The difference she made

“So little genin, the Chūnin exams are going to be held in Konoha in a couple of months time, feel up to them?” Kakashi asked as team 7 sat in a local dango stand getting a light lunch before going to get their next mission.
“I don’t know… but what I do know is that I’ll give it my best shot!” Sakura said with determination overflowing in her voice.
It had been a couple of months since they returned from their first C-rank and they had participated in three more since then.
Sakura was still improving as the rest of the team proceeded to focus on helping her train by teaching her new things every now and then, while both Naruto and Sasuke were growing exponentially courtesy of the Kage bunshin no jutsu.
Kakashi had changed his opinion of the duo when he realised just how quickly the duo learned when he attempted to teach them the Rasengan and Chidori, with each succeeding in mastering their respective jutsu in just under a day.
Then there was Naruto deciding to analyse and screw around with the Kage bunshin… eventually creating what he liked to call the ‘Kage Shini no jutsu’(1) effectively creating the mind of a kage bunshin without the body, allowing him to double his concentration… which proved exceptionally dangerous when the blond used it to complete his father’s technique.
Of course the fact that the blond was working on recreating his father’s other legendary jutsu and was currently halfway there, succeeding in reverse summoning himself to a pre-marked location with a large puff of smoke and a ‘pop’… unlike his father’s undetectable summoning.
Then there was the fact that they also worked their body’s to the ground everyday they weren’t on missions, while simultaneously practicing their skill with the Kage bunshin… which during the past few months resulted in them both getting close to their sensei’s level.
“Well then, I think it’s time to get ourselves a mission,” Kakashi stated as the team stood up and left the booth.
XXX
“WHY THE HELL NOT?!” a familiar voice shouted from within the mission office as team 7 approached it.
“Because you’re not ready to take a C-rank,” a firm but feminine voice stated in response to the outburst.
Opening the door to the mission office, team 7 was greeted by the sight of Kiba shouting at his sensei while everyone else in the room looked at him like he was an idiot.
“Yo Oji-san, what’cha got for us today?” Naruto called out distracting the Inuzuka’s attention and causing the Hokage to don a warm smile.
“Well let’s see… how about this, a simple C-rank escort to Nami no Kuni,” the aged leader said calmly.
“WHAT!!! HOW THE HELL DO THEY GET A C-RANK AND WE DON’T?!”
“K-Kiba-kun… please stop shouting,” a short lavender eyed girl said nervously as she began stealing glances at the blond.
“Why the hell should I? I can’t let ‘him’,” Kiba said pointing at the blond, “beat me!”
“Uh… Kiba, this’ll be team 7’s fourth C-rank,” Iruka informed the brown haired boy.
“WHAT!!!” the dog boy shouted at the information.
“Kakashi… what would you have done if something had gone wrong?” Kurenai asked sternly with narrowed eyes.
“Oh, one of the missions did go wrong, turned out the leaders of this bandit group were actually a pair of nuke-nin from Iwa,” the silver haired Jōnin said lightly.
“And what if there had been more?”
“If there had been more, I might have actually lifted a finger and helped my team.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It’s simple… my genin are more than capable of dealing with a couple of nuke-nin and if they ever come across a number they can’t handle, then I’ll be there to help them… but until my team needs my assistance, I refuse to involve myself in their missions.”
“So you’re saying that you’re simply too lazy to help them.”
“There’s a difference between being lazy and having faith Kurenai,” Kakashi retorted before the argument was broken by the oldest in the room.
“Kurenai that is enough, it is up to Kakashi whether or not he feels his genin are ready for a C-rank and he felt that they were ready a long time ago, now for your list of D-ranks.”
“HELL NO!!! If that teme’s ready for a C-rank then we sure as hell are!” Kiba barked out, earning exasperated sighs from most of the occupants of the room.
