Chapter Four: The Opening Gambit

Hatake Kakashi, the Sixth Hokage, sat behind his desk with a more than small amount of irritation on his masked face. Before him stood the full complement of two genin squads, Teams Eight and Nine. And aside from their jonin-senseis, the teams looked like they had been in an absolute brawl. And by the report he had received from others already, they had been. With each other.

"So let me see if I have this straight." Kakashi finally spoke, trying to get to the bottom of this situation. "Your two teams nearly killed each other….over a cat?"

The two squads of genin grumbled under their breath and looked at each of their members. Sure it sounded stupid when you put it that way. But for one of these squads, there was more to it than that. After clearing his throat nervously, Fu stepped forward from Team Nine and adjusted his robes. "Y-yes, Hokage-sama. That is the case." Despite his nervous tics, Fu was the most well-spoken of the group, and had been elected as the designated speaker for the team. "Ho-however, I assure you that it is a bit more complicated than it appears on the surface."

Slightly entertained by this notion, the Hokage leaned back in his chair and motioned for the young shinobi-monk to continue. "You see Sir, that cat was our client." Fu stated, gaining confidence as he kept speaking while pulling the mission scroll out from his robes and handing it to the village leader.

Unrolling the scroll, Kakashi quickly read through it. A request from the Fire Daimyo's wife to find her cat, Tora II. Apparently it had been missing since her last visit to Konoha a week ago. "I see, and the cat was in their possession?"

"Not exactly Sir." Fu's grip on his staff tightened, and the Hokage as well as all the jonin could sense the small amount of killing intent starting to bleed out of the usually peaceful genin. "After a lot of looking, we found Tora in a small storm cellar on the outskirts of the village, which was locked. Upon further investigation, we found there was no way into the cellar besides the locked door, nor was their any house attached to it."

Kakashi nodded softly, his attention now turning to Team Eight. While their frontman, Masahari Sugo, was trying to stand solid (a process aided by the loose cloth that masked the lower half of his face), the other two members of the team were starting to squirm. As he took in those details, the Hokage processed the information in his head. No doubt this cellar was a remnant of the Pain Assault, a house on the outer edges of the village that had been destroyed and its owners had their home built in a new location.

Taking a moment to calm and center himself, Fu continued his debriefing. "A-admittedly we were not certain that the cat in the cellar was Tora at the time, but finding no other way in we picked the lock. It was at the time the only lead we had. Once we got in and assessed the situation, Team Eight showed up, claiming the cellar and the cat were theirs despite him wearing the tags with the Fire Daimyo's mark. Things….degraded from there." Despite his hardest attempts and meditations, Fu could not get rid of his distaste for Team Eight. Sugo was the nightmare of every member of Team Nine during their academy days in one way or another. Even Akuma and Izumi could agree on this fact. And the fact that his henchmen Hyuga Higurama and Sugo's stereotypical mean-girl counterpart Fuma Rei had ended up as his teammates made things even worse.

"If I may, Hokage…" Shikamaru cut in, stepping up and placing a folder on his desk. "A preliminary report from Inuzuka Hana. It seems after they managed to get away from the brawl, Team Nine went directly to her office, and were still there when I found them. That's also where the cat still is…" He finished with a rather stern tone as he looked over at Team Eight, prompting Kakashi to open and read the report.

'Malnourished…evidence of wounds concurrent with near-misses from a kunai or shuriken…burns on the tail…' Kakashi began gritting his teeth behind the mask as he silently read the details. "I see, thank you very much for this. It is obvious to me that Team Nine went above and beyond in attempting to complete this mission. Why don't you take your group down to get the final paperwork taken care of while I have a few words with Team Eight?"

"Yes Sir." Shikamaru replied with a grin as his team gladly all headed out, glad to be done with their first time being called into the office of the Hokage.

"Fucking freaks." Sugo hissed from under his mask as they began to walk out.

"Later asshole." Akuma replied under his breath with a smirk as he brought up the tail end of the team.

As soon as the team was out of the office and the doors were closed, the nerves and stress finally left their bodies. Giggling, Mitsufune jumped on Fu's back and tightly wrapped him in a combination chokehold-slash-hug. Akuma was on him just as quickly, jovialy giving Fu a noogie before fistbumping Izumi in celebration. Their plan of nominating Fu as the speaker had paid off in spades. Shikamaru couldn't help but smile as he watched his team of misfits celebrate. Over the last three months they had grown leaps and bounds, and had proven they would stand together and make the right choices when it mattered. Perhaps they were ready….

Three days later….

