"…It seems you had… an interesting afternoon." The Hokage stated, raising one eyebrow as he looked at the rather… poor state that Team 7 had wandered into his office. Luckily, he made it a point to receive this mission's result and report directly in his office. Being a very high profile mission, it was more of a necessity than a pleasure most of the time.
"Understatement of the century." Sakura deadpanned, too tired, annoyed and angry to pay proper respect to the Hokage at the moment. Mentally, she slapped herself for this transgression, but ultimately, she couldn't bring herself to apologize for the outburst. She did not know whether she wanted to die or she wanted to kill everyone.
That mission? Totally not worth the time spent doing it. The pay was laughable, considering the amount of effort they'd had to put into it. Heck, they could take several D ranks during that time. Sure, most D ranks paid significantly less than the Tora mission, or so Kakashi had informed them at some point, but the quantity would more than make up for the difference. And they wouldn't be as frustrated or annoyed afterwards.
"Where is Sensei? He must die." Satsuki stated, her tone entirely serious and the venomous anger laced within it making it so her predicament didn't lessen the impact of her seriousness. Clearly, she was not one to be fucked with, and even covered in scratches and little bits of the forest she'd brought with herself, she was still Konoha's Ice Princess.
"…You know, I'm beginning to wonder when a genin team will get the idea to use catnip." Asked a new voice, sounding entirely too amused. The voice was feminine and smooth like velvet, pleasant to the ear yet with an undercurrent of power and authority that left no doubt about the strength of the woman carrying it. "Tora's a sucker for that stuff."
"Ah, Kichou-sama." Said Sarutobi, smiling widely. "I trust you came to pick up Tora?"
At that moment, Sakura and Satsuki were frozen on the spot. Suddenly, both of them felt amazingly idiotic. This was entirely to be expected from someone like Naruko, who was an idiot and widely recognized as such. Heck, she was proud of being as much of an idiot as she was, and she flaunted her idiocy everywhere she went.
She also flaunted other things… things she didn't quite have yet.
"Of course I am, Sarutobi-san." From behind Team 7 stepped in a strikingly beautiful woman. The woman was wearing a simple green kimono, nothing too fancy. No ridiculous decorations. In fact, she looked positively austere. However, that only helped her overall appearance, as she had nothing that detracted from her natural beauty. She had short hair in a rather boyish cut, the face that could send a thousand ships and the deceptively thin and lithe arms of a kunoichi.
Satsuki had a trained eye, brought on from being raised in a clan that placed great emphasis on the power of the eyes. Therefore, she had trained herself to make her Sharingan's strengths stronger, by increasing her attention to detail as much as she could without crippling her ability to see the wider picture. And she could tell, at a glance, that this woman was a kunoichi.
A damn good one. Her posture was that of a woman of noble birth, her arms hid the strong muscle with a layer of soft appearing skin, carefully applied makeup hid the hundreds of tiny scars that came from the harsh life of a shinobi and her eyes were relaxed and calm.
She was good enough that Satsuki only realized she was a kunoichi because she hadn't made a sound as she walked up to them. Not a single sound. Not the rustle of cloth of her kimono, not her footsteps, nothing at all. Even her breathing made close to no sound whatsoever. The only reason she'd allowed herself to act like this was probably because she was relaxed and not actively trying to fit the mold of a noble.
A kunoichi who had her abilities so deeply ingrained into her that she executed them automatically.
The woman seemed vaguely amused by Satsuki's scrutiny, but the Uchiha quickly schooled her features before any more of her shock and awe could be perceived past the mask of ice. Fiery determination flared within her, engraving in her soul a burning desire to reach the level of ability that this woman oh so casually displayed and blaze right past it.
"Tora must have gotten plenty of exercise already. He seems almost fully exhausted." The lady Kichou spoke, her voice melodious and enchanting. Even that, was the act of a very experienced kunoichi. She automatically changed the pitch and tone of her voice so that it sounded endearing to her audience.
She wasn't a good kunoichi, she was a bloody genius of a kunoichi.
