Disclaimer: This is simply my dabblings into the massive Naruto sandbox. I don't profit from my little sand castle.
A/N: Oh man, this month has sailed by fast. I can't count the number of times a fanfic writer has said that in a story I was reading, and almost every time I roll my eyes in response. A month is a month, after all. Now, I can empathize.
My time is rather limited right now, with mid-terms and the like. However, I will attempt to pick up the pace and update more frequently than once a month.
A few stylistic changes in my writing, I think. I've been experimenting with a few things, and I like how they've turned out here. Nevertheless, please give me some critique, your insight is very valuable to me.
I decided to move the author's note to the top of the chapter from now on. Also, I added a new poll, so take a look at that when you get a chance. Your votes will definitely influence what I write about in the next few chapters, since I've completely run out of pre-written pieces. Nevertheless, the plotline is still in my head, so the story shouldn't be to convoluted.
Ninko, Chapter 12: Of Shadows and Memories
The scent of dung hung heavy in the air, cloying in one's nostrils and saturating their clothes. Just as inescapable was the incessant buzzing, pea-sized pests flying to and fro. It had taken mere minutes to outgrow the habit of swatting at the nuisances: there were always more.
Instead, Uzumaki Naruto set his focus unerringly upon hitching the beasts of burden -- donkeys, mules, and the odd horse -- to the various carts the merchants had left along the road.
Leading his latest group from the stable, Naruto allowed his eyes to wander, taking in the morning's sights. The stable was situated near Konoha's main gate, and even now the traffic along the thoroughfare was respectable. Haggard merchants guided their mule-drawn carts into the village proper, while smaller groups of merchants began their own business ventures. A squad of ANBU, one of them likely a Hyuuga, watched over the procession, as the chuunin's watching the gate provided a less covert form of security.
Konoha had a large population, but a relatively small area. It was defendant upon trade to maintain a constant supply of food throughout the seasons. The Byakugan's ability to near simultaneously screen every merchant traveling through Konoha was a sizable feather in the clan's cap.
Tearing his gaze from the enigmatic masked figures perched above the gate, Naruto distributed his four-legged charges to their respective owners. He noted his teammates lashing down the canvas tarps over the cart's open beds. The simple measure was designed to protect the goods from both the weather and the prying eyes of thieves, though it would do little to deter any resolute bandits. Such is what necessitated their presence, and though the mission was unlikely to promise much in the way of action, Naruto was nevertheless excited at the opportunity.
Convoy escort was frequently assigned to two-man chuunin teams, and occasional one-man jounin teams. Larger squads were rarely necessary, since bandits were often intimidated by the mere sight of a trained shinobi. Why bother assaulting one of Konoha's elite when they could simply wait for a more vulnerable caravan? The missions were frequently too dangerous for genin, though, as bandits would hardly be deterred by a child, regardless of how trained said youth may be.
Naruto honestly couldn't fathom why they were given this mission. They were newly graduated academy students, so their youth was quite evident. The oldest of the team were both pre-pubescent girls, and their jounin-sensei, also a female, didn't wear the distinctive clothing a jounin typically wore. Given that bandits were primarily made up of adult men, the odds were high they'd overestimate their odds against the female ninja.
If the ninja served primarily as a deterrent, why chose the least physically imposing team available?
It was an uncomfortable realization, and the likely answer was even more disconcerting: they were bait.
'Perhaps Akane-sensei is testing us?' Naruto wondered uneasily. 'Maybe she wants to see how much we've grown since we graduated? Even if so, why have such dangerous conditions? Failure in this instance would result in more than a few bruises...'
"Yo, Naruto-kun," Akane barked, and Naruto snapped himself out of his stupor. "Quit daydreamin', the caravan's almost ready to move out."
"Yes, sensei," the blond replied with a sigh.
"Don't 'yes sensei' me you little squirt, you need to stay focused," the jounin replied firmly.
