11

Disclaimer: I own Naruto.

/~/

A dull thump sounded by Konoha's main gate as Naruto casually dropped his travel pack. Dirt kicked up in a cloud, coating his sandals and mid-calf high bandages in a thin layer of grime. He didn't much care as he lowered himself to the ground, leaning his head back against the hardwood of the massive gate and closed his eyes in thought.

"Meet at the north gate at nine o'clock sharp," Yamato had said. "We have a joint mission. Pack for two week's worth of travel."

The jonin hadn't said anything more the previous day, preferring instead to vanish in the standard Konoha Shunshin. Naruto had shaken his head in light frustration while Kiba and Ino had walked off in their almost daily huff, not bothering to wait for the jinchurriki. Such had become the habit of Team Ten.

Ever since the argument between him and his team – the less mature members in his opinion – both Kiba and Ino had taken to ostracizing him as much as they could. They had decided that not speaking to him for the most part and leaving practice without him were their best courses of action. Avoiding him outside of team training was easy, and Naruto didn't do too much to bridge the gap, but missions were more difficult.

While Yamato had decided, rather wisely, that a C-rank mission outside of the village with the team in such a state would be an all together bad idea, D-rank missions were far from off limits. Whereas before the chores had simply been tedious and annoying, now, given the relative tension, they were the mother of all awkwardness for the twelve year old blond. Neither of his two teammates talked to him beyond the bare minimum necessary to complete the assigned tasks, and the two left him to do his work on his own.

Naruto had taken to using his new clones – the Kage Bunshin was rapidly becoming his favorite technique – to get his assigned work done. Fast and easy, Naruto had to wonder how he had ever managed to get D-ranked missions done without the aid of his clones. Of course, Yamato wasn't about to just let him leave after doing his own work, often making the blond help out his teammates. Ostensibly, it was for the benefit of the team, and the man was looking to rebuild some of the team dynamic Team Ten had possessed before Asuma had died.

It didn't work all that well.

Rather than building teamwork between the members, the D-ranked missions, specifically Naruto's new and easy way of doing the chores, only served to irritate Kiba and Ino further.

Naruto felt like he was on a team with ten year olds, rather than the mature ninjas they were supposed to be.

Admittedly, Yamato could have done more to build camaraderie between the three pubescent twelve year olds, but Naruto felt he either couldn't or didn't' bother trying. The genin suspected the former. Being in ANBU, something Naruto was nearly sure that his new sensei had been, didn't exactly promote strong, tight knit relationships and emotional bonding.

Good sensei from a technical standpoint Yamato was, but he wasn't a nurturer by any means.

More than ever, Naruto found himself missing the easy-going and fairly transparent nature that Asuma had projected, if for nothing else than to resolve the growing chasm between him and his teammates. Conversely, Yamato was as reserved as any person Naruto had ever met – including Sasuke. His somewhat withdrawn nature didn't endear him to Ino or Kiba, despite his effectiveness as a teacher during their team sessions.

While Naruto certainly couldn't claim to be friends with the man, something he could have said with ease about his first sensei, they had a strong working relationship. When Yamato lectured, Naruto listened; when Naruto raised questions, Yamato answered them. They got along as well as any two people in a workplace could. It was clean cut, efficient, and sterile, filled with none of the easygoing cheer and near familial bond Naruto had shared with Asuma, but it worked.

Despite himself, Naruto found himself content with his relationship with the former ANBU, a sentiment only compounded by his steady growth under the man's tutelage.

Yamato could teach, and Naruto was more than happy to learn.

Beneath it all, Team Ten splintered. Kiba and Ino would have their petty vendetta while Naruto waited, with growing impatience, for the two see just how stupid they were being.

Sometimes he wondered if it wouldn't be better if they just went their separate ways.

The emergence of familiar chakra presences accompanied muted footsteps, drawing Naruto from his reverie. Blue eyes drifted open lazily and Naruto half-turned to see Team Eight walking toward him leisurely.

"Ohayo, Naruto! Nice look. New?" came the familiar greeting of Akimichi Chouji, his usual snacks surprisingly absent. Hyuuga Hinata and Aburame Shino, his two teammates, trailed slightly behind the large boy, Chouji having sped up to reach his old friend.

A change in his usual attire explained the boy's greeting. Over his standard green t-shirt he wore a black flak vest, similar to the standard issue green ones worn by chunin and jonin in Konoha, that he left unzipped.

"'Lo, Chouji," was all the blond said in response, not in the mood for much small talk. Naruto stood fluidly, like the shinobi he was, to greet his old running buddy from the Academy. Reaching forward, he grasped his friend's forearm in a standard, customary Akimichi greeting. A smile that was a cross between a grimace and a wince broke across his face as Chouji returned the grip. Tubby bastard always was strong, he thought somewhat fondly, recalling many such greetings. "How's it going?"

"Can't complain, I guess. You?"

The blond shrugged, some of his earlier thoughts returning in spite of Chouji's perpetual cheer. "Good and bad. Learning to just roll with it, I s'ppose."

The smile on the large boy's face dimmed somewhat, no doubt thinking that Naruto was speaking of dealing with Asuma's death. He was, in a way, but certainly not in the way the Akimichi thought. That didn't even begin to cover the rest of the shit-storm of information he was currently dealing with.

"How's that going?" Chouji asked sympathetically.

Naruto snorted a laugh. "It's going," was all he said.

Chouji nodded his acceptance, and Naruto moved past him to greet Shino and Hinata.

"Good to see you, Shino, Hinata. It's been a while." Shino nodded briskly, as was his way, while Hinata flushed and averted her eyes to the ground, silently pressing her fingers together as was her way.

"Indeed, Naruto-san. My condolences for the loss of your sensei."

"A-ano, it is good to see y-you as well, Naruto-kun."