Fitting, Satsuki guessed, for the last line of defense for the Daimyo. "Ah, yes, I observed this mission through the use of my crystal ball. A most… interesting run, I must say." Sarutobi spoke, grinning slightly. "Since Kakashi was not involved with this mission, I think we can safely guess that he forfeited his part of the reward for its completion."
"Ah, yes, I quite agree with your assessment, Hokage-sama." Kichou spoke, smiling widely.
The politicking of the high class wasn't something foreign to either of the awake members of team 7, but they still thought it rather unnecessary. The thought of getting the portion of the reward that would go to Kakashi, however, warmed their hearts a little. At least they were compensated somewhat for having a shitty jounin teacher who couldn't get off his ass to help them catch a goddamn cat.
It didn't make Sakura want to murder the Daimyo's wife any less, for putting them through that nightmare of a mission just so her cat could get some exercise.
Without a word, Satsuki just handed Tora to the brown haired woman, who smiled warmly and patted the Uchiha's head. This did not amuse Satsuki in the least. "Don't worry, we'll be supporting you on the task you set for yourself." Spoke the Daimyo's wife, making Satsuki frown.
Sakura smiled, however, and opened her mouth to be the polite one who would thank the Daimyo on Satsuki's behalf, when the blonde on her back stirred, slowly coming back to the land of the awake.
As she roused herself to awareness, Naruko made a series of unintelligible sounds that sounded like words, but weren't. And were they to be frank, neither of her teammates truly wanted to know what it was that she was mumbling about. Something about impossibly fluffy, warm beds and her not wanting to wake up.
It took her more than a few minutes, but eventually, Sakura could put the weight behind her back down. Naruko rubbed at her eyes, trying to get the rest of the sleep out of them. "Did we win?" She asked, looking around. "…Why are we in my future office?" she added.
"Your future office?" Asked the daimyo's wife, raising an eyebrow. "That's quite a big claim, young miss."
"Of course I do, pretty lady! I'll be the Hokage before you can even see me coming!" Said Naruko, smiling with palpable contentment. It seemed she'd had a quite nice dream, and it had her quite relaxed after resting. "Just you wait!"
"Oh ho, that's quite a lot of motivation." A new, rather laid back and cheerful voice broke through the reverie brought on by Naruko's boast. "You can always aim a bit lower, you know?"
"No way, mister! That would be like giving up! And I never give up!" Spoke Naruko, turning around and meeting the man who had spoken. The man was dressed in a simple hakama, nothing too expensive. A few scars decorated his exposed skin, violet eyes settled into an easy and lazy gaze that swept through the room and made no secret of the way they did so.
Sakura smacked the back of Naruko's head. "Be a little more respectful, idiot!" She spoke, her tone hushed. "Can't you tell who this man is?"
"Nope. Should I know?" The blonde asked, tilting her head and frowning cutely.
"I can't believe you!" Sakura groaned, frustration pretty much taking form in her face, a mask of suffering like no brainy guy had ever felt upon being forced to deal with an idiot for a lengthy period of time. "How did you even pass the academy!?"
He was a bit pale and the elbow length sleeves failed to hide the thinness of his arms, but he moved with a certain air of… control, would be the best word to put it, that showed that despite his appearance, he was not a weak man who would be like a leaf shaking in the wind. Satsuki's analyzing eye once again far outstripped her teammates's, and without a doubt, she could call this man a warrior.
Not a shinobi. He didn't have the sleek, athletic body type that shinobi cultivated. Nor did he have the choice of unrestrictive attire that even the Lady Kichou had stuck to despite being a noble. There was just an air of power and authority about the man who had just wandered into the room that told her that this man was a skilled fighter and not one to be trifled with.
Something that Satsuki remembered very well was a lesson given to her by her mother, when she had first met the Sandaime Hokage who had been anything but the strong, stoic and unapproachable man she'd expected from someone who carried a title like 'God of Shinobi'. In fact, he'd been the kind, grandfatherly type and made no secret of his love for children. Heck, there were, mostly confirmed, rumors circulating about that said the man randomly visited orphanages to bring candy and toys to the kids there.
The lesson Satsuki had learned that day?
