Heir of the Uzumaki

“So, how is my son doing?” Fugaku stared at Kakashi from one in of the table.

“He was able to learn both the genjutsu I gave him very quickly, much faster than the rest of his team learned their jutsu.” Kakashi began. “In fact I believe they are ready to take on C rank missions.”

A scowl stretched out across Fugaku’s face. “You understand what you’d be asking me right. There would be accusations of favoring my son, trying to make his career easier and with faster progress to other ninja.”

“We both know that is not what you're worried about.” Kakashi stared at the man blankly.

“No, it is not. There are only two Uchiha these days. And recently we have had issues with people disguising A rank missions as C and B rank to save on money.” Fugaku mused.

“I see. If you think it would be better we will stay with D ranks for now.” Kakashi was understanding, the man had lost enough family.

Fugaku leaned back in the Hokage seat, staring at the ceiling for a few minutes. “What do you think old man?” He asked, looking over at his advisor Hiruzen.

“I understand where you are coming from.” Hiruzen took a puff from his pipe. “However it would give the Uchiha clan a chance to remind the village that they are still strong.” He hummed as he hit his pipe again. “And Naruto is on his team. The Uzumaki clan hasn't made a name for itself in ages either.”

“For the good of the village and the clan.” Fugaku sighed.

“And they all will need to get stronger if we want out plan to take out that man to work.” Hiruzen hit his pipe again, the smoke starting to fill the air. “Even now I have to keep my chakra smoke active at all times to insure I am not being spied on. I believe he is catching on.”

Fugaku sighed and rubbed his face. Before rage filled his eyes and he threw the Hokage headdress at the wall.

“Damn you Minato, and damn you Sarutobi. I’ll torture you both in the next life for pushing me into this job.” He snarled in anger. “I have to watch every move I make or my enemies will cut off my head. Every day i have this fucking sword hanging over me!” He yelled and slumped back down in the chair. He grabbed a scroll off the desk and tossed it at Kakashi.

Kakashi caught the scroll and looked at it in confusion.

“C rank like you asked. Some builder from the Land of Waves. He wants to be escorted back to his village to finish the construction of a bridge. Shouldn’t be too dangerous.” Fugaku grumbled.

“Thank you Lord Fifth.” Kakashi bowed.

Fugaku just glared at him. “What are you still doing here? Go back to training my son and his team. The bridge builder will be escorted to the gates tomorrow so you have time to prepare.”

After Kakashi left Hiruzen turned to Fugaku. “I remembered you having a cooler head in your youth.” He grinned and hit his pipe.

“Oh shut up.” Fugaku groaned and slammed his head on the table. “What jutsu is behind this never ending paperwork. I must learn this jutsu and teach it to the ninja in the T&I.”

Naruto sighed, cracking open is eyes lazily, as the sun came through the windows of his room. He stretched as he sat up, before getting out of bed before putting on a pair of red pants, fishnet shirt, and a jacket with a black top half anf red bottom half with the Uzumaki clan shirt of the back. He looked over to a sword stand on top of his dresser, taking the ornate dao on top of it off. He marveled at the red sheath accented in ornate gold designs.

“Dojikiri, are you ready?” He spoke to the sword before strapping it onto his hip and picking up the bag he packed the night before. “It's time for our first real mission.”

He walked out to the courtyard of the compound and drew the sword. “Now let’s make sure I figured this out. Now,” He pointed the sword in front of himself, “Dojikiri Style,”

Sasuke sighed as he heard a banging on his bedroom door.

“Boy, wake up.” Fugaku’s voice ordered behind the door. “Your sensei worked hard to convince me to give you this mission. Don’t disappoint the clan.”

“You mean don't disappoint you.” Sasuke snided back.

“Don’t speak like that.” Fugaku opened the door, and annoyed appearance on his face.

“Why not, who else is there to disappoint. They're all dead.” Sasuke sat up and began to get dressed.

“Sasuke!” Fugaku snarled. “Do not let our clan’s fate define you.” he warned and walked up to his son, setting his hand on the boy's shoulder. Despite the tenderness of the action his face stayed as cold as stone. “Listen to me, what happened to the family is a tragedy. But this hatred growing within you is unsettling. If you keep on this path, you will join our clan sooner than you should.”

