2 Capture

Kakashi glared at me and said, "I'm impressed you know so much about me, but the real question is who are you to make such demands."

I smiled and said, "A loyal ninja of the leaf, unlike you who appears to be harming our village. First, Obito and Rin, now Naruto and Sakura. Who else will die at your hands?" The Hokage gazed at me and then Kakashi. "Instead of worrying about my place and the idea of status, you should be worried about how the Hokage deals with scum who abandon their teammates before the mission has even started."

I bowed toward the Hokage and knelt before him. "Sorry, my passion for the leaf got ahead of me." The Hokage smiled.

"Seeing such passion from the youth is a blessing. But, ignoring Guren's display, Kakashi, don't you think using a shadow clone for this meeting is disrespectful?" I trembled. Is Naruto's instructor insane? If the Hokage calls for you, you go: it's common sense. Moments later, Kakashi entered the room. He greeted the Hokage gazed at me for a moment.

I knew it was rude, but I said, "Did you finish your book? Perhaps, now you can train your students?"

"Now, Guren, you made your stance clear, no need to beat a dead horse."

"Forgive me. I am still learning from Anko." Kakashi gazed at me when he heard my teachers name. But, right now, it's impossible to focus on him. The Hokage's presence is too strong.

The Hokage dismissed me and tossed me a personal tax exemption up to ten million ryo a year. I smiled and left the building. With a tax exemption, my profits grew to five thousand ryo a day, and my Anko fee became around nine hundred ryo. But, I now had an advantage few others had. Ripping apart that stupid jonin and getting a tax break, makes for a wonderful day.

I met with Anko and told her about my run-in with the Hokage and Kakashi. She smiled and gave me a thumbs-up before asking for dango. I gave her a stick and ran off. One should make sure they have a supply of dango when dealing with Anko; it makes her vastly more likable. However, a few days later, my bribes failed to work. As her passion for 'training' grew, so did my suffering.

The first week of Anko's improved training included more venom and fire. As in, Anko tossing snakes at me while I had to burn them away with a fireball jutsu. Once I mastered the fireball jutsu, which meant I had to cast it with one or fewer seals, Anko decided my taijutsu needed work, which meant I would learn another jutsu, Naruto's favorite, the shadow clone jutsu. Anko showed me the jutsu, which took me two weeks to master likely because I had to cast it on the move. Water walking or tree walking while casting advanced jutsu is a pain.

Once I mastered, a few more jutsu the Hokage sent me on a mission. My first mission is unranked; in fact, I would be rewarded based on how much damage I can cause to Gato's son, some merchant called Donzo, whose weakening the border nations around Kohana. My job is to slow him down as much as possible. In other words, I shall be a pest, burning down if not looting all his goods storehouses. Before the mission starts, the Hokage ordered me to learn how to seal items into scrolls. Anko sat me down for a few days and showed me the basics.

Sealing is very simple. Each line affected the scroll a certain way, much like the written word, only more complex. It's wonderful. With a flick of the wrist and some chakra, I could transport a massive amount of items. An example of this would be Tenten, a girl who uses to use weapons, sadly, problems with chakra, are making it hard for normal people to work with scrolls. Suddenly, a great idea with scrolls entered my mind. In the future, I'll open a great store that will be known worldwide.

Sadly, right now, I needed money and power. The first step would be the mission given to me by the Hokage, I could likely, begin in the land of waves. But why am I given a solo task? I thought genin like myself were meant to work in groups. Either way, I could not question the orders of the Hokage. I roamed the village, brought some maps, eat ramen with Naruto, who was taken away from me because of some mission, and left my home behind.

Anko had told me I'd be fine, but it's my first time leaving the village. I wished I wasn't alone. But, after a day's walk, I found myself on Naruto's bridge. I grinned a bit as my friends image entered my mind. I had thought he lied or oversold the story, but it seems it's all true. I approached a mid-sized statue of Naruto and read it. It told me about Naruto's actions, which caused me to blush. Naruto's awesome.

I entered a local bar, talking about a fake shipment of goods, and attempted to hire 'protection.' Of course, my real goal is to draw out anyone of Donzo's faction. I knew it would only be small fry, but for the mission, it's all I really needed. After a few days of dealing with common bandits, I found myself in a real fight. Some guy called Orochimaru had taken a slight interest in me and sent some goons to capture me. While most of his goons, were weak and could be captured quickly, their leader, Jirobo, is a huge pest. He is slow but strong. Worst of all, whenever I created a good amount of distance from him, some black marks would appear on him.

I grit my teeth and entered an all or nothing battle with him. I did not want to kill him, as I wanted to know more about this Orochimaru person and the fact that I had never killed a person before. But, for some reason, my snakes could only nip at him. Just in case, I sent a snake to the village, but it would take a few days before it would reach Anko.

I yelled, "You fucking stalker," and used a fireball ball jutsu to trigger some nearby traps I set up, hoping to slow down that massive fucker of a ninja. I had thought he's a member of Choji's clan, but other than in an insane amount of power, he's not doing anything impressive. I used Kohana's flare, in hopes that if there's any nearby ninja, they could help me and summoned five shadow clones. With all the traps, and my fireball blocking his vision, it would be hard for him to discover me quickly. From there, all my clones and I ran in different directions.

Jirobo turned transformed into some orange devil and took down three of my clones with raw speed. I poured chakra into my feet and created another twenty clones who did the same. But, in moments, I found myself captured, bound, and gagged. My foe licked his lips, gazed at my figure, dragged me into a cave, past a hallway, and into a throne room. From a black and gold chair, a man with pure white skin, like my snakes, gazed at me. I stared at the man and said, "I take it your Orochimaru?"