Chapter 24: Wildcat

Since Kannin was a lot less spread out, now that Mifune ended their training, he began thinking of anything else his kit might be missing. He had all purpose jutsu like body transformation and shadow clones; he had potent area attacks with his water release, and jutsu augmentation with his wind release; he was nearing a secret weapon with his chains; and he finally gained basic competence with kenjutsu thanks to Mifune. All in all, he thought he was quite strong for his age--but still he felt like he was missing something.

His mother brought him lunch in his room, a place he had spent most of the last 5 or so weeks refining his chakra and forming his chains while his clones went elsewhere. Lunch was a simple turkey sandwich, but Kannin knew it would taste delicious, everything his mom made did. As he was about to take his first bite, a bird appeared in his window with a small message scroll on its leg. Kannin groaned and put his sandwich down and took the scroll, thanking the bird. He ate while reading. As he thought, this was a summons to join Team 4 for their next mission.

He put on his usual outfit and put his grey hair back with a hairband, slung Koseki across his back, said goodbye to his mom, and walked out the door. On the way, he passed by the academy and saw three familiar faces. Kakashi was standing in the middle of the courtyard, Obito was standing opposite him and pointing his finger at Kakashi, challenging him to a duel. Rin was in the crowd, looking on with a worried expression.

Kannin smiled to see the kids getting along so nicely, and wished them luck once they graduated. Walking further, he passed Ichiraku Ramen, where he overheard a familiar voice speaking at light speeds. He looked over at Minato talking to Kushina about something, so giddy that he was tripping over his words. Kushina really had an effect on the guy, it was pretty funny. Kannin looked over at Kushina, he saw her back and her scarlet hair. It really was different from his mom's more orange hue. While he was looking at the two of them, Minato managed to spot him, and Kannin overheard him say

"Look! There's the Uzumaki I was telling you about! See, his hair is grey."

This time Kushina looked over at Kannin, who was again feeling like an art exhibit, and she quickly spat out,

"Oh he's lying. There's no way he's an Uzumaki. Why do you believe everything people tell you, you idiot?" She bonked him on the head lightly.

Taken aback by their childishness, Kannin took a moment before piping up, "Umm, actually Kushina-san, I am an Uzumaki. I know it doesn't look like it but I am." He walked over to the counter where they were eating, and pulled out the photo his mother gave him. "See, I get the grey hair from my father. My mom's hair is Uzumaki reddish-orange."

"There's simply no way that Uzumaki genes could be outdone by some random shinobi out there! You're mom's gotta be lying to you-"

"Kushina. Stop." Minato interrupted, a grave solemnity replacing his previous childishness.

Kannin looked over at Minato and found him staring at the image of his father with deep contemplation.

"Do you recognize my dad?"

Minato remained silent for a while, before replying "I think it would be better for you to find out yourself." He quickly returned his more calm and smiley expression before asking, "What brings you around here?"

"I have a mission to go on."

"Oh, well good luck kid. I'm sure you'll do fine."

Kannin thought that it was probably time to get back to the team before he was late, so he bid the two lovebirds farewell before heading off, hearing Kushina's voice slowly getting fainter, "Why did you call him a kid? You're not even 5 years older than him..."

When he had reached the rendezvous point, he found the whole team waiting for him, tapping their fingers.

"It's about time you showed up, Prince Kannin." Tetsu teased

Shin added on, "Yeah it's nice you managed to fit us into your schedule"

"Oh come on, I'm not that late! I got caught up with Minato-san on the way here, that's all.

The other three's eyebrows rose, and Shin asked, "You know Minato?"

"Well we ran into each other searching for Kushina and got acquainted. That's it really."

"Huh, would've never guessed our very own Kannin would be such close friends with Konoha's genius Namikaze Minato." Warai chuckled out

"Seriously it's not like that!"

Shin watched the kids have their fun for a moment before getting to business.

"Hokage wants us to go to Amegakure."

"What?" Kannin said in surprise, "Why Amegakure?"

"Well, the Hokage is wanting to host a Chunin Exam later this year in order to ease tensions after the war, so we, along with some other teams are going to the other villages to act sort of like emissaries."

Warai asked, "So are we actually doing anything then? Or are we just going to go there and look pretty for them?"

"Of course not, Warai. We're also there to gather as much intel as we can on Amegakure. In particular, there are two objectives: 1) reconnaissance on Hanzo of the Salamander and 2) intelligence on a new organization we know little about."

The kids' eyes widened at the name Hanzo of the Salamander. The man was a living legend. His total dominance on the battlefield was the stuff of legend--they say he's the one who named the now famous Sannin of Konoha just because they were able to survive a battle with him. Kannin was not excited for this.

"Is Hanzo really as terrible as they say?" Tetsu asked

"I don't know. During the war I fought on the Kumo front. If you want a better gauge of his skills, you'd have to ask the Sannin, and good luck with that." Shuffling her papers, she concluded, "We leave in one hour."

-

They were on their way 30 minutes later, since everyone had eaten their lunch on the way to the rendezvous. Running through the trees, the made their way to the Northwest. After about 3 hours of constant running, they took a rest.

Sitting in the trees, while Kannin was chewing on some military rations, he managed to ask Tetsu and Warai, "So what have you two been working on this past month?"

Warai and Tetsu both smiled, but didn't clarify: "You'll see it pretty soon."

Seeing they were satisfied with the mystery, Kannin decided to keep his skills to himself as well.