“If I may Hokage-sama,” Naruto said formally, “we in team 7 have already proven that we are more than capable of operating at full capacity without our taishou… so I believe that it might be worth sending team 8 on a C-rank with Kakashi-sempai as backup should anything go wrong… while they are doing that, we can easily complete D-ranks around the village if you don’t feel we should be sent on a C-rank alone.”
There was an unholy silence in the room as everyone processed what the blond said, before the Hokage spoke up.
“Kakashi, do you feel that you’re team can cope with a C-rank without your assistance?”
“As long as it isn’t escalated to an S-rank then yes,” the cycloptic Jōnin said with an eye smile.
“I think you are putting too much faith in your students Kakashi,” the red eyed genjutsu mistress said with a glare at the slightly older man.
“And you don’t know my students.”
“Will you two please stop arguing… anyway, team 7, your mission is to guard a bridge builder from bandits while he makes his way back to Nami no Kuni and finishes constructing his bridge… bring in Tazuna,” the old man informed the trio, before an old man wearing small circular glasses, a conical straw hat and brown clothes entered the room… with a bottle of sake in one hand.
“So, I get six brats, a cyclops and a beauty queen to protect me? What a joke,” the man said drunkenly.
“Actually, you only get three brats to protect you… the other five are going on a different mission,” Naruto told him blankly.
“If that’s a joke then it ain’t a very good one,” Tazuna spat out.
“Actually, Naruto-kun there is telling you the truth,” the Hokage informed him.
“What? I’m paying for ninja, not some school children!”
“Tazuna-san, if you don’t want us to protect you then just say… I’m sure that bandits wouldn’t waste their time with you,” Naruto said calmly, easily detecting the small twitch the man made at the word bandits.
“And why can’t I get proper ninja?”
“We are proper ninja, we simply aren’t as old as some of our more experienced colleagues,” the blond retorted.
“Then why can’t I get some of your ‘more experienced colleagues’?”
“Because you’re paying for a C-rank, not a B or an A-rank, but a C-rank, something we are more than capable of dealing with,” the human lie detector informed him.
“Why can’t you assign me bigger ninja?” the drunk asked the Hokage.
“Tazuna-san, if you don’t like my ninja then you can easily travel on your own,” the older man told him calmly.
“(sigh) fine then… I’ll take them,” the old man finally gave in.
“Alright then, pack for a month and meet at the north gate in one hour,” Naruto ordered, earning a pair of nods before every member of team 7 vanished with a shunshin.
“…”
“…”
“WHY THE HELL CAN THEY DO THAT AND WE CAN’T?!” Kiba demanded.
“Because they’re better than you,” came the smug reply from the temporarily reassigned Jōnin.
XXX
Team 7 walked in silence, they had all researched Nami no Kuni before leaving, so they were all aware of the basic geography of the country, a large island surrounded by water on every side, with no bridges connecting it to the mainland… hence why this bridge builder was building one.
Walking along the road, all three ninja noticed something out of place, a single puddle laying at the side of the road… when it hadn’t rained in weeks.
As soon as Sakura noticed the puddle, she looked towards her ‘sempai’s’ to gauge their reactions to the anomaly. Seeing them both slow down and fall behind, she sped up and went to the front.
As soon as the team passed the puddle, a pair of cloaked Kiri missing nin wearing rebreathers raised out of the puddle, before in the blink of an eye, they had wrapped the two at the back in a large spiked chain that was attached to a set of gauntlets shared between the duo… before with a sharp tug, the pair of genin were torn to shreds.
Tazuna knew he shouldn’t have trusted the kids he was given, they hadn’t even gotten half way there and two of them were already dead, leaving him with just a pink haired girl for protection.
Sakura on the other hand was perfectly calm. She KNEW her sempai’s wouldn’t be taken down so easily and she KNEW she could take on one of the two nin she was facing, even if she would have to rely on her smarts to win… however she wasn’t going to sit back and watch, her sempai’s had a plan and she knew that they expected her to fight.
“Two down,” one of the masked strangers said sinisterly.
