Wait ...You Did WHAT?
Seeing the gates of Konoha after being gone for over three weeks, had all three genin smiling somewhat in relief, and had their jounin leader grumbling about what he knew was going to be an unpleasant interrogation from their village leader. That they were all now home was the important thing to remember, and the genin at least were happy with the outcome of their first C-Rank mission and the first time either of them really left the village of their birth. Kakashi had them stop at the gate and check in, and then told them they would need to deliver a report of their mission directly to the Hokage, as so many important things happened that he would need to know about before they could be sent home to rest.
Luckily, they were ushered directly in to see the Third Hokage, not having to wait at all when they reached the central tower, Naruto waving to a smiling Naru as the secretary opened the door for them to enter Sarutobi Hiruzen's office. Sasuke and Sakura were both visibly nervous after being led into the somewhat intimidating office of their village leader, not having many or any experiences being there previously, while Naruto smiled wide at seeing his surrogate grandfather, but remained respectful as they were in a group setting. Kakashi was ramrod straight as he came to a stop next to and just a bit in front of his genin team, and the raising of the Kage's eyebrows was the only indication that something was up with the usually very relaxed and borderline disrespectful jounin.
"Team 7 reporting a successfully completed C-Rank mission," spoke Kakashi plainly to the elderly leader of Konoha.
"And, were there any complications that needed to be reported directly to me?" asked a curious Sarutobi, as he watched the unusual behavior of one of his best jounin, and wondered why they came to debrief him directly on the mission.
"Several," drawled Kakashi, knowing there was no easy way to sugar coat everything that happened, and figured he should just say it all quickly. "We encountered four missing nin, two of whom we eliminated on the way to Wave, the other two we engaged and forced to flee "
Kakashi had to quickly trail off what he was going to continue saying, as the gathered shinobi all felt the increase in killing intent that quickly filled the office, forcing them all to try and get impossibly straighter as the elderly Kage glared at them all, but mostly the silver haired jounin. It was an intense, but thankfully short stare down as Kakashi instantly deferred to his leader and the Hokage could clearly see his intent was affecting the younger genin. While he pulled back the killing intent, his stare did not lessen at all, causing all four ninja present to squirm a bit under it.
"Explain slowly," began the elderly Hokage, "who you encountered, when, and how those outcomes came about, what decisions you made, and why you didn't use the newly created contact pins to alert us of the change in mission status?"
"Yes sir," replied Kakashi, deciding to just state the facts and hope he was still alive when his Hokage was done with him, "we encountered the Demon Brothers, former chunin of the Mist laying an ambush for our client on the way to Wave. We engaged and killed one in action, and the other after an interrogation of their purpose for attacking us. On continuing to Wave ..we encountered and fought Zabuza Momochi, former member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist "
"Wait," spoke the Hokage in a low register of voice, "you did WHAT?"
"I engaged Zabuza Momochi," spoke Kakashi slowly and deliberately, "and was assisted by my genin team in defeating him ...but, he had a hidden accomplice dressed as a Kiri Hunter Nin who came and rescued him out from under us."
"I expect your written report will have more of the details to that fight, and any HELP your GENIN provided in fighting an A-Rank missing nin?" came the low and somehow more powerful voice of the Hokage, who seemed to barely be keeping the lid on his emotions at what he was hearing.
"It will sir," spoke Kakashi nervously, before the Hokage nodded for him to continue. "We continued to the bridge builder's house, set up a perimeter and watch rotation, and protected him as he returned to work. I gave Naruto permission to use his clones to scout out the surrounding area, and over the next several days continued to train my team as we feared the Hunter Nin was working with Zabuza as he didn't kill him on sight, but used senbon to put him in a death-like state."
"At what point," interrupted Sarutobi, "did you decide to NOT call in on the new communication devices we provided to alert us of the upgrade to your mission details?"
"Um ...I forgot?" came Kakashi's nervous reply, knowing he had no excuse, other than he thought he would be able to handle anything thrown at them.
"Hmm," hummed the Hokage with narrowed eyes at his silver haired jounin, "continue."
"Yes, well," started Kakashi, remembering where he left off, "Naruto's clones were able to locate Zabuza's base and the headquarters of Gato, the shipping magnate who had been crippling and extorting the people of Wave for over a year, and who hired the missing nin to eliminate our client."
"Gato of Gato Shipping?" interrupted Sarutobi Hiruzen, "the third wealthiest man in the Shinobi Nations?"
"Yes sir," answered Kakashi succinctly. "He had over 50 hired mercenaries he was using to police and control the island, who were no more than thuggish bandits running wild. The economy was shot, the people were suffering, and I decided to eliminate the larger threat to our mission and pay-off the missing nins to abandon their hit on our client."