Naruto nodded at the respective greetings, quietly thanking Shino for his sympathy, before moving on to other topics, trying and failing to distract himself. "So, you guys have any idea what, exactly, we're gonna be doing on this mission? Yamato-sensei wasn't specific."

It was Shino who answered. "Kurenai-sensei spoke of a search and retrieval mission to the country of Rice Fields. Increased bandit activity in the area of interest is why additional man power was requested in the form of an additional genin squad."

Naruto nodded as Shino spoke, digesting the dry, yet informative details. "Great," he said dryly, far from enthralled. "What are we 'retrieving?'"

"An information packet being delivered by the Daimyo of Rice Fields' men, as per the treaty between our countries," the near melodious voice of Yuhi Kurenai sounded from behind her genin, causing Chouji and Hinata to jump in surprise. Shino was unaffected, simply turning at the sound of her voice, while Naruto had seen her approach over the heads of Team Eight.

Two blond eyebrows rose at the statement. "Isn't that something handled by chunin and jonin?" Genin didn't get slotted into missions where any type of sensitive information was being passed. It was too dangerous.

Kurenai offered him a reassuring smile, her inky black hair blowing in the slight breeze. "The packet contains nothing sensitive, and is more of a formality to be observed than anything truly necessary."

Naruto gave the jonin a nod before quickly averting his eyes so as to not be caught staring.

"You're looking well, Naruto-san. It's good to see," the pretty jonin offered, and Naruto flushed involuntarily at her words before giving her a quick smile.

The group descended into silence as Kurenai dropped her pack next to Naruto's and moved to make small talk with the two gate guards. The sound of chips being chewed filled the air as Naruto looked about for conversation, all the while not particularly wanting to speak. It was an interesting contradiction.

Just as Naruto began to tap his foot, the sound of bickering assaulted his ears, and a sardonic smile found its way to his mouth.

"'Bout time you two showed," he quipped blandly, not really irritated.

"You're early; we're on time," Ino offered briskly as the two greeted the members of Team Eight with considerably more cheer.

"Nice to see you too," Naruto grumbled under his breath.

"Yamato here yet?" Kiba grunted after obligatory etiquette had been observed.

"No," Naruto returned, a scowl crossing his face as he spied Ino and Chouji in familiar and friendly conversation. He scanned the gathered group. "I'd expected he'd be here by…now," the blond trailed off, keen blue eyes finding the form of his sensei causally leaning against the outside of the gate. When did he…

Blue eyes met black, and Naruto thought he spied a slight smirk pass over his sensei's face, but it was gone before he could fully make it out. Sly bastard, Naruto thought as he watched Yamato get Kurenai's attention before the two made their way to the assembled genin.

"As you've been informed, this mission is a C-rank collaboration between Teams Eight and Ten. Our objective is a standard information packet to be handed over to us just inside the border the Country of Rice Fields. I assume you've each packed for two weeks worth of travel?" Yamato asked the group, though it wasn't really a question.

Six nods and a few muttered yeses met his inquiry.

"Move out."

/~/

The sound of crashing water was all encompassing; loud to the point of being wince inducing.

Water, brilliantly blue yet clear as the day as it reflected the sun's rays flowed underfoot, the current unperturbed by the sandals resting atop it. Naruto didn't' see the water, however. Neither did he see the myriad of ensnared fish struggling upstream beneath his very feet. He didn't see the sun's refracted rays, somehow managing to create a near rainbow in the thin mist permeating the air halfway across the river into the Country of Rice Fields. Nor did he see the trees extending behind him for miles along the river on which he stood, finally giving away to water and rolling fields and hills. He barely even heard the sound of the awesome waterfall to his left, deafened as he was by the sound of his own heartbeat.

All Naruto saw was stone that gave way to a flash of indigo hair and red eyes that inspired both envy and terror in him. Eyes as blue as the water flowing beneath him were locked on the carved face of the man who Uchiha Itachi had warned him of four – almost five, he corrected himself – years ago.

Uchiha Madara.

His hands clenched at his sides unconsciously and his eyes narrowed as his internal equilibrium was disturbed by the swirling, almost nauseating sensation of the Kyuubi's chakra being drawn upon as the name of Naruto's formerly faceless nemesis echoed through his subconscious. The reaction was mostly his, though he suspected that the Kyuubi might have played a small part in the stirring of the pot.

The beast could probably be considered the only sentient being in existence that could honestly say that he hated Uchiha Madara more than Naruto did. And Naruto hated him quite a bit.

He had been all but responsible for the deaths of both of his parents.

Listless blue eyes stared out at the two hundred foot tall cage in front of him, seeing but not truly comprehending the vision before him. Around him, water rippled in great waves and the walls shook as the Kyuubi's mocking laughter erupted, the beast glorifying in the pain it could cause its container.

The Yondaime, his father.

Naruto could see nothing, could feel nothing in the wake of the information that was as close to earth shattering as Naruto felt he would ever receive. The Yondaime, the man he had adored for his childhood and hated since he had learned of his burden, was his father.

The fact that his mother had been both the last of the once proud Uzumaki clan and the previous container of the Kyuubi was all but shoved to the wayside in the face of his father's identity. Pushed aside in the face of the curse Namikaze Minato had given him.

Beyond the cage, beyond the swirling water and the miasma of crimson colored chakra that crashed and broke around and against him, beyond the fox's cruel thundering, one thought penetrated Naruto's mind:

Old man, why didn't you tell me?

Even now, the thought would echo across his mind every now and then, putting him into a mood of gloom and introspection as he tried to piece together why the old man that he had looked to as a grandfather had withheld information so critical to his identity. He never came up with much, nothing so serious that it would prevent the Sandaime from telling Naruto due to any real danger to him.

Needless to say, his teammates on the mission to Rice Field Country had stayed clear of him for the majority of that day. He had gone to the Kyuubi for information on Madara – the fox obviously would have information to yield about a man he had tasked Naruto with killing – to be greeted with the tale of October the Tenth twelve years previous.

