Chapter Three: I Don't Need Protecting

Their first truly mission-like D rank came in the form of Tora the lost cat.

As they were jumping through the trees of the forestry surrounding Konoha, looking for the cat, Sakura suggested, "Why don't we use our abilities on this? Since it's sort of like tracking and capturing an enemy."

"What do you mean?" said Sasuke curiously.

"Well Sakura's been practicing genjutsu, and I've been practicing containment seals!" Naruto lifted a palm and smiled cheerfully, genuinely no longer mocking, as Sasuke stared at the tattoo there in surprise. "But Sasuke was the best tracker and sensory type in our class. So if Sasuke tracks down the cat… Sakura can lure the cat toward me using a genjutsu and I can capture Tora in my containment seal! Living things can exist in seals. We go back to the Fire Lady and release the cat from the seal. Simple."

"You guys have been training?" said Sasuke in a rough voice, and he didn't exactly sound… happy. Sakura frowned. "Well." Sasuke recovered. "You did need it. You were both pretty weak. It's nice to see you with some abilities. But… aren't you training for your weaknesses, not your strengths? Wouldn't it make more sense to go for the strengths first?"

Kakashi was keeping dead silent on this one.

"Our weaknesses?" said Sakura in a dangerous voice.

"Well, yeah. Sakura's the brain. She's very emotional and in her mind all the time, so she'd fall to tricks of the mind easily. Sealing requires intelligence and Naruto has never gotten points for being smart," said Sasuke bluntly.

"Isn't it possible for people to change?" Sakura's eyes had narrowed. "I'm not sure which I dislike more: that you called Naruto stupid or that you assumed I'm so hopelessly emotional I'd fall for any genjutsu."

"Yeah, that's shitty!" Naruto agreed indignantly.

Sasuke was staring at her, a little, discerning frown on his features - as if he had never seen her properly before, and she him.

"Sakura…" said Kakashi suddenly, and Sakura realized they had all paused on the tree branches and she was glaring at Sasuke, who was half in a cautious stance. "You're leaking killing intent."

Damn. That was probably something she'd gotten from Anko. Sakura took a deep breath and closed her eyes in a quite Kurenai-like move, trying for some spare patience.

"Let's just finish the mission," she said at last.

"Great idea!" said Kakashi quickly, and he yanked a surprised Sasuke forward to talk to him, leaving Naruto and Sakura to run behind.

"You know, you really don't get him, Sakura-chan," said Naruto sympathetically. "I used to just get angry with him because it was fun, back before I had you, but Sasuke's always been kind of a dick. He's blunt, tactless, not romantic, not emotional, and not flowery. He's also twelve and he thinks he's better than everybody and he was weird assumptions about the world."

"He's got some nerve…" Sakura muttered rebelliously. "I say we find some way to prove him wrong. We need a higher-level mission - a chance to strut our stuff."

"Hm." Naruto became thoughtful. "I know Grandpa Hokage pretty well. Let me swing that."

"That's disrespectful," said Sakura automatically, without much temper or malice. "And… you're sure you can maneuver that all on your own? I know you're good, Naruto, but -" She remained skeptical.

"You don't get it, Sakura-chan." Naruto grinned. "This time, I'm not actually being disrespectful. He lets me call him Grandpa Hokage. Out of all the orphans he hands out council checks to, I'm the only one he personally visits. Why do you think my pranks never got me in more trouble?" His grin had turned a tad vicious.

Sakura's eyes widened in surprise, then slow glee… and she smirked. "Excellent."

"Hey! We found the cat!" They looked up to find Kakashi and Sasuke standing expectantly up ahead. Sakura and Naruto hurried over. "Do try to keep up," Kakashi scolded gently.

"Sorry, Sensei. Where is it?" Sakura muttered. Sasuke pointed… and Sakura saw a tiny tabby cat wandering through the forestry down below. She made a hand seal and concentrated. Slowly, an exact replica of the empty forest it now saw was frozen in place in front of it.

Tora wouldn't see or sense Naruto, wouldn't smell him, not even if Naruto jumped right down before him. All current sounds and smells had been locked in place inside Tora's head as well.