"Please tell me you and three rookie genin did not assassinate Gato, one of the wealthiest and most connected people in our world ...and his band of mercenaries," came the grumbled response from the Hokage.
"Um ...okay," drawled Kakashi, knowing he was already in trouble and just decided to start revealing the good news in hopes of saving his skin, "we recovered all the financial records of Gato shipping, several crates of illegal drugs, blackmail material on three Daimyos and two Kages, multiple land deeds, shares in several businesses, and over 200 Million Ryo."
"Wait," interrupted the Hokage again, "...you did WHAT?"
"AndkilledGatoandhisthugs," murmured Kakashi into the silence after the Hokage's outburst.
There were several long minutes of complete silence as Sarutobi Hiruzen digested everything that Kakashi just dropped on him, while the four shinobi all stood impossibly still. Thankfully, his killing intent never resurfaced, but the silence and the stares he was giving Kakashi mainly, but the other three as well, was nothing to scoff at. Naruto, was the only one who knew the old Kage well enough to know that he loved to make people sweat in his presence when they did something he didn't like or know about beforehand, in the hope they would confess to even more in the growing uncomfortable silence.
"Anything else I need to know that happened?" came the eventual low voice of the Hokage, whose glare hadn't let up at all.
"I met a girl," spoke Naruto with a timid smile while nervously rubbing the back of his head with his hand, "Sakura learned the healing palm jutsu, and Sasuke awoke his sharingan."
The sound of a head falling and banging into a desk was not the reaction any of the genin or jounin were expecting, but the answer and delivery was just so Naruto that even Sakura didn't yell at him for it. They were all still nervously looking at the venerable Hokage with his head resting now on his desk, and wondered what that meant for the amount of trouble they were all still in. Luckily, the silence didn't stretch too long, and the Hokage lifted his head to give the three genin small smiles.
"Congratulations you three," spoke Hiruzen sincerely, "those are very nice accomplishments, and I thank you for going well above and beyond the mission to come back to us safely. You will all be paid for an A-Rank mission and it will also appear on your records, again congratulations."
"Thank you Hokage-sama," came Sakura's surprised reply, while Sasuke just nodded.
"Thanks Jiji," replied Naruto with a wide smile, happy for his accomplishment and that he wasn't going to get into too much trouble, "and don't be too hard on Kakashi, he was awesome."
"Thank you Naruto," replied the Hokage with a fond look at the blonde that had his two teammates look at him in shock that he could talk to the Hokage like that and not get in trouble, and wondered just what kind of relationship the two had, and why. "Now, why don't you three head home while I talk with your sensei ...you will have a mandatory two weeks off to recover from your A-Rank mission."
Kakashi watched his students leave the Hokage's office with pride, that they had come so far, and seemed to be actually getting along now before turning back to the staring Hokage and gulping. He knew that he was going to be in some trouble, but still held out hope that all the gifts he was returning with would help offset some of the worst of it. He figured he should start pulling that information and money out and presented the Hokage with several full storage scrolls of various things, the blackmail they now had on the Lightning Daimyo and Kage being the first he wanted to show off in order to help lessen his punishment.
Over the next hour, Kakashi and the Hokage went through all the documentation he recovered, the slaves and drugs sold to Lightning country among the most eye opening. The loans and business arrangements with Kiri were also very problematic, as were the few bloodline slaves captured and sold to none other than Orochimaru. The various business interests throughout Water, Lightning, Hotsprings, Tea, Noodle, Frost, and even in Fire Country were eye opening in the amount and wealth accumulated from those companies, and went a long way to justifying Kakashi's actions.
The staggering sum of money and land deeds were also a large point in the silver haired jounin's favor, and as the meeting went on, the Hokage lost a lot of his anger at Kakashi's actions as he realized how much this action may have actually helped them. That he put his young genin at risk, especially Naruto, was still a bit of a sticking point though, and he was told in no uncertain terms that he better learn real quick how to ask for help when he got in over his head. He then filled Kakashi in on the status of Naruto's clone-pins, and how they had already saved two chunin teams near the border with Rice Country, and the growing activity on that border that signified something was coming.
Naruto was completely unaware of the continued discussion between his Jiji and sensei, and when he was given leave from the Hokage's office, ran directly to Ichiraku's Ramen stand and thankfully ordered his special batch of Miso Ramen. While he waited for his food, and then through eating more than any single customer ever had, he regalled Ayame and Teuchi all about his most recent mission, leaving out many of the sensitive bits and talking more about the people he met. The daughter and her father were both really happy to have Naruto back in the village safe, and excited for him that he was finally living out his life as a ninja that he always wanted and dreamed about.