The tale of how Madara – "A man with chakra fouler than even my own," the fox had said – had managed to rip the beast from his mother's seal and force it to his will with his Sharingan's trickery, all but killing his mother, Uzumaki Kushina, in the process, before setting it loose on Konoha. The Yondaime, the fox had concluded after some years of thought on the matter, for it hadn't been present, had fought Madara to a standstill before breaking the Uchiha's hold over the beast and sealing it away in Naruto.

The fox had been far from pleased to relate the tale of its own imprisonment, but took a vindictive solace in the fact that Naruto felt as much pain as it did at the revelations.

Naruto had been all but silent for the day, and his team had been even more skittish around him than normal, correctly sensing his mood and having no wish to tempt the sleeping dragon. Yamato had seemed to ignore the episode for the most part, but Naruto had sensed, when he had bothered to pay attention to those around him, that the man was wary. Not for the first time did Naruto wonder about the man's placement on the team as sensei. Sarutobi was no fool, and it would have made no sense to saddle some jonin, even a former ANBU captain, with a tailed beast container if they would be ill equipped to deal with it. It was especially so, now that Naruto had accessed the fox's chakra.

A flash of red in his peripheral vision sent a shock of terror through him, his body unconsciously associating the color with the famous dojutsu of his Uchiha nemesis. Fight or flight took hold of the blond for a single second, his brain shooting orders down nerve impulses at the speed of thought. Arm and leg muscles tensed in preparation, and Naruto's right arm twitched in expectation of delivering a jabbing palm strike to his assailant's throat.

The motion was never completed, halted in the middle as Naruto realized, belatedly, that the flash of red merely belonged to Yuhi Kurenai's dress, not Uchiha Madara's Sharingan.

Get a grip, Naruto, he chastised himself, noting that though the female jonin looked at ease, the tightening around her eyes spoke of her knowledge of his reaction.

"Both teams are ready to move out, Naruto," she spoke, her soft voice somehow carrying over the roar of the falls.

He nodded once, curtly, and turned to follow her back to the small camp the two teams had made just inside the border of Fire Country. The journey from Konoha had been a long one, requiring nonstop running since that morning, and all the genin were in need of a rest to regain their bearings for the rest of the mission.

They entered the camp in silence. Naruto's trained eyes quickly locating his teammates and those of team eight loitering about a clearing that had been filled, just a few minutes previous, by a good sized wooden house that Yamato had seen fit to make grow from the ground. The man had apparently decided to rest in style. Naruto had never seen his teammates happier with their sensei than they had been in that moment, though they returned to their usual cold treatment a few minutes later once the novelty had worn off. Yamato himself was packed and ready, standing at the edge of the forested clearing to observe the five genin.

Naruto spared the man a nod as he passed him, swiftly walking to his pack that was leaned against a tree. The blond had never bothered to unpack, preferring to relieve himself quickly in the woods before making his way to the Valley of the End to brood.

He took up a position next to his sensei in watching the proceedings. The group was ready to move in short order with little fanfare aside from a rather humorous interaction between Kiba and Shino.

"Just because I employ insect based techniques, Kiba-san," Shino had patiently explained, "does not make me responsible for Akamaru's flea problem."

The group stood assembled before the two jonin in silence as Yamato addressed them, "Our destination lies almost two hours to the northwest of here. With any luck, the packet will be delivered on time and we can begin our journey back to Konoha immediately."

"The meeting's location, sensei?" Naruto asked. Yamato gave him a look, and he elaborated, "The briefing packet wasn't specific."

"Shin Toshi," Yamato recited blandly.

"That's Fuma Clan territory," Aburame Shino's quiet voice came from the back of the assembled genin. The rest of teams eight and ten turned as one to look at him. Naruto squinted in thought; the only Fuma Clan he knew of lived in Rain Country.

Yamato simply nodded without expression, but Kurenai looked pleased. "Yes it is, Shino. The Fuma Clan have long been allies of Rice Fields' Daimyo, and have agreed to provide protection and supervision for our meeting with the Daimyo's men."

Naruto's eyebrows went to his hairline, but Ino beat him to the punch in asking, "Is that really necessary, Kurenai-sensei?" Her expression was quizzical, belying the calculating mind Naruto knew she had underneath. "This is only a C-ranked mission, after all."

At her proclamation, Kiba stiffened, while Naruto struggled to look unaffected. His eyes unconsciously flickered to Yamato's, who was staring directly at him with an unfathomable expression in his eyes. The hair on the back of Naruto's neck stood up. Something's wrong here.

The blond barely noticed when Kurenai waved off his teammate's concern. "The presence of the clan is simply ceremonial. It has been a tradition since the end of the last war for the Fuma Clan to be present at the Daimyo's dealings, given the close relationship the two entities share."

Team eight nodded as a whole, accepting their sensei's words without question. Team ten nodded as well, though all three sets of eyes were locked on their sensei. A look of resignation seemed to pass through the man's black orbs for a moment, though it was gone too quickly to be sure.

"Good then," Kurenai said, clapping once. "Shall we?" she asked Yamato. The brown haired jonin nodded once in response. "Let's go!"

A chorus of "Yes, sensei!" rang out through the clearing as the genin hastened to obey, and the six pre-teens leapt into the trees.

Or they would have, had Naruto not taken that moment to trip over an exposed root, falling flat on his stomach in the process before he could catch himself. A round of chuckles greeted his flushed face as he rose, eyes cast downward at the tree root that had tripped him up. He tilted his head quizzically. That wasn't there before, he thought.

Glancing up to the still chuckling teams, Naruto made eye contact with his sensei. A smile played about the man's lips, but it stopped a long way before touching his eyes. Naruto knew the man well enough to recognize that the jonin was all business.

"Are you quite ready, Naruto?" Yamato asked dryly, "Or do you need a minute to collect yourself? We can wait."