"Understood, Akane-sensei."
"Now, that's better. You and Hiyori-chan take point."
'She's nervous...a test then...' Naruto though to himself with a grin. 'Well, we'll pass your test Akane-sensei! Dattebayo!'
The scroll smacked against the small of her back with every step, and Hiyori fought the powerful urge to simply seal the ungainly parchment away.
Nevertheless, she wanted to stay ready. She'd felt a bit uneasy about this whole affair from the beginning, and her blond-haired teammate managed to put her concerns into words rather well. What were they doing out here?
The blond's belief that the mission was a test was a reasonable one, but it left questions unanswered. Why test them in such an unconventional fashion? They'd spent the last quarter of an hour discussing it in hushed tones, while their eyes scanned the tree-line flanking the road.
"I still don't know what you mean by 'why', the point of a test is to...well...test. What's so hard to understand about it?" the blond queried, the over-long sleeves of his haori flapping the breeze as he walked.
"Idiot kouhai," the brunette mumbled under her breath, and she resisted the urge to grin as her blond teammate clenched his hand into a fist. "Why would she test us like this? It's...reckless."
"Well, duh," Naruto drawled, taking a moment to shoot his teammate a glance. "But since when was Akane-sensei orthodox?"
"But..." Naruto continued, before frowning. "Damn," the boy said at last, sighing.
Hiyori nodded slightly. Subtly prompting him to continue, she began, "it can't just be her..."
"...because Jiji assigns the missions," the blond finished.
His teammate stopped for a second, making a strangled cough in the back of her throat. "D-did...did you just call the Sandaime Hokage Jiji?" Hiyori hissed under her breath, abandoning all pretense of conversing discretely.
"Aheh...no?"
Hiyori gave the boy a glare, but otherwise let the matter drop. She couldn't help but think about the boy's relationship with the venerable village leader, though. Part of her shock at the slang term was the fact that boy constantly referred to a 'Jiji', though she'd previously though him to be a grandfather or a family member. Either the blond had very little respect for authority, or his relationship with the Sandaime was...unconventional.
Right now, she could only guess as to which it was. It struck Hiyori that she knew very little about the blond. In fact, she knew little about Miyuki as well. It was...disconcerting to realize. They'd spent nearly a month together as a team trading little more than small talk?
Sighing, Hiyori decided to focus on the task at hand. She'd be able to talk with her teammates, perhaps more meaningfully, after the mission. If she allowed herself to become to distracted, however, there may not be an 'after the mission' for her. Of course, the odds of a bandit striking her down under Akane-sensei's watchful eyes was unlikely, but depending upon such intervention was not a good habit for a kunoichi to get into.
Turning her attention to her surroundings, Hiyori had to admit that Konoha's scenery was breathtaking.
The mighty trunks, monuments to the Shodaime Hokage's prowess, stood tall and resolute despite their relative youth. The road, though unpaved, was relatively well kept. Since leaving the "Crossroads of Konoha" (the area where the single path out of Konohagakure no satou split into a four-way crossroad, heading more or less in each cardinal direction), the road had become a bit smaller. However, the convoy's destination, Sunagakure no satou, was a well-valued trading partner. As such, the infrastructure linking the two villages was well maintained.
Unlike her teammates, Mitokado Hiyori had traveled outside the village, though watching the unguarded look of awe on her blond teammate's face was a rather amusing experience. Naturally, Hyuuga Miyuki was far more difficult to read, but the stoic girl seemed far more at ease outside of city.
Still, she was determined to prevent her familiarity with her surrounding from turning to complacency. The shrubs grasses that flanked the road, greedily sucking up sunlight where the ever-present canopy of trees relented, came under her watchful eye in turn. Though there was little chance that bandits would be able to conceal themselves within such small pieces of foliage, ninja certainly could. If there was one thing she'd learned in the academy, it was constant vigilance.
If there were two things...well, the latter was that constant vigilance was chronically boring.
