22 Chapter 21

Chapter 21

It was troublesome. Naruto dropping a bucket of paint on one of the teachers was the norm by now, but doing it on Sasuke was something Shikamaru didn't expect. What he did expect was the fight that soon happened. Sasuke had never lost since that day in sparring, yet this wasn't sparring with teachers overlooking it.

Naruto kept his distance, running on the tables and throwing chairs at Sasuke, who was trying to catch Naruto. It was very troublesome to sleep in this noise. He cared for neither the noisy Naruto nor the cool Sasuke, but he was alone in that. The rest of the classmates soon joined in the noise. With girls cheering for Sasuke and boys wanting to see a fight.

When Iruka-sensei came into the classroom and saw what was going on, describing him as furious would be an understatement. Then Naruto seeing Iruka-sensei's angry face, jumped out of the window with Sasuke following behind him. Iruka-sensei quickly went after them, the only solace I found was that it seemed there won't be a lesson for a bit, so I could sleep without worrying about anything.

…

"What should I do with you, Naruto?" Iruka asked his student when he finally caught him.

"I am not Naruto," Only after hearing the voice did Iruka realize that he was holding Sasuke with yellow paint covering his whole head.

"Sorry, you can go home and wash up," Iruka put Sasuke down.

"Hn."

Iruka quickly put down Sasuke and went to look for Naruto. It didn't take long to find the boy laughing not far away, thinking he was hidden. Iruka didn't waste time and grabbed him by his ear before leading him to Hokage tower. Iruka ignored the boy's screams of pain and dragged him, not letting him go.

Iruka was too furious to notice that the receptionist wasn't in her station, so he went straight into Hokage's office without knocking and was prepared to speak his mind about what Naruto had done. Yet he stopped once he laid down his eyes on Hokage and a boy who didn't look older than sixteen.

"Iruka Umino, Naruto Uzumaki," The Third Hokage greeted them. "Could you please wait outside for a moment?"

"Kaen," Naruto ignored the Third Hokage and greeted the black-haired boy.

"What did Naruto do now?" Kaen asked Iruka.

"Well, he dropped bucked of yellow paint on Sasuke-kun's head and then wrecked the classroom."

"Is that true, Naruto?" The Third Hokage asked, and Naruto looked at the floor.

"I am very disappointed in you, Naruto," Kaen said, and Iruka could feel Naruto's shoulders tremble. "How could you get caught so easily? When I was your age, I was never caught. It seems you still have a long way to go."

"Kaen-kun, please don't encourage Naruto," The Third Hokage said. "Leave Naruto outside. I will punish him after I am done talking with Kaen-kun."

"Yes, Hokage-sama," Iruka quickly pulled Naruto outside the Hokage office. "Listen, Naruto, I don't know what Hokage-sama will tell you, but you will apologize to Sasuke first thing in the morning."

"Why should I?"

"Because that's the right thing to do, I don't know why you did it, but it was wrong," Iruka patted Naruto's head.

Iruka believed that Naruto was a good kid, but he was just misguided. With proper teaching, he will grow to be an excellent shinobi that the village could be proud of. Naruto was hard-working, even if not many noticed it. His not giving up attitude can even be inspiring sometimes. If only he stopped with his silly pranks.

…

Kaen smiled as he looked at Iruka Umino dragging Naruto. The Third Hokage sighed heavily. It has been a long time since Kaen was back in the village, a year before Orochimaru attacked him, and now another year since he started to study under lady Tsunade. Yet, in these two years, not much seemed to have changed.

"Sometimes it feels like you are in the center of all the problems I have to deal with," The Third Hokage said.

"Too bad for you, then," Kaen replied.

"You got even more cheeky."

"Just give me the promotion. I want to see my cat," Kaen told the Third Hokage.

"As I said, I can't do that. To be promoted, you need to pass the chunin exam."

"Do you want me to kick the ass of some genin who could never hope to defeat me, a student of two Sannin?"

"The other way is to have completed a certain number of missions successfully, starting from D-rank missions."

"You kidding? At least I should skip those as I was a police officer, right?"

"Rules are rules. Aside from wartime, these are the only ways to get promoted. As of now, you have not done a single mission in your carrier as a shinobi. The next chunin exam is in two months, but as you don't even have a team or qualification to enter the exam, you will not be able to enter it."

"Maybe I should start a war," Kaen said through gritted teeth.

"Good luck with that. In the meantime, I will make the team for you to join. While doing that, I suggest you take D-rank missions to fill up your file."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama," Kaen replied.

"You welcome," The Third Hokage smiled.

…

Kaen could do nothing but wait for his team to be prepared. Of course, he knew he had to do quite a bit of D-rank missions first. It was annoying, but he wasn't a child and knew that sometimes it was better not to fight the system. It was fine. With shadow clones, Kaen could finish many D-rank missions by the end of the month.