"Naruto, minimize sound and movement as much as possible, but you can just drop right down in front of him," Sakura whispered with effort after a moment, hands still in the hand seal, still concentrating.

"Okay," Naruto whispered. He jumped cautiously down in front of Tora… Tora didn't look up from where he'd been sniffing something along the ground.

Naruto reached out his hand and turned it. With a yelping meow, Tora was sucked inside the containment seal on Naruto's palm and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Sakura sighed and released the hand seal, smiling wearily.

Naruto leapt back up. "Mission complete!" he said, then he smiled with false sweetness. "Let's go visit Grandpa Hokage," he said innocently.

Sakura smirked slightly to herself.

The Fire Lady suffocated Tora between her breasts immediately upon seeing him and squealed in a shrill, high-pitched voice, "Oh, Tora-chan, I was so worried about you!"

"No wonder he ran away," Sakura muttered dryly to Naruto, who visibly tried to hold back laughter. She turned to find Sasuke giving the two of them a weird look. She was tempted to make a bizarre face at him, but held herself back.

Maybe a little bit of Naruto had influenced her too. Or maybe she'd always had a bit of Naruto inside her in the first place. There was a scary thought.

They walked up to the Hokage's table in the vast, rustic mission assignments room, underneath the welcome sign. He held up a sheet containing a long list of D ranks.

"Now, Kakashi's Team Seven," he said, "you could either babysit an Elder's grandson, shop for supplies in the neighboring village, or help with potato digging in somebody's garden."

Naruto took an unexpected tack.

"No!" He pretended to be his old self again. "No, no, no! No thank you!" He fervently made the hex sign before himself. "I want to do a truly incredible mission! A real one! Find us something better!" he said forcefully in a bratty voice.

Kakashi looked surprised and exasperated, but Sasuke actually looked like he silently agreed.

What followed was a truly incredible lesson in Naruto's acting skills. Iruka shouted at Naruto, Naruto shouted back, and then Naruto put up with a lot. Kakashi scolding him, the Hokage explaining onerously to him the D ranks they had already been doing for several weeks and why they were best for a beginning team. Naruto pretended to be ignoring him, and when the Hokage finally barked out an order Naruto "accidentally" let it slip that he had still been listening amidst a carefully orchestrated show of wanting in a bratty kid's way prove he was more than just the prankster he used to be. And that, it was implied, was why he was truly frustrated. It was childlike and temperamental yet endearing and touching.

Sakura was in awe. When Naruto decided to be smart, he really went two hundred percent.

Iruka smiled, the Hokage smiled, hearts melted all over the mission assignments room, and then the Hokage said the magic words. "Okay. If you want it that much… I'll give you a C rank mission. It will be a bodyguard mission. You will be protecting a certain person through their travels from thieves and bandits."

Naruto paused, for a moment genuinely surprised and curious. "Really?" he said, nonplussed, the act falling. "Who is it?"

Sakura was also interested to know.

"I'm about to introduce him," said the Hokage. "Come in!" he called toward the door.

And into the room stumbled a drunken, pot-bellied old man with brawny tan arms and shabby clothes. He leaned against the doorway, clutching a bottle of sake. "What the hell?" he slurred. "They're all a bunch of snot-nosed little kids! Is the short one with the stupid face really a ninja?"

"You're not the first to underestimate Naruto, and you won't be the last," said Sakura coldly. "But you should know - he's much more talented than he looks."

Iruka, Naruto, and even the Hokage looked touched by her heated defense.

"Well said," said Kakashi quietly, who had after all been teaching Naruto the Uzumaki moves from scrolls in the first place.

"You're defending Naruto now?" Sasuke muttered to Sakura wryly.

"Yes," she said archly, fierce. "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," he admitted, shrugging and smiling slightly, and for once he seemed like he was genuinely trying to be friendly.

"It's okay, Sakura-chan," said Naruto suddenly. "From a strategic perspective, being underestimated is good. I might start capitalizing on that."

