Naruto : Wind of Catastrophe

"Why didn't you meet up with us at the training grounds?" Sasuke cuts in, having moved into the room from around Hatake. He's got a familiar look in his coal black eyes- the "I'm curious and you're going to sate my curiosity or else" look.

"I had a meeting," I say simply.

...

"Ah." And that's enough. He and Sakura both know all about my status as a potential sleeper agent. It had been required that they be briefed on it before we went on another mission.

I wasn't anywhere near happy about it at the time, feeling almost ashamed that I hadn't been able to prove my innocence, but I'd calmed down about it after my teammates had assured me that they wouldn't treat me any different because of it.

"Yeah." Kakashi slouches into the room then, revealing my timid teammate standing in the space behind him. I grin. "Hey Sakura! How was your day off?"

"Fine," she says to the floor. My grin slips.

Ever since the incident two months ago, Sakura has been... strange. Not as strange as she was with the planted memories wreaking havoc in her head, of course, but still different.

She's shut herself off from me and the others even more than when we first became a genin team, becoming twice as timid and skittish. She works with us just fine during training and missions, but aside from that it's like we're strangers to her.

At first I thought it was just awkwardness over me having seen her naked- it was definitely awkward for me for a few days- but things have yet to change. And it drives me up the god damned wall.

"Since your next mentor team has yet to arrive, would you like to debrief now, Kakashi?" The old man asks mildly from behind his desk, breaking me from my frustrating thoughts and the no doubt awkward silence that had fallen upon the room.

"That would be fine, Hokage-sama," Kakashi says, nodding.

"Very well." The old man sits back, steepling his fingers, and a familiar and pressing weight bleeds into the room. It's Hokage time now- protocol is protocol, and debriefings require the utmost seriousness no matter the mission's difficulty. "Begin."

"Eight days ago, at 0900 hours, Team 7 and Team 14 left the village boundaries from the southern gate," Hatake drones. "We traveled southeast for two days until we reached our target, the lumber town Koki."

It goes on like this for a while, standard protocol dictating an excruciating amount of detail for a mission that only really amounted to us taking down a minor crime lord and saving the asses of our mentor team when his hired samurai almost killed them.

Honestly, how a heavy assault team tries to get by without a single close combat specialist I'll never know.

"Hey," I murmur, nudging Sasuke. He raises an eyebrow a centimeter, keeping his gaze firmly on the Hokage and Hatake. "I had another dream."

His eyes flicker towards me. "Already?" He asks, voice just as soft.

"Yeah." I hesitate. "... It was different again."

"Like the last one?"

"That, and something else." He glances at me again, eyes sharp. "Someone else, actually. There was this guy that I was talking to. I couldn't see him, but somehow I knew he was bad news."

"What did you talk about?" He asks.

"Some sort of plan to stop something evil. It was weird."

Our conversation dies off there, our focus returning to Hatake's debrief. The silver-haired jounin meanders through the details of our initial assault on the mansion the crime lord- I never bothered to learn the scumbag's name- had commandeered when he came to the city. Minutes pass, Hatake finally get through to our trip home, and Sasuke nudges me.

"Are you sure it was a crimson dream?"

I don't even have to think about it. "Yeah." Sasuke frowns, staring pensively ahead, and our debriefing comes to a close.

The old man nods from behind his desk, stamping a sheet of paper in front of him detailing our mission for approval, and flicks a small slip of paper at Hatake. All thoughts of crimson dreams or the unused balloons in my pockets disappear from my mind, replaced with a single, gleeful realization.

Slip of paper means payday.

"Ah ah ah," Kakashi chides, holding the paper up out of my reach when I grab for it. "Wait until we get our next mission, Naruto. This won't do you any good until we get downstairs." I pull back with a huff, grudgingly acknowledging his logic, and sift through my many pants pockets. Broken balloon, broken balloon, scrap of paper, broken balloon- there we go. I pull a virginal bit of latex from my pocket with a triumphant grin, and set to work blowing it up.

Depending on the kind of mentor team we've rolled for this mission, I might have a few minutes or an hour to work on my exercise. I used to think Hatake was unreliable when it came to showing up on time, but some of these veteran genin teams are ridiculous. You'd think that after a few years they'd have gotten the hang of showing up for their missions on time, but apparently not.

Thankfully it looks like we lucked out, as a scant few minutes later there's a knock at the door.

"Enter," The old man calls, glancing up from a slip of paper likely pertaining to the very security of the village itself. Or maybe the reconstruction of that one bath house down the street from my apartment. Well, probably not the bathouse. His crystal ball's nowhere in sight.

The door swings open, and in walks the very last team I was expecting.

Team 9 enters the room cloaked in an aura of grim determination, the air of a broken soldier on his first day back in training hanging around them. The boisterous presences of Lee and Gai are gone and Neji's expression is even darker than the last time I saw him. There is no third teammate.

They step up to the Hokage's desk side by side while we watch them from the positions we've taken up around the room, and bow as one. "Team 9 requests a joint mission, Hokage-sama," Gai says.

The old man looks them over, his eyes flat. "I see you've ignored my suggestion of finding a temporary third member." Lee flinches at that, looking down. Neji just glares at a spot above the Hokage's head.

"We would never ignore you, Hokage-sama," Gai declares firmly. "We have taken your opinion into account, but we have decided that it would not be right for us to replace Tenten, and trained accordingly to fill the hole in our team." The old man raises an eyebrow at that, leaning further back in his chair and humming. Neji and Lee tense up, so much that I'm surprised they don't snap then and there.

"I'll allow it."

The two veteran genin sag, and Gai smiles gratefully. "Thank you, Hokage-sama-"

"However." All of a sudden subtle, uncomfortable weight in the room magnifies ten fold, pressing down on all of us. Sasuke grunts in surprise beside me, and I quickly reach out to steady Sakura, who's stumbled forward a step, forcing the hitch in my throat away as I do so. "If there is another mistake made in the protecting of your rookie team like your last mission, you will not enjoy the consequences. Am I understood?"

As one Team 9 lower their heads and murmur a "Yes, Hokage-sama." I almost do it myself, and I'm not even the one he's is mad at.

Say what you will, but the old man is damn scary when he wants to be.

"Good. You will be paired up with Team 7 again for this mission. Here." He pulls a bulky scroll from a pile off to the right side of his desk and hands it off to Gai. "The mission is straightforward. A man and a group of his followers from Taki have been causing problems in our outlying towns, inciting riots among other things. Your task will be to find and terminate them."

He leans forward now, folding his hands in front of him. His Hokage hat dips, darkening his usually warm features. "You have two weeks to complete this mission, and I expect minimal casualties." He stares intently at the three of them. "Do not disappoint me. Dismissed."

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