Disclaimer:
Dialogue
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 21: The C-Rank Mission
Team 7 arrived at the Hokage's office during the early hours of the morning. The sun had just come out, and they were all still feeling tired but somewhat excited about not having to do chores today.
"Professor, don't fall asleep." Naruto nudged Kakashi on his arm when he started to close his eyes. The man looked ready to fall asleep at any second.
"I'm fine…I think I lost the habit of waking up this early." Kakashi grumbled.
"I knew it! You are always arriving late because you are sleeping!" Sakura complained.
"Why call the team meetings so early then?..." Naruto wondered if their professor just wanted to mess with them.
"Team 7, pay attention!" Iruka shouted.
The Hokage cleared his throat. "Yes, thank you, Iruka…as I was saying, your C-rank mission will be to protect a certain individual."
"Oh, who are we protecting? Is it someone famous? Maybe a famous actor or a rich merchant?" Sakura asked.
"You think they would put genin to protect someone like that?" Naruto raised an eyebrow. This girl was supposed to be the smartest in the class. It made him question how bad the other ones were.
"Well…you are about to meet him." The Hokage moved his eyes to the door. "You may come inside."
The door opened, and a tall old man entered. If his clumsy movements and the bottle of sake in his hand did not make evident how drunk he was, he then started talking.
"W…what…what is this? Are…these the ninjas I hired?" He mumbled while looking at Team 7 with an expression of disdain and very red cheeks. "They are nothing but brats…"
"You get what you paid for…." Naruto said.
"What was that?!" The old man growled.
Kakashi decided to intervene. "What my student is trying to say is that you hired Konoha for a C-rank mission, which can be carried out by genin. These three are my students, and although they are still novices, you can trust in their skills. Also, I am a jonin, so you will be fine."
"Hmph…fine." The man lifted the bottle and took another big gulp. "My name is Tazuna, and I am a genius bridge builder. Your job....blheegg...urg...your job will be to escort me back to my country and offer me protection while I finish my bridg- ops..." He lost his balance and had to grab the door to avoid falling down.
"Sir, I-I don't think you should be drinking so much…this early in the morning." Sakura told the old man.
"Huh?...mind your business, pinky. And I would not be this drunk if your Hokage hadn't left me waiting for an entire day for a team to escort me! Now I only have four bottles left…" He complained.
"Well, this is going to be fun…" Naruto grumbled.
"Hmmm…" Sasuke nodded in agreement.
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They walked for over an hour in relative peace. The village could no longer be seen, and the forest they were in had become much thicker.
"We are going to the Wave Country, right?" Sakura said. They had little time to read the mission report before leaving, but she at least recalled the basic details.
"That's right. I'm in the middle of finishing a magnificent bridge that will connect the Wave Country to the Land of Fire. This will make trading much easier and greatly improve the economy of the country since the access by sea is very rough." The old builder looked a bit better after getting some fresh air.
"And who is the one trying to prevent this?" Naruto asked.
The man got nervous all of a sudden and took another large gulp of sake, emptying the bottle. "Eh…just some bad guys…they don't want to see my bridge finished."
"Bandits?" Sakura asked.
"Y-Yeah…something like that…" The old builder looked away in a suspicious manner.
None of them had missed that.
"Professor…do they have ninjas in the Wave Country?" Sakura asked. She was starting to have a bad feeling about this mission.
"No. Wave is a small country, so it doesn't have a Hidden Village and has to rely on hiring ninjas from other countries. There are many small countries like that in the Elemental Nations." Kakashi explained.
"So we aren't going to encounter any enemy ninjas then?" She asked.
Kakashi's face grew serious. "There is always a risk of that during any mission outside the village, so we should be careful. That being said…enemy ninjas are not part of the mission. Otherwise, this would not be a C-rank."
"No enemy ninjas…" Naruto moved his eyes toward a suspicious-looking pond of water as they walked by.
It was very faint, but he could feel some chakra emanating from that water. Animals could have chakra too, but that was just a puddle formed by rain. 'Wait…when is the last time it rained?'
While Naruto was starting to realize the danger…two large figures emerged from the small puddle and immediately launched an attack against Kakashi.
Their professor was quickly tangled with some chains. The two individuals stood on each side of Kakashi and held onto the ends of the chains before pulling them hard.
"Huh?" Sakura turned around.
"An ambush!" Sasuke shouted.
Kakashi made an expression of surprise before he was apparently ripped into pieces by the chains.
Sakura screamed in pure shock at the macabre spectacle.
Sasuke reacted a bit better and at least got ready for battle. It had become obvious that those two were enemy ninjas and were trying to kill them, as well as the person they were supposed to protect.
Even with his dulled senses, Naruto knew that Kakashi was fine. It would take a lot more than this to kill that person. He just didn't understand why the need for this charade.
'Is he trying to assess how the team will react in a real combat situation?' That would make sense. This is the first time Sakura and Sasuke are faced with a real deadly encounter.
Things were a lot different for Naruto…deadly encounters were basically his daily life for a large part of his previous life, so he had no trouble remaining calm. 'Well…how do we handle this?'
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