For today, he had to visit the little kitten he had not seen in years. Seeing how much Sasuke has grown would be nice too. Kaen hoped that the brat didn't slack off. If he did, he would need to reprimand him severely. Well, he didn't think he needed to worry about him, and Naruto seemed fine too.

Kaen walked around the village for a bit, it had grown a bit, or maybe he remembered it being smaller. It always was a surprise to Kaen to see the village so lively. The market was always filled with people. Once Kaen was done wandering around, he went to Sasuke's house. When he knocked at the door, and it was opened, Kaen saw Sasuke with his spiky yellow hair.

"Hahaha," Kaen burst in laughing. "I have not seen you in a couple of years, and now you look like Naruto, haha. Are you in your rebellious phase, sunshine?"

As Kaen laughed, the doors slammed at his nose. Yet Kaen didn't stop laughing for a good moment. The image of Sasuke with yellow hair was just too funny for him. After Kaen calmed down, he knocked again, it took a bit of time for the doors to open, and Kaen still snickered at Sasuke's appearance.

"Shut up," Sasuke demanded. "It won't come off no matter how much I try to wash it."

"Heh," Kaen still had a hard time stopping laughing. "Naruto got you good. Let me help you."

Kaen came up to Sasuke and put his and on his hair before zapping with a bit of lighting chakra. The paint hardened and crumbled. Once Sasuke rewashed his hair, he would come back to normal. While Sasuke was washing his hair, Kaen searched for Ash only to find a grey furball strolling around the house. Kaen hated how cute Ash was when he was so fat. He will need to reprimand Sasuke again for overfeeding his cat. The little ash-grey kitten was gone, leaving only a grey ball for cuteness and fur.

…

D-rank missions were very dull. It was nothing but household shores. Kaen knew why genin had to do it. Firstly, it built teamwork. When a team has to go through so many boring missions, they tend to get closer. Secondly, it was to familiarize yourself with the village. Where and what kind of people lived in different districts? Thirdly it was for the civilians to sympathize with the shinobi. Civilians in the village mostly see shinobi helping around it. Aside from war and chunin exams, they don't see much fighting.

Everything had a reason behind every action and decision. The system wasn't made with fools in charge, even though Kaen believed the system was kind of outdated now. There wasn't a war in more than ten years. Some smaller villages were disbanded from their country as Daimyos didn't see a reason to sponsor them anymore. Yet, Konoha mainly stayed the same, with little changes here and there.

Kaen blamed Danzo. It was easy to blame him for everything as he was involved in almost everything. Kaen knew the village couldn't sit idle for much longer or let warmonger consume it. So, he needed to rise through the ranks, get closer to the clan heads, and raise his reputation. First, he did that with civilians, doing as many D-rank missions as possible and talking to civilians, letting them know who he was.

Kaen was very methodical. He worked hard and faked tiredness to show his honesty while working. He introduced himself every time to the mission giver and was very polite. Even those with foul tempers couldn't complain much about Kaen's patience and thoughtfulness while working. Kaen even got a chance to get close to Daimyo's wife over their love for cats.

While he wasn't working, he was teaching Sasuke. Kaen was impressed with how quickly Sasuke learned without even activating his sharingan. And Kaen was envious of how much chakra Sasuke possessed. Kaen got a chakra boost every time his sharingan reached another stage, yet Sasuke had as much chakra as he did at his age without activating his sharingan.

Kaen was angry about how much more talent Sasuke possessed, so he punished him by working him to death every day. Beating him up was very satisfying, and he didn't feel sorry for the brat, not even a bit. And it seemed that the boy liked it as long as it was training. The only thing that Sasuke had trouble with was his chakra control, so Kaen made fun of how horrible he was at it, forgetting that the more chakra one had, the harder it was to control it.

…

After a month since Kaen returned to the village, he finally got a call from Hokage. In the month, he did as many D-rank missions as a regular genin team would do in a couple of years. Kaen believed his file was filled with enough D-rank missions. He hoped he would not need to do any of it anymore. It was too much waste of his talents.

Kaen walked through the village with a soft smile, greeting civilians on the way to the Hokage tower. When he arrived, he talked briefly with the receptionist, who led him to the Hokage office. There he found three women in front of Hokage, two had different shades of purple hair, and another had three dogs with her.

"I refuse," Kaen said before Hokage could say anything.

"Let me introduce your new teammates, Kaen-kun," Hokage ignored Kaen. "Team leader Yugao Uzuki, Anko Mitarashi and Hana Inuzuka."

"Hello," Yugao said.

"Yo," Anko waved her hand.

"Long time no see, eye freak," Hana said.

"Dog piss," Kaen greeted his classmate.

"Yugao is a jonin, Anko is a special jonin, and Hana a chunin. That makes you the lowest rank of the team, Kaen-kun, so please be polite and listen to your senpais," Hokage smiled like an old fox. "Your team's first mission will be to find the person of interest. All of you should have experience in searching and gathering intelligence. All the information you need will be provided to the team leader, good luck."