“Two to go… you kill the bridge builder, I’ll take the gir-aurrgghhh,” and with that the one speaking found his throat cut and the other found the blade of a Katana sticking through his heart.
“You have some explaining to do Tazuna,” Naruto stated as he walked away from the cut throat Kiri nin, while Sasuke walked beside him.
“W-what do you mean,” the bearded man stuttered out as he watched a pair of kids that killed a couple of men without so much as flinching, stalk towards him.
“First things first, how about the fact that those ninja knew you were a bridge builder when we haven’t mentioned that fact once since we left Konoha… because it seems to me that they were after you,” the blond said calmly.
“I-I… (sigh) fine then… there is a dangerous man after me… his name is Gato.”
“The shipping magnate,” Sasuke muttered under his breath.
“Yeah… you see, he came to Nami about a year ago and when he did… he took over every ship yard in Nami… he has a monopoly on us and is trying to kill me so that the bridge won’t be completed and his power base will remain,” Tazuna said sadly.
“There have been many rumours and blank spots concerning Gato… many of which revolve around him being involved in illegal activities including slave trading, extortion and murder… however there has never been enough evidence to prove that he was operating outside the law,” Naruto informed their pink haired teammate, “if Gato is really after you Tazuna, then it is likely that this mission will be escalated to an A-rank… Sakura, do you feel up to it?”
Sakura was caught off guard with the question, was she ready to participate in an A-rank mission? She wasn’t exactly strong but she wasn’t weak either, then of course there was no guarantee that Naruto and Sasuke would be capable of protecting her… was she really ready? Then it hit her. Naruto had asked if SHE felt ready, if he didn’t believe she was ready then they would’ve turned back without asking for her opinion… and if Naruto thought she was ready, then she KNEW she wouldn’t be a burden.
“Hai sempai,” she said with a confident smile etched onto her face as she looked into their leaders eyes and saw just a hint of pride.
“Well then Tazuna, we’ll continue to help you… we might not look like much but we are capable ninja… now let’s head out!” the young blond said before the group continued on the path to Nami.
‘Looks like Konoha has some brave young ninja… it seems as if I was right to go there,’ Tazuna thought as he stayed within the protective triangle the team made around him.
XXX
“So that’s the bridge huh, I have to say it’s very impressive for a country that has no money,” Naruto stated quietly as the group sat in a small boat that was quietly being rowed across the misty expanse of water that separated the island from the mainland.
“That’s one of the reasons we don’t have much money… we need a bridge that’s large enough for lots of trade to cross and we can’t make it any lower because of the cliffs… so we’re having to spend most of the countries money on building materials,” the old bridge builder informed them as they sat in near silence.
“It must be tough… needing the bridge to get money into the country, while having to spend all your money on the materials and not have enough left for protection,” Sasuke said sombrely before silence once again reigned as the group waited for the boat to dock.
“This is as far as I can take you Tazuna,” the oarsman stated quietly as the group departed from the boat.
“It’s alright, you’ve already taken a big risk, I couldn’t ask you to do more,” Tazuna replied before the oars man turned the boats engine on and left the area.
“Lead the way Tazuna,” Naruto ordered quietly, before they started to follow a small road.
After a couple of hours, Sasuke threw a kunai at a small bush, before cautiously checking on it… revealing a white rabbit with the kunai stuck in its head.
XXX
“He… he killed my rabbit,” a young androgynous individual said with watering eyes, while crouching on a branch next to a large man with an oversized meat cleaver stuck to his back.
“Better your rabbit than me,” the large man said in a gruff voice.
“That was MY rabbit!”
“It was only a rabbit.”
“ONLY a rabbit! ONLY a rabbit!”
“Calm down… I’ll get you another one.”
“But it was MY rabbit…” the androgynous individual said with their head hung low.
‘I can’t believe he got THAT attached to a rabbit…’
XXX
“It’s fur is white, do you know what that means Sakura?” Naruto asked as he listened out for anything out of place.