The collective gazes of the whole group snapped to the brown haired jonin at the sheer novelty of the usually sober man cracking a joke, while Naruto stiffened unconsciously at the feeling of something crawling up his leg. Only his expectation of his sensei sending him a message kept him from crying out in surprise as what felt like a snake slithered up his right leg before depositing something in his pocket. A lightning fast glance to the ground revealed the root he had tripped over quickly retracting, burying itself in the ground where it had come from, just as he had expected.

Blue eyes sought black once more, but the man was looking to Kurenai now as she gently reprimanded him for making fun of his student. The nearly hidden smile on her face belied her sincerity, however, and the former ANBU Captain took his dressing down with the same bland look that he seemed to take everything else with.

Kurenai hadn't noticed.

Eyes flickering to the five other faces in the squad, Naruto found nothing out of the ordinary, and the Hyuuga didn't have her Byakugan engaged.

Less than three seconds gone, a message passed, and no one knows a thing, Naruto marveled, his respect for Yamato going up a notch. His hand drifted to his right pocket, where he casually felt what seemed to be paper stuffed inside. He refrained from raising an eyebrow. The man could bend wood to his will, and paper was made from trees after all.

A scant three minutes later found Naruto in the trees, taking up the rear of the group as they left the sight of the Valley of the End in their wake.

It wasn't hard for the blond to surreptitiously remove the paper Yamato had passed him without the notice of the rest of the group, positioned as he was. Blue eyes scanned the note quickly. Instead of writing with ink, the paper looked to have pieces cut out of it in the shape of letters. Naruto squinted slightly, as the weird letters took some adjustment of the eyes to read properly. They formed a concise list.

Information packet objective.

Retrieved from Fuma contact.

Otogakure no Sato – new.

It said nothing more, but Naruto knew enough to put the pieces together.

Despite being labeled as a simple C-ranked retrieval mission, the joint effort was simply a cover for the two jonin, probably Yamato specifically, to collect some form of information on Otogakure no Sato, some new village. Whatever it was that was being retrieved, it was obviously sensitive enough for the Hokage to devise a cover for it. The old man didn't want this new village to know about Konoha's espionage. Beyond that, the fact that it was entrusted to a former ANBU captain spoke volumes about how potentially important this information was.

A spark of frustration and anger rushed through him at the knowledge of the secret mission. His team had been victim of a mislabeled mission once before, with deadly consequences. That he and his team were being thrown into the line of fire again, this time with the Hokage's full knowledge, nearly made him scream at the unfairness of it all.

But isn't that what being a ninja is all about? a small, traitorous part of his brain supplied. Wasn't that exactly what Asuma had been warning him about back in Wave? About how mission objectives wouldn't always be defined, how information would be limited, and how he would have to adapt and deal with it in order to stay alive as a chunin and jonin, let alone be successful?

Yes, he decided, this is exactly what Asuma-sensei was talking about.

Life wasn't fair, especially for a ninja. Naruto knew this better than anyone given his upbringing, yet he allowed himself to fall into the same line of thinking as his teammates; allowing himself petulant reactions in situations that, while indeed unfair, couldn't be changed, and where complaining did no one any good.

That couldn't happen; that wouldn't happen. Not anymore.

Bitching about his situation hadn't gotten him anywhere as a child and he had accepted that and learned to live with it. He'd do the same here. He couldn't say anything without blowing the mission's cover to Team Eight. All he could do was be as ready as physically possible, and be prepared to carve up any Oto-nin who happened to cross paths with their group.

He sped up briefly, passing Yamato's note to Kiba and giving the Inuzuka a tap on the shoulder to let him know. His teammates, at least, deserved to know, and he doubted that Yamato would have expected the information to be kept from them anyway.

Once sure of the dog ninja's awareness, Naruto dropped back, adjusting his weapons pouches and readying his knives.

/~/

The group of Konoha ninja didn't reach Shin Toshi until it was nearly nightfall, at which time they were invited to dinner at the expense of the Fuma Clan head, a man ever eager to impress his guests. Yamato had looked ready to immediately refuse the kind offer, obviously in a hurry to get whatever information the Hokage was to receive from the Clan back to Konoha as quickly as possible. But the genin weren't trained for operating on zero rest. It had been a long journey for the genin, and each of them was quite ready for some rest before setting off the next morning.

And it wasn't as if Yamato had any real excuse to leave, given that this was supposed to be just an average C-rank mission and he wasn't about to blow the real mission's cover. Kurenai's logic had won out in the end. They were surrounded by friendly clan members and in friendly territory. It would be better to rest sooner, rather than have to stop in the middle of their journey back to deal with a genin who happened to pass out due to lack of rest.

The former ANBU wasn't too happy with the decision, but refrained from showing his displeasure. It was clear enough to most, however, that the man was on edge, and they steered clear of the jonin for the night.

Dinner was an altogether pleasant affair, with the Clan Head, Hanzaki, treating the Konoha ninjas to what was far closer to a feast than a regular dinner. The man apparently wanted to show off, and the Konoha genin were far from complaining at the ridiculous amount of food in front of them. Chouji, especially, had enjoyed himself. For Naruto, though, the entire affair was an exercise in trying his limited patience.

As he had expected would happen, Kiba had immediately passed the note Yamato had made off to Ino. What the blond hadn't expected, though he probably should have in retrospect, were the reactions his two teammates would have to the thought of a secondary mission beyond their own.

Instead of coming to the conclusion that the Hokage obviously had his reasons for sending their team, specifically Yamato, to retrieve covert information, the less mature thirds of Team Ten unanimously decided that the whole situation was far too familiar to the botched mission in Wave, and that it was all Yamato's fault. The latest bout of wisdom from the dynamic duo saw Kiba and Ino cornering Yamato immediately when the two teams broke for a few minutes of rest, with a hushed shouting match and a severe dressing down following shortly afterwards. It was only Naruto's fast talking to Kurenai and the pretty jonin's ability to run interference with her own team that prevented the entire mission from being aired right then and there.