The old man had to visibly recover. "Well good," he said. "I am construction manager and bridge building expert Tazuna. I expect you to provide me with excellent protection until after I've gotten back to my home country and finished a bridge building project there."

A few hours later, their packs on their backs for the long journey by foot, they walked out of Konoha's massive wood gates, which opened for them slowly, and to the long dirt trail lined by massive trees and echoing animal life leading through forestry beyond.

"Let's go!" Naruto cheered. "I've never left the village before! This is going to be great!"

"Aside from the people trying to kill us and the countless hours bodyguarding a construction project, sure," said Sakura cheerfully, only somewhat sarcastic.

"Ah, come on, you're such a buzzkill, Sakura-chan," Naruto complained.

"Hey, am I really going to be safe with them?" Tazuna complained loudly from behind them, sobered up but still kind of an asshole.

Sakura stiffened. "Ignore him, Sakura-chan," said Naruto archly. "The future Hokage and his best Jounin-level advisor have no need to listen to such talk."

Sakura looked over in surprise at Naruto, who continued staring resolutely ahead - and then she smiled warmly. "Of course," she said as well, also looking forward. That he had automatically included her in his future ambition was genuinely touching.

"... They really are pretty good, sir," said Kakashi uneasily, amused. Sakura refused to look, but Tazuna must have seemed visibly annoyed. "And don't worry. I'm a Jounin and I'm here too. You're just fine."

Sakura started up a conversation with a curious question and they talked as they walked. Everyone participated in some way to the conversation except Sasuke, who showed about as much talkativeness and personality as a tree stump. And it wasn't even such a girly, uninteresting, or controversial subject! They discussed differences between foreign cultures, the Elemental Countries, foreign diplomatic relations, the rise and purpose of the Hidden Villages, the five biggest ones, their relationships with their Kage and their Daimyo…

All relevant subjects to being a ninja. Sakura and Naruto even learned stuff about their own Hokage they hadn't known. Sasuke didn't even look like he cared.

Suddenly, they passed a puddle and Sakura stiffened. Subtly, so did Kakashi. It hadn't rained in days. A puddle… shouldn't exist on this road. Someone was hiding inside a genjutsu.

A ninja was about to attack them. But why them… if they were really on a C rank?

Sakura made one of the hand symbols they had come up with to Naruto, very subtly. It was a single term. Sneak attack. Naruto swallowed… and nodded, looking ahead again. He really had improved.

Sakura didn't know if Sasuke knew their hand signals, or how to tell him. Maybe they hadn't thought the whole "surprising him with cool abilities" thing entirely through.

Suddenly, two armored, masked ninja with Kiri missing nin hitai-ate emerged from the puddle illusion from behind the group. Carrying a shuriken chain between them, they ran up behind Kakashi, wrapped him up in their chain, and pulled. "One down." Kakashi became a mess of broken blood and guts on the ground, and everyone looked more afraid, Naruto even screamed - except for Sakura, whose eyes narrowed.

What the hell was Kakashi up to? That was a genjutsu, too. So where was he… and when had he left?

The two ninja appeared behind Naruto. "Two down." Sasuke rushed forward as if to save Naruto…

But Naruto needed no saving. He whirled around, held out his palm… and the shuriken chain was sucked inside his seal. That included the armored tiger claws attached to it. The ninja screamed as all of their fingers on one hand, one for each ninja, broke.

Naruto got into a taijutsu battle with one, and actually held his own using Water Weaving pretty well.

The other went for Tazuna.

Sakura leapt in front of Tazuna in a stance - and next Sasuke hurried to save her. He appeared in front of her, and suddenly she was looking at his back. She paused in surprise - and then rage filled her.

"I don't need protecting!" she screamed, her true Anko-like Inner Sakura coming full out for a moment. She leaped over Sasuke using his shoulders as a pushing post and flew down from the skies at the Kiri nin. She bit her thumb and swiped blood through the air. "Summoning Technique!" she shouted, and then concentrated.