Naruto stayed at his favorite ramen stand for over two hours, and actually ended up ordering a few extra bowls after finishing off his entire special batch and still wanting more of his favorite food that he had missed so much. By the time he left, the sky was just starting to darken as evening approached and Naruto headed to the Facility to spawn a large amount of clones and get in a little workout before he went back to his apartment. He primarily kept to taijutsu for the start, and really enjoyed the time going against his clones, who knew quite a bit about everything he wanted to do, which only made the spar more difficult and rewarding.
The real challenge was also in his inability to use his clones as his helpers, and instead was experiencing fighting himself from the other side, where waves of coordinated clones attacked strategically and forced him to remain almost entirely on the defensive. It was a good exercise to work on fighting without the aid of clones, as it really hammered home any mistakes he had in his forms, as he couldn't hide them behind the numbers of clones he usually did. The practice eventually evolved into sword training as well, and here he fared much better as he hadn't really incorporated sword fighting into his massive clone collaborative style like he had with taijutsu.
After sword fighting, he moved on to ninjutsu, where again he was entirely on the defensive as he simply couldn't keep up with that many clones that could all throw out the same techniques, and even stronger ones when they worked together. It showed him how offensive all his elemental techniques were, and he made a mental note to start working on a few more defensive options to at least have in his arsenal. Aside from the Futon: Cyclone technique he used against Haku, he didn't have much that stopped incoming attacks if he couldn't just blow them off course with overpowered wind techniques, and knew he needed to have something else.
When he was beyond sweaty and exhausted, it was much too late to go back to Ichiraku's, so he returned to his apartment building, and had to take a moment to stop and really look at it, as it had gone through some serious renovations. His construction work with Tazuna's crew on the bridge, apparently was a great learning experience for his construction clones, as they were able to completely renovate and upgrade his old apartment building until he almost didn't recognize it. The first floor entrance was still largely unchanged, just reinforced and repainted so his only tenant wasn't too aware of all the other changes that were made, but once past that part, the remaining five floors were all newly done and organized for various purposes.
The second floor had been converted into a large office space, with a clone-manned reception area, and offices that were each in charge of one of his many new civilian businesses to give them each their own space to operate from. The third floor had been converted into a large open workshop space that had several of the civilian products being made that he used in his various civilian businesses, as it was much better to separate them from the more destructive ninja things he was doing in the underground Facility. The fourth floor was primarily a warehouse for storage of extra supplies and products for the various businesses, as his clones were creating large amounts of inventory up front in case they ever needed to be pulled away for something else and didn't have time to keep up with demand.
The fifth and topmost floor had been completely converted into one enormously large apartment complete with a large kitchen, living area, and bedroom that had Naruto very pleased. His favorite part of his newly expanded apartment though was the private study that also acted as the first line of defence for his very own large Clan Library. His clones had slowly been filling it with copies of every technique and book they knew, and would eventually house all those techniques recovered from Uzushiogakure and anything else he would add to it over his career.
His new Clan Library was the beginning of the Legacy he hoped to build in Konoha, with all the treasures from Uzushiogakure and anything he knew that he would want his family to learn and keep safe for the future. After handing off the original scrolls he found in Uzushiogakure and Wave to his library clones to make copies and store, and putting his now prized Uzushiogakure hitai-ate in a place of honor on his desk, he went to the kitchen for a late night snack. After his snack, he spawned another large batch of clones to send to the Facility and fill in the gaps he created from his earlier spars and practice, and went to sleep.
Early the following morning after going over countless clone memories, Naruto was awake and making his way to Training Ground 9, to see if Might Guy and Rock Lee were back from their mission and doing their usual morning training regiment. He arrived a few minutes early, as with those two, you never knew if they were going to just get started without you, and found the look-a-like pair in green spandex doing their warm up stretches in preparation for a workout that would kill most people. Naruto greeted them both happily, having missed their unusual brand of weird since he was gone, and was looking to really continue pushing himself which was a guarantee with these two.
"Yosh, Naruto," greeted Guy loudly, the first to see him approach, "welcome back. How was your first C-Rank mission?"
"It was pretty awesome," replied the younger blond happily, "we got to meet and fight one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist ...well Kakashi-sensei did."
"I heard from my rival last night," responded the ever positive jounin with a large smile on his face, "he was most complimentary of your growing skills."
"Thanks Guy-sensei," came the grinning reply. "I really missed working out with you and Lee while I was gone."