Team Nine was gathered at the Konoha gate, awaiting their sensei. The previous morning he had met them at Akuma and Izumi's apartment (which was slowly becoming the four's usual hang out spot) with a bonus from the Fire Daimyo's wife and the cryptic orders to be here and prepared to not be back for a few days.

"Man it's too damn early for this…" Akuma yawned and stretched his hands. He had spent his share of the bonus on a brand new set of fingerless gloves with metal plates in the knuckles, but they still needed to be broken in properly and were uncomfortably stiff.

"Well if someone hadn't used all the coffee, it wouldn't be so bad." Izumi retorted as she re-checked the kunai and sebon in different parts of her long coat.

"Oh will you two just cut it out and fuck already?" Mitsufune drolled in an annoyed tone as she tuned her shamisen. If she was going to be out of town for a few days, she wasn't going to let her practice fall off.

Akuma just made a gagging noise in response, while Izumi rolled her eyes. "Neither of us want to date our teammates, Mitsi…." She replied with a smirk, looking over her glasses at her fellow kunoichi. Mitsufune froze as a blush as she looked at Fu from the side of her vision, breathing a small sigh of relief as she noticed he was deep in meditation.

It was at this time that Shikamaru finally made his appearance, stepping up to his team with a small travel bag over his shoulder. "Good to see you are all here." He called out, limp cigarette hanging in his mouth. "I know being out this early in the morning isn't fun, but we need to head out as soon as possible." Pulling his lighter out, the sensei lit his cigarette before continuing. "We're going to be going on our first C-rank kids. Should be safe but also a bit more serious."

This update drew everyone's attention, even pulling Fu out of his meditations. Now things were starting to make sense, and Shikimaru could feel the excitement now bubbling underneath the surface. "If everyone is ready, we'll start heading out north and I'll give you the details on the way."

WIthin moments Team Nine was sprinting through the woods outside the village, heading to the Land of Fire's northern border. "Like I said, this shouldn't be too dangerous but…" The jonin-sensei started to brief his team. "There have been growing reports over the past few weeks about unusually dangerous deer in the woods near the border of the Land of Hot Springs. I had been planning on checking this out myself, but I have a feeling you could use some time getting out of the house, so to speak."

"Uh, Sensei…" Akuma spoke up, his voice filled with confusion. "No offense but, just how dangerous can a bunch of deer get? Like isn't this something some local hunter could take care of?"

"You'd be surprised, trust me." Shikamaru responded cryptically. He had grown up with the deer of the Nara forest, and had seen firsthand just what those noble creatures were capable of against trespassers. "Besides, if someone is putting out to call in a ninja squad, they most likely would have tried handling it themselves already."

WIth a nod, Akuma fell back into formation, running alongside Fu. Behind them, the girls had paired off and were busy arguing about something. If Akuma had half a bother he would try and listen in and egg them on, but a growing part of him didn't give a damn. Instead he turned his attention towards the vegan of the group. "Hey, Fu, are you gonna be alright with this?" Seeing Fu's obvious confusion, Akuma continued. "If Sensei is right and these deer are really dangerous, we may have to put some of them down…"

"Ah…" Fu nodded softly as he finally made the connection. "One of the core tenants of Ninshu is to protect others. Hopefully it doesn't come to that…but if it does, I would rather live with the darkness on my own heart knowing I protected others than with the knowledge that worse would be done if I do nothing."

"That is disgustingly mature of you Fu." Akuma replied with a smirk. "We really need to get you a girlfriend or something, bring you back down to our level."

TTTTTTTTT

The sun was barely peeking over the horizon as Team Nine entered the woods surrounding the small village that had sent out the request. A full day and a portion of the night the team had traveled to get this far. Had Shikamaru been traveling by himself, he would have been here sooner. But even though the new graduation standards ment his genin were older than he was when he started, that didn't mean much for their stamina. Just another troublesome roadblock they would have to work past.

The village itself wasn't much to look at, just a small rest stop on the way to the Land of Hot Springs for normal travelers or merchants. It didn't take long for them to find the leader of the village, a wizened old man who filled them in with details. The story listed in the request was accurate as far as they had found so far, but the story they got was more gruesome than they had imagined. Apparently several weeks ago the hunters in the village had reported deer becoming more aggressive, even attacking and fatally wounding some of them. Adding to this was a note that was never included as the elder referred to it only as a figment of some hunters imagination: sightings of a creature resembling a deer, but far more massive in both height and girth, with a massive rack that would outdo any hunter's entire collection.