Naruto wondered at the futility of it all. Sure, people would believe what they wanted to believe, and there was no way that Team Eight would have had any inkling of a different, covert mission, but the three genin weren't stupid. They would start suspecting something at some point, Shino at least was perceptive, and then the whole mission would be blow open.

Needless to say, Naruto had received a dressing down of his own once Yamato had made sure that Kiba and Ino weren't about to defect. Apparently he hadn't been supposed to share Yamato's information with his team. Unused to being in the wrong, the whole scene had screamed unfairness at Naruto, but he had swallowed his displeasure.

He didn't have to like it, however.

At length, he found himself holed away in a corner of the clan head's house, a rather large building in the very center of Shin Toshi, reading through the Earth Manipulation section of the scrolls that Asuma had given him before the Wave mission. He remembered the first stages of his wind training under the dead jonin with nothing even close to familiar fondness, and had hoped that he would have to do nothing more involving leaves. The scroll said differently, and Naruto added it to the growing list of frustrations that the mission was heralding.

Yamato and Kurenai were talking quietly with Hanzaki, though Naruto couldn't hear what was being said from his position. He suspected it had to do with the mission, but couldn't be sure. Yamato had conveniently disappeared for a few minutes before dinner, and had returned far more at ease than he had seemed before. It wasn't something noticed by one who wasn't looking for it, but Naruto had been paying special attention to both jonin ever since Yamato had told him about the real mission. A slight ease in the shoulders, less tightness around the eyes, fewer discreet glances about – small and unnoticeable under normal circumstances, but the circumstances weren't normal, and Naruto wasn't a normal genin.

The whole thing seemed suspicious, and led Naruto to believe that the necessary information was not being delivered with the daimyo's men, as he had thought before, and was retrieved instead by a separate contact inside the clan. The blond admitted to himself that he could be wrong in his assumption, but felt that after a month and a half of quietly observing his new sensei that he could pick up a few of the man's idiosyncrasies. Yamato hadn't seemed half as relaxed the entire trip, even when the samurai had hand delivered their packet to him, and the genin couldn't think of any other reason why the man might be so now.

Thoughts of his enigmatic sensei flew from his mind as a blue and orange blob shaped like a human dropped itself next to him. Blue eyes turned from his elemental scroll to the blob, only to realize that the blob was in fact a girl around his age, with burnt orange hair and a navy blue bodysuit. Brown eyes peeked out from a soft, rounded face curiously, staring at his scroll intently.

He snapped it shut.

"Can I help you?" Naruto asked in his best "polite voice", even as the girl turned her eyes to him with mild annoyance.

"No," she said after a pause. Her voice was harder than Naruto had expected, having pegged her to be about his age, but carried an undercurrent of something that the boy couldn't quite place.

Well alright then, the blonde thought with a bit of wonder. He reopened his scroll, this time trying to actually get some reading done rather than muse about the mission, and was unsurprised when the orange haired girl didn't move, but instead returned her eyes to the earth manipulation text.

The simplest of exercises for students of Earth Manipulation is the Leaf Crushing exercise. Similar to its counterparts, Leaf Splitting, Burning, and Shattering, the exercise is designed to force the student to become "in tune" with the Nature Chakra. With Earth Manipulation, it is important for the student to attempt to crush the leaf, not with pure chakra pressure alone, but by allowing the life energy to seep into the leaf and force it to crumble, rather than do so from the outside. Ironically, this exercise is most similar to the Leaf Shattering technique, its Lightning Nature counterpart, despite being Elemental opposites…

Naruto was drawn from his reading as the orange haired girl's head drifted closer to his as he unconsciously moved the scroll to his right, further away from her. The genin looked to her sharply and met brown eyes once more before they glanced away, a faint blush marring pale cheeks.

"Can I help you?" he asked once more, forgoing bluntness and ignoring the 'What the hell do you want?' that was begging to be asked. He normally wouldn't have bothered, but, like most boys his age, he had a soft spot for cute females who smelled nice.

"You can move your scroll to the left some."

The Uzumaki shrugged and obliged her. It wasn't like she was really disrupting him. She was merely curious. It was understandable, he felt, given that the Fuma clan wasn't in possession of many ninjutsu, or so he had learned. The guards at the entrance to the compound had carried bows and arrows in addition to the standard kunai and shuriken, and he knew for a fact that Hanzaki usually toted a zanbatou on his back. The evidence pointed to a clan of shinobi far more focused on taijutsu and weapons rather than ninjutsu, something so far from the norm in Konoha that Naruto had a hard time imagining what it must have been like.

"Your clan doesn't have much in the way of ninjutsu," he probed, though it was more of a statement than a question.

"No."

Naruto bit down on his frustration at the intransigent girl, allowing a sigh to escape his lips and nothing more. He hadn't had to deal with people refusing to talk to him for years, since he had started taking his Academy time seriously, and consequently hadn't been forced to wheedle information from unwilling sources for quite some time.

That didn't mean he couldn't dust off his skills, however; though they would likely need a bit of a tune up. He doubted that the girl would react well to a combination of puppy dog-eyes and incessant hollering.

"Yes, I guessed as much," he began, shrugging off the one word answer like it hadn't frustrated him in the slightest. "The bows and arrows were a bit of a tip off, to be honest. Not many ninja carry them these days."

"I suppose not."

"Right. Well, you see, that got me thinking. 'Maybe a clan of weapons specialists?' I thought, but that didn't make much sense. Not in this day and age." He had her full attention now, though from how her eyes tracked down the scroll and finally stopped, it was most likely because she had finished reading what Naruto had left open and didn't want to ask him to open the scroll further. "I did some reading about the Fuma clan back home and didn't come up with much outside of Rain Country. I figure you guys must be some offshoot that happened along the way that got kicked out or something…" he trailed off, ostensibly because, were he genuinely rambling, he would have just realized that he had probably just insulted every fiber of familial pride the girl possessed.