Sasuke brushed off his father’s arm. “I’ll worry about myself, you don’t need to baby me father, you didnt baby him.” He side eyed his father.

Fugaku scoffed, “Yeah and look how that ended up.” He began to walk away from Sasuke and stopped. “Before I leave, Kakashi told me you didn't use your sharingan during the bell test. Why?”

“I didn’t think I needed it.” Sasuke mumbled out.

“Do not lie.” Fugaku’s glare cut through the boy’s soul.

“I had my reasons. Why’s it so important?” Sasuke’s patience began to wear thin.

“Because you lost, and while you would have anyway, not using the sharingan made you do worse than you could have.” Fugaku stepped into the doorframe. “That was a mistake that will not fly on a real mission. Don’t get you or your allies killed because of whatever petty reason you’ve come up with.” He closed the door behind him, leaving Sasuke alone to seethe.

Sakura’s bones creaked as she continued to do pull up on a branch of a tree in the clan compound, stopping and falling to the ground as she saw her father approach.

“Sakura, what are you doing out here, it's so early.” He questioned his daughter while setting down a tea tray.

“I had trouble sleeping.” She smiled and waved it off as he poured her a cup of tea.

“I understand, you must be nervous.” He grinned at her and her.

“Why would I be nervous?” She laughed awkwardly and took a sip of tea.

“Well, for starters were a civilian clan, unlike your teammates you don't have inherited techniques or shinobi skills.” He frowned as he saw her awkward smile fall. “Or maybe its just that Uchiha boy?” He teased trying to lift her spirits.

She blushed and looked away from her father.

“So I was right, you do like him?” He laughed boisterously.

Sakura’s blush grew large. “Shut up dad!”

He kept laughing as he pulled out a large, pole shaped object wrapped in cloth. If she had to guess it was around 3 foot long, maybe a little shorter. “Well we may not be a ninja clan, but neither are the Tenten clan. But their heir is doing fine, you'll do great Sakura. I know it. You just need a little boost.” He handed her the object.

She looked at it quizzically. “What is this?” She asked, confused. “Too short to be a bo staff.”

“Something to help you catch up to the others. A gift from the Tenten clan.” He grinned and began to unwrap the cloth.

Just after sunrise team 7 began to gather at the front gate of The Leaf Village. Sakura arrived first, with the gift from her father on her back. Next was Sasuke, wearing a purple cloak, with a Uchiha crest on the back, covering himself from the neck down. Finally was Naruto, slurping on a cup of instant ramen.

“Huh? The bridge builder still isn't here?” Naruto asked in disbelief. “Man and i tried to show up last.” he whined.

“You wanted to show up late?” Sasuke asked incredulously.

“What do you expect Sasuke?” Sakura sighed. “It’s Naruto.”

Naurto chuckled nervously as he rubbed the back of his neck as his team mates sighed in disappointment at his antics.

“Huh? Your brats are who they got to guard me? I asked for ninjas, not children.” A voice grumbled from behind them.

They looked at the source of the voice to see an old man with graying hair and wrinkled skin around his gray eyes. He wore a wide brimmed reed hat and was clinging to a bottle of sake.

Sakura began to grind her teeth. “What was that geezer?”

“Woah Sakura calm down.” Kakashi waved at her as he quickened his pace.

“Oh c’mon sensei he started it.” Naruto defended her.

“We can’t attack him. This is Tazuna, this is the client.” Kakashi sighed. “Sorry about them, normally we’d be introduced before leaving but special circumstances.” He turned to the bridge builder.

“We’ll at least there’s one real ninja on the team.” Tazuna grunted out between swigs.

Kakashi sighed, “Mr. Tazuna I assure you they will surprise you.” he groaned internally, this was going to be a long trip. He turned as he heard the churning of the gates of the village opening. “Alright team, it’s time to leave.”

Naruto grinned wildly and began to run ahead of the group. “Finally, I get to leave the village for the first time!” he giggled happily.

“What’s this kid's deal?” Tazuna took a swig from his bottle. “I thought shinobi were supposed to be wise and powerful. This kid’s just skinny and brainless.”