"Yosh, Naruto," yelled Lee excitedly, "your youth is so refreshing ...let's double our workout in celebration of your return."
"Wonderful idea Lee," responded Guy, "are you ready Naruto?"
"You bet," came the excited answer, as three blurs raced out of the clearing to begin their workout, with now twenty laps racing around Konoha before they got to the actual training.
Lee and Naruto were both panting heavily when they returned to the training ground to continue their morning workout, and moved on to taijutsu practice where Naruto unveiled his newly adapted form. Lee was beyond happy to fight the horde of Naruto clones, and was really having to give it his all to keep up with the rapidly increasing skill of the blonde and the numbers he threw at him. His form had changed into something much more offensive, with all defenses being covered by clones, and had incorporated several new moves that took him awhile to work out counters for, smiling all the while.
After their initial bout which lasted much longer than Naruto ever had against the taijutsu specialist, Guy called them to a halt as he asked Naruto about his evolving form. He recognized the heavy and much more advanced usage of the Hariken style, supplanted with countless clones covering his defensive deficiencies wonderfully, and infused with a fair mixture of the Uchiha interceptor style thrown in that he would recognize anywhere. When Naruto explained how he fought with clones so much, he had decided to evolve the Hariken style to account for it, and started using clones to cover the holes he created by pushing towards the more offensive style as he had clones to spare.
His use of the Uchiha interceptor style though, he mentioned came about from the countless spars he had started having with his teammate Sasuke, who used that form exclusively, and he had decided to adopt and adapt some of those moves into his new growing and expanding style. He also mentioned that Kakashi had supplied some of the interceptor style moves, as he was familiar with the Uchiha style as well and had helped him some while they were in Wave. Guy was remarkably impressed, both with Naruto's growth in the Hariken style, and his ability to tweak it to better work for his own personal fighting style, and promised they would continue to work on and refine it as it would serve him really well.
Lee too, remarked on how much better the new style was, and how much harder it was to overcome Naruto's clones when they were all working together like that, and promised that he too would work twice as hard to continue to push himself against one of his rivals. Naruto promised that he could send Lee a batch of clones to fight with if he ever just needed a good workout, and didn't want to worry about actually hurting someone, as that is how he convinced Sasuke to train with him and it had really helped him too. Guy was very pleased with the idea, and agreed that it would be a great learning and training tool for the both of them, and said they should try and incorporate it into their morning workouts more often.
From there, Naruto said goodbye to his two green clad friends, and left for breakfast before heading to his own team's training ground to see if either of his teammates or sensei were going to show up. He was a little surprised to see both of his teammates in their usual spots waiting on Kakashi, and greeted them both with a smile and nod as he wondered how things were going to be with them going forward, especially now that they were back in Konoha. They didn't have to wait long, when Kakashi arrived in a swirl of leaves asking his genin why they were here on their day off.
"The Hokage just told us we had a mandatory two weeks off, you never said that meant we didn't have team practice," came the frustrated voice of Sakura, who had probably been waiting the longest based on the palpable relief she got at his arrival.
"Oh ...good point," replied Kakashi with a half shrug, "well ...since you're all here we should at least do something productive ...and work on filling out mission reports."
"Mission reports?" came the question from Naruto, wondering if this was Kakashi's way of pawning off his work on us, as it wouldn't be the first time.
"Yes, unfortunately," drawled kakashi lazily, "for B-Rank missions and above, ALL team members need to fill out a separate mission report. I figured I should show you how those are supposed to look, but I haven't done mine yet either."
"What?" came the confused question from Sakura, as we all looked at Kakashi with disbelief at his completely casual acceptance of his laziness, and couldn't really believe that this was one of the best jounin in the village sometimes.
"Yeah yeah," drawled Kakashi with a lazy wave, "you technically have up to three days to complete the mission reports ...but if anything of note happens, they encourage us to get them done sooner."
"Okay," replied Sakura, the team's usual spokesperson, "so how do we do them?"
"Go to the library and look it up," answered Kakashi easily, and despite the bottom half of his face being covered, all three genin got the idea that he was smirking underneath that face mask, and only gave him three deadpan stares in return. "You are all smart enough to figure it out ...and in appreciation, I am giving you the next three days off from any team meetings or training. We'll meet back here on Thursday at the usual 8 am."
"Hah," laughed Naruto sarcastically, "so ...more like 11-ish?"
"Hn," grunted Kakashi in a fairly good impersonation of Sasuke, before disappearing in another swirl of leaves, leaving three genin behind who could only look at one another and commiserate on the weirdness of their sensei.