Oftentimes, power corrupts its holder. It's something that is bound to happen to just about everyone. Power brought arrogance, which produced a lot of behavior that Satsuki could now classify as 'Jerkassery'. In the ninja world, you often had to watch out for the arrogant ones, because more often than not, they have a reason to be arrogant douchebags. Being powerful enough to disregard the consequences invites one to exercise their newfound, oft imaginary, right to cruelty.
The truly powerful men, however? Truly powerful men scarcely flaunted their power. Truly powerful men downplay their own strength, skill, wisdom, power, what have you. Truly powerful men had no need to constantly prove their strength to everyone. The Sandaime Hokage could afford to destroy his image as a powerful shinobi warlord entirely and without remorse. He didn't need such a thing.
Truly powerful men, that is applying to both genders, were nice because they could afford to be nice.
The gravity of that statement would only hit her later in life, after she'd come to understand what power was truly all about.
And ever since then, she'd been frightened of incurring the Third Hokage's wrath. That very night in which her eyes had been opened to the harsh reality of the world, she had seen the Hokage for what he truly was.
Satsuki would've continued musing about her situation, how she was so far behind all three of the powerful people in the room that it wasn't even funny, how she still needed to prove her strength at every turn and how she thirsted for more and more power… But there was a rather annoying blonde poking her cheek and derailing her train of thought every second.
"Yo, Satchan! Is anybody in there? You've been staring at the mister for like five minutes!"
The Uchiha was left to curse the interruption to her thoughts in silence.
"But I got here a minute ago." The man pointed out, raising an amused eyebrow and offering the blonde a little smile. "Ah, but where are my manners? I suppose I should introduce myself. Hello, my name is Nobunaga." The man stopped to gesture towards the brown haired woman. "That is my wife, Kichou." He said, before turning back to Naruko. "It's a pleasure to meet some of Konoha's newest genin."
"Hi, Nobunaga-san! I'm Naruko, this is Satsuki and that is Sakura!" Naruko spoke animatedly, pointing first at herself, then at Satsuki and lastly at Sakura. Then she threw an arm around each of her teammates's shoulders. "We're the most awesome team in all of Konoha!"
"Are you, now?" The brown haired woman asked, amused. "Well, I guess your mission time is the best in your age group, so far." Kichou said, tapping her lips as if deep in thought. "I guess I could reward you for this, oh so great of achievements. I've been meaning to visit Konoha's Hot Springs, and it'd be rather lonesome to do it by myself. Would you care to accompany me?"
"Somehow, I knew it'd end in this." Sarutobi mentioned off-handedly.
"Ah, that sounds like a good idea." Nobunaga spoke, his approval clear in both tone and face. "As a matter of fact, we all should visit the hotsprings. I have a few aches I could do without." He continued, smiling widely. "What do you say, Kakashi-kun?" He asked, turning his head to a potted plant on one corner of the room.
To the surprise of only the genin, the plant quickly turned into a masked shinobi who yawned and looked a little bored. "That sounds nice." He spoke in a rather lazy drawl. "But wouldn't that throw your schedule out the window, Nobunaga-sama?"
"Most likely." The black haired man agreed, smiling. "But it isn't a big deal in the long run."
"If you say so…" Kakashi said, shrugging.
"Sensei, where were you?" Asked Satsuki accusingly.
"Yeah! You left us to do the mission on our own!" Sakura said.
"He's kinda useless anyway." Naruko remarked. "I don't think it would've made a difference." She continued, shrugging. Kakashi looked almost hurt by her assessment.
"You know, she's kinda right. You did get beaten by a group of genin fresh from the academy in a fight." Sarutobi seemed far too amused, and it didn't please Kakashi in the slightest to be the source of his leader's amusement. Usually, it was voluntary when he did something that was incredibly stupid and thus incredibly hilarious.
"I have a completely valid excuse this time. You see, I was on my way to the store to buy some catnip so I could make the entire mission a lesson about how the best plans are sometimes the simplest ones, when I ran into a princess who had been kidnapped and taken atop a construction zone by a monkey who kept throwing barrels at me when I went to rescue her. It took me a while, but I finally made it and when I got her down, she told me she couldn't thank me properly at the moment, as she had a few errands to run. So I accompanied her, you know, to make sure that nothing else happened while she was alone. Konoha is a big place, and someone who doesn't live here can easily get lost."