“White fur is a winter coat… but it’s the height of spring…” her eyes widened in realisation, “it was kept indoors!” she shouted before they all ducked, while Naruto dragged Tazuna down with him, as a large sword flew through where their heads used to be before getting lodged in an oversized tree.
“Well, well… I wasn’t expecting a trio of brats to be responsible for the demon brothers deaths,” the stranger said maliciously as he sized up the genin.
He had short, spiky black hair with a slashed out Kiri hitae-ate slanted across his forehead. He was wearing bandages around his face obscuring his mouth, a pair of grey camouflage pants and a large strap for his sword.
“Momochi Zabuza… Kirigakure no Kijin,” Naruto stated narrowing his eyes, having already read up on every ninja in the bingo book.
“Well, well, one of you runts actually knows who I am, but do you know how I got that name?”
“The genin exam of Kiri involved pitting the graduating class against each other in a fight to the death… you showed up without even being entered into the academy and slaughtered all one hundred of the graduating class,” the blond stated, shocking Tazuna and Sakura.
“So you do know huh… hand over the bridge builder and I might let you live,” Zabuza said before bombarding the group with Killing intent.
While Tazuna started sweating and shaking in fear, Sakura remembered one of the lessons her teammates had taught her, emit your own killing intent to reduce the amount your receiving and then keep your breathing steady and your muscles relaxed.
“Sasuke… wanna try taking him?” Naruto asked his best friend, receiving nothing more than a small smirk in response.
Naruto hopped back towards Tazuna, ready to protect both him and Sakura if he needed to, while also watching the enemy in case Sasuke needed help.
“Fine then, I’ll just kill you all and then the bridge builder,” the Kirigakure no Kijin said before jumping from the tree, taking his cleaver with him and standing on a nearby body of water, holding up his hands in a strange seal, “Kirigakure no jutsu.”
The surrounding area was quickly covered in a thick fog until “Fūton Daitoppa!” and the mist was suddenly blown away by a vicious wind that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
‘Shit… one of them is a Fūton user… oh well, that just means I’ll have to kill them the old fashioned way,’ Zabuza thought as he was left without his normal cover.
Silently drawing his katana, Sasuke proceeded to charge the Zanbatō wielding Kiri nin before sending a right slash at the older swordsmen, who easily parried the strike before attempting to cleave the young Uchiha in half, only for the agile child to spin on one of his heels and land a direct hit on the missing nin’s side.
Zabuza’s muscles tensed for an instant, allowing Sasuke to cut his left arm, before the bandaged man could jump away.
‘Shit… I can’t believe this kid actually managed to cut me twice… and what the hell happened with my muscles when he cut me?’ the man thought to himself before he started going through several hand seals… which he never managed to finish courtesy of a sealless raiton jutsu sent his way, forcing him to dodge the high speed electricity.
‘Shit… this kid can do sealless ninjutsu… I guess I have no choice but to attack him up close.’
Zabuza charged his young opponent as Naruto and Sakura observed the fight and Tazuna looked on in awe at the strength, speed and skill the child was displaying.
“What can you tell me about Zabuza, Sakura?” Naruto asked the pinkette in his occasional ‘tell me what you are observing’ state of mind.
“(sigh) From what I can see, he is a powerful swordsmen but he seems a little slow with that sword… he obviously can’t perform sealless ninjutsu meaning that it’s easy to tell when he is going to use one and also makes it easy to disrupt. If I was to guess, going by the mist he summoned, he specialises in stealth, tracking and assassination, and simply going off the fact that he is a Kiri nin, I would guess that he is skilled in Suiton ninjutsu,” she said going off what she knew of him so far.
“You’re getting better Sakura… everything you said is right Naruto informed her, gaining a proud smile off the pink haired teammate.
Zabuza was beginning to worry. He had thought the brat in front of him had been going full out before, but now he knew otherwise after seeing the child’s eyes… the legendary sharingan.
The worst part however was the large gash on his chest, from an attack he was sure he dodged.