The clearing was filled with odor of roasting meat from the prior meal. The night's air was heavy, humid, and except for the movements of the odd nocturnal beast, all was silent.
The carts lay motionless on the roadside, and the animals were leashed in a clearing adjacent to the camp. Many of the merchants slumbered in tents, but a few others decided to slumber beneath the stars due to the mild weather Konoha was famous for. Such a practice wouldn't continue after they had crossed the border; Suna was infamous for it's desert wildlife, and none wished for a chance encounter with a scorpion while they slept.
Akane's watchful eyes surveyed the procession, paying close attention to her genin as they slept. She'd taken the second, leaving the first final shifts to Hiyori and Miyuki respectively. They'd benefit the most from the uninterrupted sleep, while Naruto would hardly be bothered by the disrupted sleep due to his inhuman stamina. The boy had taken the assignment without a complaint, though his teammates clearly didn't appreciate being coddled. She decided to allow them to sort out the matter themselves;the time would soon come when they would have to be self-sufficient.
Perhaps sooner than she hoped, if all went as the Sandaime intended. The venerable shinobi had a plan for team four, and she could do little but guide them along the path. Soon, even that would end.
The genin were suspicious, which gave her no small amount of relief. Ninja quickly learned to trust nothing in their professions, not their clients or their missions. Oftentimes, one's intuition was all that kept them from calamity.
'Tch,' the jounin thought to herself, 'I'm sounding like an old woman. Who'd have though I'd become a jounin-sensei?'
Her last bout as an instructor ended...well, poorly was too weak of a word. Catastrophically, perhaps. Though, she'd felt less like a mentor and more like a stepping stone; a gateway to bigger and better things, or perhaps a censor, a filter. Either way, she was too ambitious, too proud. She had too much faith, and even more cripplingly, too much hubris. In the end, the swell of pride in her gut had turned to ashes in her throat.
'Kouhai to senpai, senpai to nukenin...'
How could the Sandaime blame her for her caution, after all that had happened? To both trust and doubt her judgment in the span of the same heartbeat, the man was senile!
'Jiji...neh?'
She hoped the blond would prove her wrong. Yet he had power, perhaps even more than the last. What he lacked, or rather, failed to lack, was that vital core. The human, the 'weakness' of emotion. Perhaps it would be enough...
...if not, then she hoped his teammates would be able to do what she could not. They were some of the best of their age, and showed a great deal of potential. And they each had motivations of their own. Hiyori had her own inner demons for her to face, whereas Miyuki's were far to real for comfort. They'd learn to fight together, or fall together. Be it in life or death, their bonds would remain.
Anything else was unacceptable.
She sighed, fighting back the unease welling in her gut. The forest was ill, it was in the wood and earth. She'd felt it shortly after leaving the crossroads: the paranoia, the fear, the flickering something at the edges of her mind. Flickering, flickering...
'Senpai...kouhai...have you afflicted me with you madness, too? Is this your pox, the cancer in your heart, your mind?'
The end of her shift came to pass, and she remained in her perch. Her genin slept beneath her, unperturbed. The jounin had little need for sleep.
'My memories are company enough,' she sighed, watching the first rays of the sun rise over the horizon. 'I've no need now for dreams...'
In the distance, the pinwheel turned.
The dunes of Suna lay less than half-a-day's travel ahead, yet the curtain of night was quickly descending over Hi no Kuni's expansive forests.
Queerly, both nin and merchant alike feverishly desired Suna's desolate wastes. A sense of anxiety had settled over the group, and they all felt as though the forest itself was their enemy. Every shadow housed a nameless threat, and the breeze through the tree boughs was the breath of an unseen foe.
Supper was eaten in silence, and even the beasts of the land joined in their stillness. There was naught to be heard but the rustling of the wind.
Akane had disappeared once more. a habit she had taken to every night since their first in the forests.