"Well," started Naruto resignedly, "I am going to head to the library and knock this out now ...do either of you want to come?"
"It would be nice to get this done," started Sakura, with a look to Sasuke, probably wondering if he was going to go along too, "and then we'll have a mini-vacation for three days!"
"Hn," grunted Sasuke, seemingly in acceptance this time as he stood up from his position of leaning against the tree stump, and waited for someone to lead the way.
"Come on," replied Naruto to his two teammates, "I know a shortcut."
He then led his teammates out of the training ground and into the merchant area, cutting down two separate back alleys and arriving in front of the library in just a few minutes, getting looks of appreciation from his two teammates who quickly followed him inside. They asked the chunin librarian, who Naruto's clones had become very familiar with over the last two months where the old mission reports were filled for reference, and were told they would be brought out of storage for them in a few minutes. They arrived in a large box, several disorganized old scrolls in no particular order, and were told to return them to the front desk when they were finished, and left to their own devices.
They each read through one for a few short minutes, spent two minutes comparing and talking about the basic structure they needed to use, before Naruto pulled out three blank scrolls from one of many storage scrolls he kept on his person. The three sat for ten minutes writing out everything they could remember from their point of view on their first mission outside of the village before Sasuke stood up finished, with Sakura just a few seconds behind him. Naruto mentioned, he still had a few more minutes to finish up, and waved goodbye to his teammates, who at least returned the box of old mission reports so he could finish in peace.
Naruto had a lot more information than most, especially when you counted all the clones he had dispatched that went all throughout Wave and even into the neighboring small islands and Uzushiogakure's Ruins. He was also present for the pay-off of Zabuza and the meeting of Emiko, and simply had more to write and get down to complete the picture of his first C turned A-Rank mission. When he was finished, he decided to go see if Team 10 and Asuma were at their normal training grounds, as he had a few questions and requests for the only other wind user in the village he knew.
Naruto had to give team 10 an abridged version of the events that occurred during his first C-Rank mission, and tried to skim over most of it, but apparently Asuma had heard some of the details from Kakashi, as he asked some specific questions. The biggest was what he thought of Zabuza Momochi and his famous sword Kubikiribocho, to which Naruto could only speculate on how one learns to wield a sword that large with such ease. He ended up asking Asuma about applying wind blades to a sword, as though he knew he used trench knives, the technique was similar.
"Wait," interrupted Ino after Naruto glossed over his teams' confrontation with one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, "you did WHAT?"
"We briefly fought against him," replied Naruto with his hands raised defensively in front of him, as Ino looked ready to attack him for details on her crush and former best friend, "and only really helped Kakashi escape a water prison, so he could continue the fight."
"You encountered a missing nin on your first C-Rank mission?" asked, slashed pointed out Shikamaru, to which Choji and Ino both turned to Naruto as well, waiting for his answer.
"A couple actually," shrugged Naruto, not really wanting to brag even if a couple months ago, that would have been one of the first things on his mind. "Two former chunin from Mist, called the Demon Brothers ...and Zabuza's accomplice, a Hyoton user and orphan from the bloodline purges in Mist."
"Wait," spoke Choji with a chip paused right in front of his mouth, "you did WHAT?"
"It's not nearly as glamorous as you think," chuckled Naruto, before turning back to Asuma, "so ...that wind blade technique?"
What followed was an hour long personal lesson from the Hokage's son, as clones of Naruto wore out the three genin of Team 10, by attacking them in coordinated waves that constantly kept them on the defensive. When he got the hang of the technique, he thanked Asuma and asked if he wanted him to stop attacking his genin with his clones, but just got a smug smile and shake of his head. He wanted to test their stamina, and push them a little as their last team battle had initially gotten them all training harder, but they had recently fallen back into some of their lazier habits and needed the incentive and workout.
The real Naruto called goodbye to his former classmates, and laughed at their strangled yells to stop sending more clones, and went off in search of a good meal at Ichiraku Ramen in high spirits. The rest of his day was spent down in the Facility, constantly spawning more clones, and trying to push them into working more on his sealing chains. The chains were slowly coming along, as they were very chakra intensive for his clones, and also physically sometimes popped the clones coming out of the body or as they tried to manipulate them around.
By the end of the day, they had finally reached one of the biggest milestones for Naruto, in managing two chains and proving that he could advance the technique and continued to push his training. He only paused late in the evening for a trip to Ichiraku to refill his stomach before continuing on his personal training somewhat late into the night. When he went to sleep that night, he was beyond exhausted and also incredibly pleased with his progress and looking forward to another few days of nothing but training.