Seeing the red eyed opponent make a stab at him, he proceeded to lean to the left… only to feel the blade impale him, barely missing several vital organs.
That was when it clicked, ‘sealless ninjutsu… what’s to say he can’t use sealless genjutsu?’ cutting off the flow of his chakra and then re-establishing it, he wasn’t surprised to see his opponent standing slightly off where he had thought the raven haired teen had been standing.
“Heh… sealless genjutsu huh? Well now I know all your tricks do you really think you can beat me?” Zabuza asked confidently.
“All my tricks?” Sasuke asked with a cocked eyebrow, “what makes you think I’ve shown you all my tricks?” and with that the last loyal Uchiha was suddenly surrounded by a field of raiton chakra, before he simply vanished… just before another large cut appeared on the swordsman’s chest.
‘The hell? What the hell is that technique?’ Zabuza thought to himself, just before a trio of senbon entered his neck, causing him to fall down just before Sasuke’s sword passed through the area his neck once was.
“Thank you for your assistance… I’ve been hunting Zabuza for a long time now, your help is much appreciated.
“Then why did you save him?” Naruto asked darkly.
“Because Mizukage-sama wants him brought back alive to interrogate concerning any others involved in the attempted coup,” the hunter stated without missing a beat on their way towards the traitors prone form.
“Sasuke… he’s lying,” the blond said coldly.
Suddenly the hunter moved faster than they had expected, before grabbing Zabuza and vanishing in a mirror of ice.
“A Hyōton user… this mission just got a lot more interesting,” Naruto muttered as Sasuke sheathed his sword, “well then Tazuna, let’s go.”
“O-ok then… by the way, what did you mean when you said that the stranger saved that Zabuza guy?”
“It’s simple, the hunter-nin struck him in a point on the body that puts the person in what is known as a ‘false death state’, where the pulse is temporarily stopped, however the length of time a person can be kept in that state is very short, since putting them in that state involves cutting off their blood supply temporarily,” Naruto explained as Tazuna looked at the genin in front of him and wondered how they were so calm and in control during such a situation.
“Uh… Naruto-sempai, how long does it take to recover from a false death state?” Sakura asked after listening to the explanation.
“It depends on the level of injury the person received, taking into account Zabuza’s injuries and it should take somewhere between one and a half to two weeks for him to make a full recovery… if that fake hunter nin is a capable medic.”
“How do you know so much?” the aged bridge builder asked.
“My girlfriend is an Iryō-nin,” he stated calmly.
“Well here we are… home sweet home… hey Tsunami! I’m home and I’ve brought some super ninja with me!” Tazuna shouted as he opened the front door of a large wooden house suspended over a large body of water.
“Tousan, you’re home!” a young woman with long black hair said as she appeared through one of the doors, before she noticed the trio of ninja, “are those the ninja?” she asked receiving a curt nod from the leader, “they’re just children! What do you think you’re doing putting their lives at risk here?!” she shouted at the Sake swigging bridge builder.
“Excuse me… Tsunami-san was it?” Naruto asked, earning a small nod off the older woman, “we are ninja, we knew from the moment we put on these hitae-ate’s that our lives were expendable assets… and at the moment Tazuna-san is the owner of those assets,” he continued coldly, shocking the older woman with what he said.
“B-but.”
“But nothing… we are ninja, tools to be used for missions, nothing more, nothing less. If we die, we die, it is our choice to live our lives this way, nobody made us, so please respect our standing and understand that it is our choice to risk our lives… not yours.”
“I-I don’t like it. Children shouldn’t have to risk their lives.”
“And we don’t have to risk ours, we chose to risk ours, that is what separates us from civilians… by the way, would it be possible to get something to eat, we’re kinda hungry,” Naruto said seriously… before finishing with a goofy smile.
“Oh… of course,” Tsunami replied before going to the kitchen to prepare a meal for her father and the three ninja he brought with him.
“You just asked that to get her to shut up didn’t you,” Sasuke stated bluntly.
“Yep.”
(1)Shadow mind technique