Thoughts of the test had been stricken from the genin's minds; they could see the genuine anxiety in their sensei's movements, and it shook them terribly. Mere bandits would not, could not shake the resolve of an experienced jounin. Then what was it that troubled her thoughts? What were her eyes questing as she scanned the trees?
Miyuki had been paired with their sensei in the rear of the convoy since they'd left Konoha, and she'd done her best to respect her sensei's privacy. If the jounin wished to tell her charges of her thoughts, she would do so of her own accord. Nevertheless, she could not fight the urge to follow her sensei's gaze, desperate for some clue, some form to put to the currently formless threat.
Even Naruto, the indomitable ball of energy that he was, began to show signs of strain. In the morning his eyes were bloodshot, yet by the time the caravan hitched up their horses, all signs of fatigue had left him. He attempted to hide his nervousness behind a grin, yet he was a poorer actor than he believed, he could not fool her eyes. Her eyes. Not theirs! Never theirs, unless a great need...
...she shook herself back to the present in time to see her blond teammate shudder awake. His fingers traced his whisker-like facial marks as he mumbled under his breath. Abruptly he turned his head to her perch, the movement so sudden she had to resist the urge to jump in her skin. His mouth stretched into another one of his faux-grins, yet once more it failed to reach his cerulean eyes.
Stretching, the boy rose to his feet, and sprinted silently up the tree to her lofty perch. If there was one thing her blond teammate was a master of, it was stealth. Humorous, then, that he sorely lacked in tact.
The boy plopping down across from her on the branch, barely managed to look his nine-years in his comically over-sized haori. It was difficult to mock the clothing, given that it turned a distinctive set of handseals into a rustling of black cloth, but combined with his short stature it made him look like a child playing ninja.
She'd never say such a thing aloud, though. The boy had earned her respect, and though he remained a bit of an enigma, she could not fault him for it, she was hardly the forthcoming sort herself.
"I'm ready for my shift, Miyuki-chan."
"Yours doesn't start for nearly an hour, Naruto-kun," the Hyuuga replied with a sigh.
"I can't sleep, not with all this..." he sighed. "...all this...going on."
"And you think I can?" Miyuki queried with a hint of incredulity.
In response, Naruto grinned slightly. This time, it was far more genuine. "...fair enough," he admitted at last.
A silence settled over the two, interrupted by their rhythmic breathing and the fluttering of leaves in the night's breeze. The two surveyed the clearing the caravan had bunkered down in, watching the merchants fitfull dreams and scanned the trees for their wayward sensei.
"Say...Miyuki-chan..."
"Yes?"
"I was wondering..." the boy paused, hesitant. She gave him an encouraging nod. "...about your goal, your dream..."
"Ah..." the Hyuuga replied, but said nothing else.
Instead, she watched her teammate fidget in the silence, now turned rather uncomfortable at his latest query.
"What's your dream, Naruto-kun?" the girl asked at last.
"To protect my village," the boy replied almost immediately.
"Ah, but that isn't your dream, it's your mission. It's the mission of every shinobi, to fight for the village," the girl paused, allowing her words to sink in. "Do you have any ambition? Any motivation? Before you die for your village, what do you want to accomplish?"
"I...uh..." the boy paused, trailing off.
'He doesn't have a dream, does he?' the girl realized with a frown. 'How...sad.'
"When you find a dream of your own, I will tell you of mine, Naruto-kun."
The blond-haired shinobi nodded his assent, staring down at his hands as though looking for answers.
Tearing her gaze away from her teammate, she gazed into the shadows. A shadow drew her eyes, and her gaze alighted upon a raven.
Author's Note: I decided to speed up the plot a little bit, and I hope you enjoy the next few chapters. You'll be seeing some familiar faces, and Sunagakure no satou awaits!
Hope you liked this chapter, spelling/grammar errors aside. If you've any critique, please submit a review or send me a PM, it's always appreciated. This is a bit of a learning experience for me!