She didn't disappoint.

Brown eyes glared into his blue harshly, and when the girl opened her mouth her voice was just as barbed, though still quiet. "I'll thank you not to call my clan a family of bastards!" she hissed.

"Ah, I'm so sorry!" Naruto exclaimed, hands held up in surrender. "I didn't mean to insult you. I'm just curious as to why your clan doesn't seem to have much in the way of ninjutsu," he said contritely. "That's all."

"Maybe because we specialize in something else?" the girl asked sarcastically. "Outside of Sunagakure's puppet brigade, we're the foremost specialists in Chakra Threads," she said, her voice filled with pride.

And here we go, Naruto thought with satisfaction. "Really?" he questioned. He didn't have to reach far for real interest. "I'm not familiar with…how'd you call it?"

"Chakra Threads," the girl said, almost patiently now that she had calmed down. "It's a technique that's most used by puppet users these days to control their puppets from a distance."

"But that's not what you guys do," Naruto surmised quickly.

The orange haired girl smirked. "Oh we do," she said, gesturing to Naruto's arm. When the blond looked down, she jerked her hand back towards herself, pulling Naruto's arm with her even though she didn't once touch it. Despite retaining all feeling in the limb, the arm moved like dead weight as it was pulled across the girl's body, Naruto not far behind as he landed in her lap with a strangled gasp.

A flush crept up his neck as he righted himself after the girl – he still didn't know her name – released her technique. He noticed with some small mortification that the incident had caught the attention of the entire room. The clan head, Hanzaki, was staring at him with a single eyebrow raised, while both Yamato and Kurenai mirrored him. Chouji looked amused while Shino remained impassive. Naruto couldn't be sure, it was so hard to tell with the Hyuuga eyes the way they were, but it seemed almost as if Hinata was glaring at the orange haired girl. Ino's glare was far easier to see, and Kiba looked to be fighting a smile with great effort.

"Yes, well," the girl continued once the room had returned to normal. "We do use the threads like puppeteers sometimes, but mostly for thrown weapons and the like."

"Makes those bows and arrows a bit more dangerous," Naruto mused, his embarrassment sufficiently squashed.

"Oh, yeah," the girl said with a prideful smirk.

"You guys do anything else with those threads?" the blond genin probed, fully interested in a technique that was quite obviously dangerous.

"This and that." She shrugged. Naruto nodded. Whatever else the clan did was not likely to be revealed by anyone, least of all this girl. The blond sat back against the wall once more, satisfied with the information he had managed to get.

Though he still had some questions…

"Still, does it really make sense for a clan to be so devoted to one tiny branch of the ninja arts?"

The girl shrugged again. "I guess not," she said at length. She didn't seem too happy about the logic. "We're trying to expand some, though. We're pretty close to a deal with some local ninja that would really help us move in some new directions-"

"Sasame," the deep voice of the clan leader cut into the conversation from across the room. "The Konoha ninja need to be shown to their lodgings for the night. They have a long journey in the morning, so let's leave them to their business." As he spoke, three bow wielding clansmen entered the room and gestured to the Konoha ninja to gather their belongings.

The girl, Sasame, rose. "Yes, uncle," she demurred before turning back to Naruto. "I didn't catch your name."

Naruto grinned as he gathered his pack. "Didn't think I dropped it," he said roguishly. It managed to draw a smile from the girl, and his grin widened. "Uzumaki Naruto," he introduced himself, holding a hand out.

She took it. "Fuma Sasame. It was good to meet you, Naruto."

"And you, Sasame," he said as the orange haired girl was led from the room by her uncle. Maybe they would be able to continue their conversation the next morning before the Konoha group left. She had been interesting.

He would never see her alive again.

/~/

It was the feel of pressurized chakra being let go that had woken him, split seconds before Yamato's voice sounded.

"Get up! All of you!"

Naruto sprang upward, vaulting from his prone position to a crouch, a kunai clenched in his right fist. Blue eyes darted around the darkened room that was shared by Teams Eight and Ten, taking in the still groggy forms of his counterparts, though he couldn't tell with Shino – the boy wore sunglasses even to bed.

Two people were missing, however.

Naruto's eyes met Yamato's, and the jonin held up a hand to ward off his unspoken question as he waited for the others to shake off the effects of sleep.

"Yamato?" Kurenai questioned a few seconds later, after her team had shaken a bit of their grogginess away.

"My clone was pulling guard duty with Kiba and Ino when a cloaking genjutsu was laid over the area. It was broken, but not before my clone was dispatched. This was fifty seven seconds ago. Since then, I've dispatched the two shinobi that were most likely sent to kill us. I've also learned that Hanzaki and his immediate family have been murdered. The same is happening throughout the entire clan compound; this is a purge," the jonin finished monotonously.

"What are we supposed to do?" Chouji exclaimed in a panic. All three Team Eight genin looked terrified out of their wits, even Shino. Naruto felt he probably didn't look much different.

"Quiet, Chouji!" Kurenai ordered, silencing her whole team. She turned to Yamato. "Well?"

"Take your team and Naruto directly out of the town and lead them to the border. I will track down Ino and Kiba." It went unspoken that both groups would have to fight their way out.

"Sensei-" Naruto began.

"Naruto!This is not the time for a discussion. You will follow Kurenai's lead with Team Eight to the border. No exceptions." The former ANBU captain stared down his best student with emotionless eyes as he passed a small scroll to Kurenai.

Naruto's eyes hardened and he nodded once, curtly. The former ANBU captain was in charge here, and he would follow his lead. He opened his mouth to reply, but the man was already gone, having wasted too much time briefing the group already. Kiba and Ino might have already been killed…

Get a hold of yourself, Naruto!he screamed mentally. Fatalistic thoughts never helped anyone, especially not in these types of situations.

