Shikon

Nami

"They are just a bunch of brats. Especially the midget with the stupid makeup,"

Naruto twitched. He had wondered who the short one but when the man mentioned his dark orange eyelid as makeup, he knew it was him. He growled deep and low, "Make fun of me again and I swear I'll poison you, dattebayo,"

Kakashi held him back, "Naruto, you can't poison the client,"

Naruto grumbled, "It's not my fault it showed up one morning,"

Even Naruto has started to think that his face has gotten colorful. The marking on his eyelids resembled Sesshoumaru's but wider, almost like eye shadow. His whiskers remained black but bold. The Shingetsu remained dark blue. But his eyes are marked orange. At least he doesn't look like a panda. The only reason he didn't flip out as much was because Sesshoumaru pointed out that colorful beast in nature are warning of poison.

Naruto had truly become Gu.

Within the hour, the group gathered at the south gate. Naruto looked at the gate, his heart pounding. The past months have been filled with tedious missions that felt more like chores that their client rather pay money so they can be lazy than actual mission. When he complained about the matter to his family, Sesshoumaru called him stupid.

Naruto was stumped by the sudden insult.

Kagome huffed, "Naruto, in my time, ninja is all about gathering information. And the best way to do that is to be someone everyone will overlook. That is a janitor. No one will bat an eye at someone who does the cleaning. Everyone will just ignore them. The same goes to people who fix the roof or paint the fence. You need to be someone who can be just about anyone unimportant so you can sneak into places without rousing suspicion,"

Minato nodded, "Why don't you try to gather intel about Konoha and compile them into a report? After all, the Hokage need to know what really goes on in the village and not just the filtered version the Council gives him. ANBU in training usually does that by turning into someone else and then lounge about Konoha during downtime. Hokage also go through Genin report to try and see just how the village really function through the eyes of the common people,"

Kushina looked at him, "Wait, what?"

Minato smiled at them, "There's a reason why it's called a mission and not commission,"

Since then Naruto took every mission, tedious chores, as if he's on an intel gathering mission. He compiled his report the same way, taking Hiruzen and even Kakashi by surprise.

Although some missions, like catching Tora, was more for the money than intel...

Naruto tuned out as Kakashi told Sakura about the Five Great Shinobi Nations. He wondered if leaving the Academy equals leaving her brain. Suddenly his nose caught two scents along with blood, iron and poisons. Intrigued by the poison, started to try and isolate the scent from everything else and figure out what made it.

Suddenly Kakashi was torn to shred just as they cross the smelly puddle.

"One down,"

Sakura screamed as the two attackers headed straight for the client. Naruto froze. All his training run out as his first true life or death battle happened right in front of him. He knew Kakashi's not dead, his nose told him so. But the sight had been so real, the visual so raw that his mind didn't have time to process the scent of pine. Sasuke jumped into action before the chains could behead Naruto. The foreign Shinobi cursed and snapped the chain.

At the sound of the snapping chains, Naruto was grounded once more. He raised his arm just into time to parry the clawed gauntlet of one of them. Sakura jumped in front of their client but she can't do anything more than just hold her kunai before her. Sasuke jumped in front of her and just the foreign nin was about to collide with them, Kakashi appeared.