The Kiri nin and everyone else on the battlefield saw two baby snakes fly from Sakura's shoulder sleeves, in a straight line down her arms and towards her opponent. He made the one-handed hand seals for a water technique and shot a whip of water straight at Sakura and her snakes -

Only for him to scream out in surprise.

The genjutsu faded, revealing that Sakura had ducked and landed underneath the water whip, her eyes deadly determined, and Mandai and Mambe had each bitten one side of her opponent's neck - coming at him from the sides, not the front.

His mouth open in a silent scream, his veins began bulging as the poison fast spread through them and he fell to the ground, his mangled hand lying off to one side, his good hand on the other. His face changed weird colors as he lay there.

His partner screamed - right before Kakashi knocked him out from behind and Naruto kicked him hard in the stomach from the front, breaking through his surprised taijutsu guard.

Throwing one opponent over his shoulder, Kakashi walked down to the other and looked down emotionlessly into his face. "He's going to die," Kakashi said matter of factly, looking up at Sakura. "So you should know - you did nothing wrong. You did your mission duty and stopped a criminal from killing an old civilian man. You did feel an adrenaline rush while it was happening, which made the whole thing seem triumphant. This makes you normal, even human. When you come down from that high later, do not hate or start to second guess yourself. Just accept, without joy. This is the ugly part of being a ninja."

"... Okay," said Sakura quietly, nodding.

"That goes for you two as well," said Kakashi, turning to the boys. "The first time you kill someone."

They nodded solemnly.

"In any case - well done everyone. Sasuke immediately reacted to help his teammates. Naruto crippled both and held one at bay. Sakura quite violently ended the other," Kakashi summarized succinctly.

Sakura looked down at the two snakes. "Thanks, Mambe and Mandai," she smiled.

"Thanks to you," said Mandai in her sickly sweet voice. "That was our first real battle."

"And I'm exhausted," said Mambe, as usual both more flamboyant and more exasperated. "Is it okay if we leave?"

"Sure," she said, and they disappeared in puffs of smoke.

Then Sakura turned to Sasuke and put her hands on her hips. "I appreciate the chivalrous gesture," she said sarcastically. "But I don't need a guy to stand in front of me and save me."

Behind them, the Kiri nin lay cooling and dead - killed by her, not wounded by him.

But Sasuke looked infuriated his eyes widening. "How… you two… how did you get so much stronger than me?!" he demanded wildly.

Sakura was distinctly unimpressed. "We asked our Sensei for some damn help," she snapped. "So he gave us contacts. Because we asked him to, and admitted we needed to get stronger. Grow up, Sasuke."

And she stormed off, thoroughly disenchanted with a boy she'd once thought she loved.

Instead she went to Naruto, who might just count as her best friend. "Hey. You okay?" she said concerned.

"Yeah. I just broke their hands and gave the live one a stomachache and a few closed off chakra areas," said Naruto, shrugging. "Why he couldn't fight me harder. That crunch of bone was pretty nasty, but I'll live. Are you okay?" he asked, eyebrows rising. "You just killed a grown man."

"I… don't know," Sakura admitted. "It hasn't hit me yet. But after what Kakashi-sensei said… I mean, I'm sure the idea will make me sick for a while, but that seems pretty normal."

"It seems healthy," Naruto pointed out.

She nodded. "I'll live," she said simply. Naruto smiled at her.

"... I have to admit, the two I least expected to do anything… did the most damage," Tazuna admitted, a little afraid and honestly impressed.

But he shouldn't have spoken.

"Tazuna-san," said Kakashi in a deadly voice, "there is a reason I didn't take care of those two myself. I used a genjutsu - as Sakura seemed to notice - and then I hid, because I needed to see who they'd go after once they stopped trying to pick off ninja.

"And they went after you. The guy who said he wanted protection from thieves and bandits. Not vicious Kiri missing nin. The guy in shabby clothes from a poor country who paid for a C rank. Not a much more expensive B rank.

"Tazuna-san… what the hell is going on?"

"... I'll tell you," Tazuna admitted, lowering his head cautiously, "on the boat to the island. If you want, you can abandon the mission once we reach the Wave, near my village, where I started.

"I'll tell you everything."