"…You can't be serious." Satsuki immediately countered, fully deadpan in delivery.
"Oh, but I am. You see, we stopped at six different drug stores, because none of them had what she was looking for, and then it turns out that what she was looking for wasn't a kind of medicine at all, she had read the note backwards. Turns out we actually had to backtrack all the way to the first drug store and so we found what she was looking for. That drugstore was on the other side of Konoha from where the girls were, so I decided to let them go through their mission alone because I didn't wanna walk that far."
"You could have just said 'I was lazy', you know." Sakura stated, dryly. There was no respect in her tone for her teacher, something that she would usually find preposterous. The thing was, Kakashi had done nothing but anger and annoy her ever since she'd begun her actual ninja career.
"Yeah, well, that too." Kakashi admitted, scratching at his mask.
As if to punctuate the absurdity of the situation, a tiny monkey came rushing into the room, quickly finding Nobunaga and climbing all the way to his shoulder, settling there and looking at Sarutobi for a few seconds. The old man gave the monkey a half smile and a nod.
"I'm sorry for the interruption!" A rather high pitched voice cut through the silence as a little girl, around the same height as Naruko, came running in. In contrast with the austere Daimyo and his wife, the girl wore quite a few ornaments, some on her hair, others on the expensive and rather fine-looking yukata she wore. It was of a very dark blue color, with patterns of gold decorating it, and Naruko found her eyes mesmerized by the way that they seemed to flow as she moved.
Her teammates immediately assessed her as the most likely spoiled little daughter of the Daimyo.
"Kou-hime. It's always a pleasure to see you. I hadn't been made aware of your presence." Sarutobi quickly spoke, smiling and bending down as the little girl went to give the grandfatherly man a hug.
"Neither was I." Admitted the Daimyo, looking at his wife, in a fashion that showed everyone in the room that he was not all that displeased by this turn of events.
"It was… kind of a last minute decision…" Admitted Kou, scratching her cheek and blushing red in embarrassment. "You forgot your medicine, and I didn't want to send a courier for something so trivial, so…"
"But that's what we have couriers for, Kou." Nobunaga informed the little girl, kneeling and patting her head as he did. "Well, it doesn't matter, just remember to send word ahead next time, okay?"
"Uhm… But I did. I gave the letter to that nice silver haired man." She said, turning to face Kakashi, who sheepishly offered the letter to the fire Daimyo.
"I meant far in advance." Nobunaga explained, sighing.
"As in 'Before you set out'." Kichou helpfully explained.
"Well, that explains what you were doing while your team did their jobs." Sarutobi spoke, sounding slightly amused at the whole turn of events. "Kou-hime, did you really get attacked by a barrel-throwing monkey?"
"Y-Yes, I did. It was weird." Kou explained, blushing slightly. "He kept screaming something about plumbers."
"Toukichirou, was that one of your friends?" Asked Nobunaga, turning to the monkey on his shoulder.
Said monkey vehemently shook his head, then shrugged.
"I'll ask Enma later if he knows anything about the monkey. Konohamaru might have found the monkey summoning contract and there's a chance he got Asuma to teach him how to summon. He wouldn't lose a chance to create a little havoc and annoy me." The Sandaime theorized, rubbing his chin. "Well then, I guess we can file this mission as a total, if disastrous, success."
"Don't worry, girls, I'll pay for your new clothes, too. It's the least I can do." Kichou immediately turned to address the girls of Team 7, who seemed slightly defeated by the entire debacle.
"Oh, that's great, because the jacket I'm wearing now? It's kind of falling apart, and having no pockets would get really annoying after a while." Naruko explained, noting that her jacket's pockets were in the shredded lower half.
"You could wear, you know, pants." Sakura spoke.
"But that would be uncomfortable!" Naruko whined.
Satsuki barely resisted the urge to punch the blonde.