Kakashi gave them an hour to pack, so Haruka headed home. It didn't take long to notice that Naruto was following her, but he stayed at a distance and so she ignored him. He would make himself known if he wanted to talk.
Her usual mission bag was ready and waiting next to her futon. According to Kakashi they would be out of the village for about a month, which meant she needed to add some extra rations and clothing, just in case. The whole thing barely took five minutes, yet Naruto was pacing in front of her door as if he'd been waiting for hours. Haruka shook her head, wondering why he didn't simply knock. She shrugged to herself, wrote Ibiki a quick note in their personal code, left it on her kitchen table and then headed out.
Naruto was so close to the door, it almost hit him in the head. He managed to jump back in the nick of time though.
"Uhm, hi Haruka-chan. I… kinda followed you?" He said, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. It sounded more like a question than a statement, as if he didn't know by now that she would have noticed. Instead of answering she gave him a small smile and motioned for him to continue.
"Could you like—I mean would you please help me pack?" He asked with a glance at her bag. She wondered why this made him so uncomfortable, but then she remembered all the jeers he usually got. Naruto avoided asking for help because not only would people refuse, they might actually spit him in the face while doing it. So instead Haruka gave him another smile. They might not be best friends, but they were teammates and he shouldn't be afraid to ask for help.
***
Naruto's flat looked almost as bad from the inside as it did from the outside. She'd already known it was tiny and old, but the myriad of ramen containers that littered the ground were a little bit of a surprise. The blond might be forced to live in one of the village's more disreputable parts, but there was really no reason to keep months worth of trash lying around. She told him as much, so while he cleaned she packed his bag and explained what he needed and why.
She actually had a coded notebook that contained all the little things she'd learned from Ibiki, Kakashi and Itachi over the years. They didn't entirely agree on what exactly was most important when preparing gear for a mission, but there was a lot of overlap. For example Ibiki was big on bringing extra tools that could double for field interrogations, whereas both Itachi and Kakashi liked to err on the side of carrying no more than was strictly necessary. That meant at maximum one set of extra clothing, rations for two days and one set of projectile weapons. However they both considered a ludicrous amount of soldier pills vital. She wondered if that had to do with their time as ANBU.
As a tokubetsu jonin and the head of T&I Ibiki didn't spend a lot of time in the field and even then only on highly specialized missions. Itachi and Kakashi on the other hand would have been sent out at a moment's notice to do any number of things in any number of places and probably with little to no intelligence to work with.
Of course that was a lot more information than Naruto needed. Haruka kept things basic for him and even then he lacked some of the things she would have liked to pack, like a standard first aid kit. They didn't have time to do anything about that now, so she wrote him a list of things he should get before their next mission and some quick instructions on how to prepare his bag in case he forgot.
When they were done Naruto's flat looked halfway decent and Haruka handed over the bag.
"Thank you," Naruto said to the floor and then added a mumbled: "For this and… and for what you did earlier."
"It's fine," Haruka told him, not wanting to talk about it. She wasn't sure she could explain, especially without bringing up what she'd learned about him.
***
Sasuke and Tazuna were already waiting at the gate when Haruka and Naruto arrived. The Uchiha looked especially cantankerous and was standing quite a ways away from the bridge builder. She wondered what the old drunk had said to him. Apparently Naruto did too, only his version of being supportive involved a lot of yelling and friendly insults. She had no idea how helpful that was, but if nothing else it distracted Sasuke.
Kakashi's chakra arrived precisely on time, but the man was nowhere in sight.
"Knock it off!" Haruka shouted to the stares of her confused teammates. She was still annoyed by their client and in no mood to play games with Kakashi. He was either late or he wasn't. Pretending was just petty.
"You're no fun," he told her grumpily. His sudden appearance scares Naruto and the client half out of their skins. Sasuke fared a little better, but not by much. Not that Kakashi cared, he just herded them out of the village, completely ignoring any and all protests.
At civilian speed the journey to the Land of Waves, and subsequently Tazuna's bridge, would take them the better part of a week. Maybe more if the weather turned. Wave had many rivers, with that much water in the area sudden mists were quite common and rains could easily result in flooding because of the waterlogged earth.
Naruto didn't care about any of that though. He was just excited to get out of the village for the first time and immediately took the lead. He didn't actually know where they were going though, so Kakashi frequently had to shout directions after him.
***
Their days on the road were completely unremarkable for the most part, boring really. Especially because their job was to stay alert, which meant no books, games or conversations. Well, except for Kakashi and Tazuna. Their sensei was skilled enough to not have to concentrate on being observant and, very predictably, spent the time with his nose in his favorite orange book. The client though was constantly drinking and got more twitchy the closer they got to Wave. He also liked to entertain himself by insulting the three genin tasked with his protection.
The asshole kept telling Naruto he looked like a punk, asking Sasuke if he was sure he wasn't adopted because he didn't seem impressive enough to be a real Uchiha, and making allusions to the fact that Haruka, as a little girl, was probably just there as a favor to her parents. Kakashi actually had to threaten to tie Naruto up and leave him by the wayside half a dozen times before the blond stopped trying to kill the client.
Sasuke didn't take the verbal abuse well either, but his anger was more simmering coals and less raging blaze. His teeth were grinding more often than not and he kept clenching his fists so tightly that the knuckles turned white. At one point his nails actually broke the skin of his palm and a few drops of blood hit the floor. Haruka might not have noticed for quite a while, if not for the way Kakashi's chakra had swelled up. Their formation was loose, but the jonin could probably smell blood at this distance. He didn't say anything, but after that Haruka made a point of accidentally bumping into Sasuke whenever the boy started clenching his fists again. It worked moderately well and the Uchiha didn't complain, which she chose to interpret as gratitude.
Haruka, for her part, had no problem ignoring the insults aimed at herself. She did however feel an almost instinctual anger at the pain they caused her teammates. She couldn't really explain it logically. After all, she was frequently annoyed with both boys and she didn't really care if they fought with each other, but in the end they were still a team. Tazuna was an outsider though and he had no right to talk to them the way he was. He wasn't just being a regular asshole either, the old drunk was going out of his way to make Naruto and Sasuke miserable. If Kakashi hadn't been there to lead by example Haruka probably would have strangled the client by the third day, at the latest.