Dark Phoenix of Konoha by White Angel of Auralon

Part 44 - Incident

"I am. And this will be a perfect story. The famous Naruto Namikaze, previously hidden son of the infamous Yondaime Hokage, protecting a princess while important negotiations are taking place inside Konoha. That will be headlines for weeks," The reporter raved.

"And why the hell didn't you inform anybody that you were trying to make a story about Naruto?" Kiba asked.

"It wouldn't be authentic anymore. And Namikaze Sama is notoriously hard to find and follow, even for the best in our business. Having him out in the open for long periods of time is very rare. He's even worse in that regard than his sensei, the Godaime Hokage," Hikari explained.

"I don't want to be bothered by the press," Naruto declared, "My private life is just that, private."

"The public has a right to find out more about such an interesting person as you, Namikaze Sama," The reporter shook her head, "People need to know who their protectors are."

"Well, you won't be printing anything about me," Naruto stated and took away the camera, "You have just been caught in interfering with an official ninja mission of Konoha and your camera is confiscated. Additionally, you will have to answer to the Hokage about spying on his ninjas, which is a severe offence."

The ANBU decided that it was a good opportunity to show that reporter, who was known to give ninjas problems during their missions, not caring for security at all, some realities of life and one of them appeared and took both camera and reporter and vanished.

"Was that really necessary?" Lady Shiori asked.

"It could easily happen that an assassin disguises as a reporter, Lady Shiori," Naruto pointed out firmly, "We were hired as bodyguards for the princess. Imagine if one of the reporters that clearly have learned basic ninja techniques like hiding in the shadows, which are taught at the academies of all elemental countries, would try to kill a target under the guise of wanting an interview. There are countless ways of hiding poisoned darts in a camera or using other attacks if you just get close enough to a target. It is why during official press conferences, which I expect one to be set up once a result is found for the negotiations that your Daimyo is involved in currently, the reporters are thoroughly examined and searched by ninjas trained on things like that before they are allowed anywhere near."

"I see, I never realised the danger of that," Lady Shiori admitted, "Reporters were just an unavoidable nuisance of life for me so far. Being nobility basically entails having to deal with them."

Naruto nodded.

"I think we should escort you back to your hotel now. I'm not sure that Madam Otabane was working alone and I can't take the risk of more real or fake reporters being around," Naruto stated, "It's not too long until the arranged time for you to return anyway and perhaps getting an early dinner wouldn't be a bad idea now."

"I can agree to that," Lady Shiori nodded, while Natsuki looked unhappy.

Especially as Naruto refused to take her arm right now, being too busy with keeping a close eye on everything around, and telling her that he needed to be ready to act at a moment's notice, which he couldn't while she held onto him. Still, Ino read the situation correctly and managed to distract Natsuki as well as she could and they reached the hotel without incident. Inside the Princess's room, Ino showed her a few tricks that kunoichi were taught to look beautiful at short notice, which was enough to get them over the remainder of the time until Natsuki met with her father for dinner, during which the team was released from bodyguard duty by the regular guards around the Daimyo.

Naruto reported to the leader of the guard team about the busted reporter and then led his team back to the Hokage Tower to give a formal report on the mission. It was thankfully an uneventful mission overall. The reporter could be chalked off as a minor disturbance.