"Gear up," Kurenai was saying. "But pack nothing besides the essentials. This is a mad dash so we can't have anything slowing us down."

"B-but what about Yamato-s-sensei?" Hinata stuttered.

"Yamato is former ANBU. He can take care of himself, Hinata," the red eyed jonin said gently, soothing the nearly hysterical girl. "I'll need you at your best right now, Hinata. We need to be able to see what's around us. Can you do that?"

Some distant part of Naruto's mind marveled at how calm the pretty jonin was in the situation, but most of him was itching to get the hell out of dodge. He had gathered his essentials precious seconds before, and his right foot tapped incessantly with impatience even as he gripped his twin knuckle knives. Cm'on, cm' on, cm'on! Let's go already,he thought savagely as Team Eight rushed to retrieve their weapons. This was why he always kept them in a neat pile less than a foot from where he slept, if not on his person.

"Yes, sensei," Hinata demurred at last, though she didn't sound confident in herself.

"Good girl." Kurenai surveyed the group, all of them finally ready to move out. "Let's move out."

It was the quietest warzone Naruto thought that he would ever stumble into, even after Kurenai had dispelled the residual cloaking genjutsu. Whereas not a sound could be heard before, nearly silent footsteps made by invisible enemies echoed into the night, and the sound of brief weapon clashes became deafening before halting abruptly.

"Shino, Chouji, take the rear. Naruto and I will be our front with Hinata in the middle," Kurenai hissed. The genin obeyed silently. "Hinata, your eyes."

The timid heiress brought her hands together in a seal. "Byakugan!" she whispered, as veins bulged around her pupil-less eyes. They widened almost immediately. "Sensei!-" she began, but Kurenai and Naruto were already moving.

Naruto broke left as Kurenai vaulted back over the top of her genin, both reaching their would-be assassins before the words were out of Hinata's mouth.

Naruto lowered himself under an outstretched stab, letting momentum carry himself into his attacker. He lowered his shoulder at the last moment and lifted, changing the man's direction and flipping him bodily over his head before the black clad assailant could so much as react.

The man landed with a thud, but Naruto paid it no heed as his disruptive wind chakra erupted into four foot blades. Taking two quick steps forward, Naruto brought both arms across his body in an X shape at eye level. The elemental chakra did the work for him, as a similarly black clad man dropped to the ground with his head neatly removed.

The genin juked to his right to avoid the downward slash of a katana that would have left him bleeding out, before blasting forward in a mini-Shunshin. Wind parted flesh like a hot knife through butter as Naruto ran through the sword wielding ninja, piercing both kidneys, and the blond met the dying man's eyes with a snarl as he viciously removed the weapons.

Naruto turned back to the group to see Kurenai with her hands in a seal, staring intently at the man Naruto lifted over himself at the start, her own two opponents dead from multiple wounds from a kunai and lying under the overhang on which they had likely been perched when the genin exited the building.

The jonin's eyes became unfocused for a brief second before she released the hand seal. The man wobbled unsteadily for a moment, before Kurenai casually cut his throat with a kunai. He gurgled for a moment before dropping like a puppet with its strings cut, the stench of released bowels filling the air.

Near silence reigned for a moment while the three genin of Team Eight took in the sight of casual brutality, the stillness only punctuated by soft footsteps coming from multiple locations around them.

"Get a hold of yourselves," the red eyed jonin commanded, addressing her stunned team. "This is the life of a ninja, so you'd better get used to it quickly. All of you need to be at your best if we're to survive." All three nodded shakily, still stunned by the unheralded attack and its even briefer ending. "Good. Hinata, the man indicated that their forces are less concentrated to the north. I need you to verify that."

"Y-y-yes, sensei!" The Hyuuga bloodline activated once more, and the heiress nodded. "There are fewer m-men to the north, s-sensei."

"Good work, Hinata," Kurenai praised gently. "I need you to keep your eyes activated for me, Hinata. Can you do that?"

"Yes, sensei."

No more was said as the group rounded the corner of what had been their lodging in the Fuma Clan Compound, and onto Fuma Lane, the main road that bisected the town. Naruto and Kurenai led the five man team at a brisk jog, eyes peeled for lurking enemies.

Unconsciously, Naruto was reminded of the night that had changed his entire outlook on shinobi life all those years ago. He wondered if it had been this quiet when Uchiha Itachi had eradicated the Uchiha from the face of the earth.

His thoughts were shattered as Hinata called out, "Sensei!" in quiet distress, and indicated two alleys that the group would pass in a few seconds before holding up eight fingers. Naruto and Kurenai exchanged a glance and a nod, and the blond genin steeled himself even as the sound of his own heartbeat filled his ears.

A single knuckle knife was sheathed briefly as Naruto coated and hurled a wind enhanced kunai to his right, into one of the two alleys. The blade's aim was true, and it entered one shinobi's chest cavity before brutally exiting the other side before any of the assassins had time to react. Before the remaining Oto-nin could comprehend that their teammate was dead, Naruto had used his chakra as an anchor and Kawarimi'd with the kunai into the center of the alley.

Wind chakra exploded down the length of his former sensei's knives into six foot scalpels that bent like whips. Capitalizing on his opportunity, Naruto spun three hundred and sixty degrees in the blink of an eye, his whip-like blades eviscerating and bisecting the unsuspecting shinobi as the wind roared its fury for a single moment before falling silent as Naruto fell to one knee to maintain his balance.

A second Kawarimi with his kunai carried him back to his original position before the top halves of the dead Oto ninjas hit the ground. Four thuds echoed behind Naruto, but he was already sprinting toward the opposite alley to assist Kurenai.

