made it look like clay. "Something's off."

"Off how?"

"That, we're going to have to find out," She muttered as she removed a kunai. Her weight shifted, and she gazed toward the far end of camp. "There's a chakra imbalance. I sense…someone strong over there. A real ninja."

"A ninja amongst bandits is not irregular," Shimon commented. "How strong is the ninja?"

"Hard to say. I'm not as skilled with sensing as some of our other kunoichi," Anko muttered. "But safe to say, we should engage them last. Let's take the east end to start. Shimon, weave a veil around this camp—a simple D-rank to throw them off and keep their peripherals intact as we start picking them off."

I raised my eyebrows, "Won't that ninja be able to sense genjutsu?"

"I'm planning on it," Was all Anko said in return. "Ōkei, position yourself in that branch over there and prepare some paralyzing needles."

"Got it."

"And you," Anko turned to me, a smile dancing on her lips. The shadows across her face curved over her forehead like horns. "Are going to be our ram. You wanted your shot, kid? Here it is. Get down there and kill."

"Anko, he's—"

"Under my command right now, yeah?" Anko cut off Ōkei with a sharp look and turned back to me. "Go on, little ninja. It's time to prove yourself."

Prove myself? What's her game?

The camp below smoldered in the gloom, torches casting twisted shadows over ragged tents and grim faces. The damp scent of earth and smoke clung to the air, every crackle of fire and murmur of voices prickling my nerves.

The familiar burn of chakra fluctuated through my veins, and I blasted off the tree, throwing a look backward at Anko. "Don't forget our deal."

AN: Hi everyone! Sorry to delay this chapter so long, I honestly just stopped writing for a while! Currently, this isn't one of my main projects, so I'm hesitant to put another deadline out there, just to miss it. This is more of a transitory chapter, but as you can guess, it's going to go down next chapter.

What I will say is if you're truly curious about the development of this story, I'd recommend you follow this link to Discord and more.

Just take the spaces out of this: Linktr . ee /maroooon

I do live writing tallies there to give full transparency into chapter development. Also, I love talking to y'all about the story and getting your takes and whatnot. Plus, I run polls in there, let you guys decide how certain parts of the story unfold, show early chapter previews, and much more!

Besides, just ping me. I will, very honestly, tell you how far along I am and when I foresee it being released. Honest!

See you guys (hopefully) soon!

- Maroon