Armed with this knowledge, Team Nine found themselves moving through the woods, carefully darting from tree to tree to try and find the deer. It was Izumi who spotted the first one, carefully landing and trying to carefully get close enough to examine the creature. Little did she know her request would soon be met. Despite her quiet approach, the deer's head snapped around to see her, and instantly the look of fear she had expected from the famously skittish animal was nowhere to be found. The deer pinned it's ears back as it snorted, its eyes blood red as bloody foam burbled out of its mouth. The angry creature turned itself to fully face Izumi, stumbling as it did so, before bursting into a charge. Thinking quickly, the shinobi launched herself before the deer could strike her, letting out a short sharp whistle while airborne. Driven by some primordial anger, the deer slammed straight into the tree that Izumi had been in front of, shaking its head before stumbling around and turning to face her, eyes still crimson and filled with bloodlust. Quickly Izumi ran through the options in her head. Orders had been to try and catch one alive if possible, and none of the Wind or Water techniques she knew were designed for capture. Which means she would have to use that…

No, there had to be another way. Her whole body shook at just the thought of pulling that out now. Instead she flung out a few kunai, hoping to hit a pressure point or vital nerve to drive the deer back and track it down. But to her horror, this only managed to anger the beast more. The cries it made were that of some terrible nightmare creature, the kind of calls that drilled into a man's soul.

Raising her hands, several seals quickly worked their way out. The movements were fast, almost instinctual, and the chakra flowed easier through her coils than any other elemental technique "Hyōton: Hyōketsu Nabara (Eng. Ice Release: Frozen Capturing Field)"

As the words poured effortlessly from her mouth like a long forgotten song. a cold mist quickly grew up around the deer's legs. In just moments, the mist grew colder and froze solid, ice crystals growing up around the angry beast until they kept the entire legs in place. As the deer struggled to obtain its freedom, the remainder of Team Nine arrived from various angles.

"Duuuude, did you do that?" Akuma asked in shock as he stared at the deer, eyes wide. "How the hell did you even pull off that? That's like some hyper advanced nature mixing shit."

"Wait…if you didn't know she could do that…" Fu cut in, himself also confused by this realization. "Then why does everyone call her the Ice Queen?"

"That's because of how she mercilessly turned down like every guy who asked her out in the Academy." Mitsufune answered with a grin, prompting Izumi to cross her arms and just glare.

"Oh yeah, like it was brutal." Akuma mused. "Like I get it for Sugo, he's a total asshole, but some of them were really nice cool guys and she just stomped on their hearts."

"Can all of you please just….." Izumi attempted to retort, but her train of thought was derailed by their sensei's actions. Shikamaru had stepped up to the captured deer and looked it over carefully, gazing deep into its eyes. Then after a few moments, he quickly pulled out a length of ninja wire and wrapped it around the beast's neck. With a single motion the jonin pulled the loop closed, and before the deer could even realize what had happened the thin sharp wire cut cleanly through its throat and spinal cord.

As the genin could only watch in a mix of fascination and horror, their sensei put away the wire and pulled out a kunai. "Fu, you've had the most medic training right?" Shikamaru asked as he knelt next to the fallen head. With a gulp and a nod, the ninja-monk followed the unspoken order and stepped forward, keeping his attention more on his sensei's movements than what was on the ground next to them.

With a few quick movements, Shikamaru managed to expose the deer's skull before giving a hammer blow to crack it open. This was the part he always hated, having only done it back home a few before due to a rabies outbreak. The moment the brain was exposed, he already had his answer; but it was part of his job to be a teacher in this moment, so he forced himself to widen the skull and let Fu get a proper look. "What do you think then, medic?"

Gulping again, Ful looked down and was aghast in horror. Even though the creature was dead, part of the brain still squirmed and moved unnaturally, and what at first glance looked like veins began to burrow themselves deeper in. "S-some type of parasite. A l-l-iteral brain worm. If it's contagious, that may be what's causing this."

"My thoughts exactly…" Shikamaru agreed as he placed the skull down, smirking softly as his student was already offering a prayer for this animal's spirit. In the silence of the forest, Fu's soft words sang out like a psalm to the heavens.

Gripping his kunai, the jonin slowly stood and looked around. A growing sense of dread began to fill him as his ears reached out for any natural sound of the woods. Things were too quiet now, and the normal background noises of birds and bugs had faded. After a few moments, his students came to the same realization. An old phrase from before the days of the village foundings all crossed their minds at the same time, a phrase commonly spoken by the ninja of the Village Hidden in the Leaves: Fear most the forest when it is silent.