The Escort Mission: part 1
At 10:00 a.m.
In front of an enormous and thick wooden gate of several dozens of meters high that served as the sole entrance and exit of the village of Konoha.
"Oi!... Kakashi!... How long will that super stupid-looking brat make us wait for him?!... You know that I am the super expert bridge builder from the Land of Waves, Tazuna... I have a very important project that I need to complete as soon as possible.. Hence, time is a luxury to me, but here, I am wasting one hour of my precious time to wait for weak-looking brat!!.."
A tall and muscular, bespectacled old man with a large grey beard and dark eyes that wore a traditional japanese straw hat, a sleeveless shirt and pants, was complaining to Kakashi who was standing in between Sakura and Sasuke. Kakashi was trying his best to keep his calm after having been listening to the old man's complaints for around one hour.
"I know Mr. Tazuna... I assure you that this has never happened before, as Naruto is a very punctual boy... I think that something must have happened for him to be late, so please be a little bit more patient."
'Punctual, my eye... Both you and Naruto don't know the meaning of that word... In fact, today is the first day that I saw you arriving on time, Kakashi-sensei... Usually, only me and Sasuke arrive on time for our mission... If not for the fact that this allow me to spend sometime alone with Sasuke, I would be arriving late too...'
Sakura bent her body a little bit backwards to catch a glimpse of Sasuke, and blushed. On the other hand, Sasuke was expressionless like usual, and calmly observed the discussion between the two adults. Not too long later, Naruto came in sight while walking on his hands with his legs vertically above his head with a backpack on his back.
When Naruto reached the location of the group, he got back on his feet by performing an acrobatic jump with the help of his arms. Tazuna immediately walked towards him with an irritated expression.
"Oi! Super weak-looking idiot!... Do you still have time to do those stupidities, when you are more than one hour late... Is this how you treat your clients?"
Naruto simply just passed by Tazuna by spinning on his left leg and stopped in front of his teammates. He unzipped his orange jacket and performed a ninety degrees bow while apologising to his teammates.
"Sorry for being late, guys... I met an old woman on my way here, that was carrying a very heavy basket... I couldn't bring myself to abandon her and thus, I helped her... I'm really sorry."
"Okay!.. We got it... Straighten yourself... We don't have any time to waste, right Mr. Tazuna... "
"Yeah! Let's go!..."
Tazuna said in an irritated tone as he took the lead and the others followed behind him. Hence, the group of five walked on the path that led them away from Konoha.
Unbeknownst to them, there was two men observing them around two hundred meters away on top of the branch of a large tree.
They were wearing rebreathers, forehead protectors with the symbol of Kirigakure inscribed on them and camouflage suits. Theg also wore ragged cloaks and each wore one of a pair of metal gauntlets on different arms.
Around five hours later.
'It seems that the demon brothets of Kirigakure have already made their moves to eliminate Tazuna... Kakashi-sensei has also already noticed that we are being targeted... As for the other three, they are clueless... I must warn those two....'
Naruto thought as he stared at a large peddle of water beside the road around ten meters in front of them. He then subsequently picked up his pace, and moved closer to Sakura and Sasuke.
" Sakura!... You have affinity for both earth and water release, right... I also heard that Kakashi-sensei taught you, some water release defensive ninjutsu..."
Those words of Naruto caused both Sasuke and Sakura to turn towards Naruto momentarily. Then, they started to move their eyes to observe the ground along with surroundings attentively.
"Yeah!.. Sasuke was there too... Kakashi-sensei said that I still need to practice some more... Right, Sasuke... Kakashi-sensei!!"
"Yeah!.."
Sasuke replied and Kakashi simply nodded while still observing Naruto with a surprised expression. All of the shinobi had steeled themselves and were ready to response to any attack as quickly as possible.
"Even that girl is more talented than you, super stupid-looking brat!..."
Tazuna said while mocking Naruto. He was clueless about what was happening and didn't notice that there was a peddle. Even though it has been days, since it has rained in this region.