The red eyed jonin had only two men left to deal with, and saw his approach from over the shoulder of one her attackers. Swiftly, she thrust kicked him into Naruto's path before dropping low to sweep the feet of her final opponent. The man hit the ground hard with a muffled groan before he was silenced by a well placed kunai.

Naruto quickly reversed his momentum, allowing his body to better catch the airborne shinobi. Grabbing hold of the flying ninja, the blond placed a hand over his mouth to muffle him before slitting his throat. The cooling corpse dropped like a sack as Naruto released him.

Twin Shunshins carried the genin and jonin back to the front of their five man team, who stood arrayed back to back in anticipation of another attack. Even as the three prepared for assault, their eyes were wide with shock at the brutal end to the fight.

"H-holy shit!" Chouji hissed.

"N-Naruto-kun…" Hinata whispered in awe.

All three pairs of eyes rested upon Naruto, blood spattered as he was and looking like he was spoiling for more. Distantly, it occurred to the blond that none of the three had actually seen someone killed before, let alone killed someone themselves. The dead bodies didn't affect him; his sense of squeamishness died along with Zabuza when he had splattered the jonin's brain matter across the bridge in Wave Country.

"Now isn't the time for staring," Kurenai scolded. "Get a hold of yourselves; we're not out of here just yet. Hinata, how's our route?"

"C-clear, sensei. We're less than six hundred m-meters from the northern gate, a-and there is only one man guarding the exit," Hinata said. "H-his chakra levels indicate a likely j-j-jonin."

The red eyed jonin sighed. "Hmm, alright then. Leave this one to me. Naruto, I want you to stay out of this fight unless absolutely necessary, is that clear?" Kurenai asked, serious red eyes that reminded the blond of the Sharingan boring into his own.

"Clear, sensei," said Naruto, curtly. He wasn't about to bum rush a jonin unless absolutely necessary.

"Good, stay alert, though. You're my immediate backup if this goes south," she cautioned.

"Yes, sensei."

"Night vision will restrict his sight to about two hundred to two hundred and fifty meters in each direction, so you three will halt at three hundred." She pointed to indicate Team Eight. "I will cloak us in a genjutsu to hide us from sight, but stay out of range either way. Naruto, you will press up at about one hundred meters behind me. Now, I don't expect the illusion to hold for long, so a secondary sensory overload will hit him when it dispels that should buy about three to seven more seconds to work with. If, after that, he's still alive, Naruto, you will break in as a diversion and nothing more. I'll be able to handle him after that."

"Am I clear?" she asked. A chorus of nods met her. "Good."

The five of them ghosted forward invisibly, with the three hundred yard mark coming at a signal from Hinata. Naruto paused with Team Eight for a few moments as Kurenai continued forward, before following at yet another signal from the Hyuuga heiress. The blond matched her pace easily, maintaining the one hundred meter gap without effort.

The plan was sound, better than sound. It was rock solid for something thrown together on the fly, with the two genjutsu seeming almost foolproof in theory. And yet, Naruto was still nervous. Maybe it was just the thought of trying to tackle yet another opponent well outside of his skill range, but it was more than just that. He had a bad feeling that he couldn't place, and no amount of mental reassurance would make it go away.

He pushed it down, however, when the moon broke through the overcast night and the limited light revealed Kurenai steadily advancing on the jonin's position. Maintaining his distance comfortably, blue eyes squinted in the dark to behold a man of average height, hands loose at his sides, clad in grey fatigues and a matching flak vest. A dark hitai-ate lay across his forehead, the metal gleaming in the moonlight while the fabric contrasted sharply with the pale, almost pasty white skin of the man's face. Yellow eyes with slit pupils stared into the night impassively, reminding Naruto far too much of the Kyuubi for his own comfort.

Time seemed to stand still for a split second as Naruto's blue orbs met yellow pupils that seemed to peer right through him. The man's lips twitched, and Naruto suddenly knew what was about to happen an instant before it did.

The blond genin's mouth opened in a warning that was far too late at the same time Kurenai lunged at the still motionless jonin, kunai in position to eviscerate the sentry. Chakra rushed to Naruto's legs and exploded outward in the most overpowered Shunshin of his young life as the telltale feeling of an egg being broken over his head heralded the immediate collapse of Kurenai's illusion.

Naruto moved faster than he ever had before, his speed eating away at the one hundred meter gap in hundredths of seconds, but he was still twenty meters away when the jonin struck. As fast as a snake, one fist met Kurenai's neck before the Konoha kunoichi had a chance to comprehend that her illusion had failed, before the man's other hand divested her of her kunai and buried it in her stomach in one smooth motion.

A look of pure, unadulterated boredom flitted across the jonin's face as Kurenai's lips parted in a silent "Oh," and a thrust kick to her breast sent her speeding towards Naruto.

The blond hopped lightly, intercepting Kurenai's flight path and catching her with a hard exhale. Naruto dropped to the ground almost silently, quickly surveying the damage the kunai had done. As he examined his instructor's injury, he was peripherally aware of Team Eight sprinting towards him, but paid it no heed.

The jonin had left the kunai buried in Kurenai's abdomen, and Naruto thanked whatever divine power there might have been that the man had done so. The blow seemed to miss just about all of the vital points in the area, but Kurenai still would have been at serious risk of bleeding out had the blade been removed. Instead of true relief, however, Naruto only felt more dread for their situation.

The strike had been deliberate, and if the man was good enough to detect Kurenai's discreet illusion, dispel it without being harmed by the sensory overload, and then reverse her ambush as effortlessly as he had, he wouldn't have failed to kill his would-be assassin unless he hadn't wanted to.

And that meant that Naruto and Team Eight had just become his playthings.

/~/

AN: Sorry 'bout the long wait, but shit's been happening in the real world to prevent me from even working, let alone posting.

Hopefully the longest chapter I've ever written will help assuage the rage, if there is any. Big thanks to the DLP crew for their help, specifically Hashasheen and Datakim.