“What was that old man!” Naruto flipped around. “My name’s not kid, it’s Naruto Uzumaki, and one day I’m gonna be Hokage, got it! Then you’ll have to respect me.”

Tazuna looked at him blankly as he drank. “You could become Hokage ten times over and I still wouldn’t respect you.”

“I’ll make you pay for that.” Naruto started toward the old man but was pulled back by Kakashi.

“Protect the client, not kill the client. Protect the client, don’t kill the client. Got that.” Kakashi drilled in as he dragged the red head off, followed by Tazuna and the rest of team seven.

After a few days of travel the group found themselves walking down the road to the border between the land of waves and the land of fire. The sun beat down on them, as the morning birds chirping hummed through the air. Shortly after walking past a puddle of water, the puddle began to rise out of the ground and take the form of two men with long black hair and weird gauntlets on their left and right hand respectively.

They dashed toward the group wrapping the serrated chain around Kakashi and tearing him to shreds. Naruto and Sakura gasped in shock, but Sasuke acting quickly threw a shuriken knocking the now loose chain toward a tree and following the shuriken up with a kunai to pin it to the tree.

The struggled against them for a minute, giving sasuke time to stomp down on their heads and flip backwards. They looked at each other for a moment before releasing the chain from their gauntlets and dashing, one at Sakura who had frozen up and one at Tazuna. Naruto dashed in front of Tazuna, Dojikiri at the ready, blocking a strike from one of the shinobi. Sasuke went to run and protect Sakura but from the distance he was at he knew deep down he wouldn't make it.

Before the hit connected with Sakura, Kakashi dashed in, grabbing a rogue shinobi with each arm and choke slamming them. “What’s up?” He grinned at them.

“Kakashi sensei!” Naruto and Sakura screamed in excitement.

Sasuke looked over at where Kakashi had ‘died’. Where the corpse would have been were a few clumps of mud. “A mud clone? So you predicted the ambush?” He asked.

“Yeah, sorry for not helping sooner.” Kakashi chuckled. “ I didn’t expect Sakura to freeze up like that, sorry you got hurt.”

Sakura looked down at her hand, one of the shinobi had cut her when he dashed for Tazuna behind her.

“Howd’d you know about our ambush?” One of the shinobi struggled to ask.

“I noticed that every few hours I’d see a puddle nearby, even though it hasn’t rained in days.” Kakashi explained.

“If you knew then why leave it to the genin?” Tazuna questioned.

“Because if I had, then I wouldn’t learn anything.” Kakashi said.

“Learn what?” Tazuna took a swig of sake.

“Learn they’re target, and what they were after.” Kakashi lectured. “Was it a shinobi on shinobi attack, or were they here for something else. These two are rogue shinobi from the mist village, and they were after you Tazuna. You have some explaining to do, like why two chunin level shinobi were after you, this makes this at least a B rank mission.”

Tazuna sighed and chugged the rest of the bottle. “Fine. I’ll tell you everything.”

The old man sighed and walked over to lean against a tree by the road. “Alright. Well.” He sighed again. “The land of village is very poor thank to a man you may have heard of by the name of Gato.”

“From Gato Shipping?” Kakashi asked.

“The very one. He has a stranglehold on shipping in our village. We’ve been unable to make a proper living because he keeps most of the money for himself, and has insured hes the only person you can work for in the village. We decided to build a bridge in hopes of opening up trade outside of Gato’s reach.” He looked over at the mist shinobi. “And he takes his business very seriously it seems.”

Kakashi mused for a moment. “These two are the demon brothers of the mist, from what I know they work under Zabuza. Making this easily an A rank mission.” He looked over to his team. “This could be too dangerous.”

“Besides, we should get Sakura’s hand checked out. Those weapons were probably poisoned like you said.” Naruto interrupted. “I really want to go, but not if it puts Sakura at risk.”

Sakura glared down at the slash on her hand.

Kakashi looked over at her. “Well her hand could become a problem.” he sighed, “Well I guess we should head back to the village.” He watched Sakura out of the corner of his eye, gauging her reaction.

Sakura glared harder at the cut before raising a kunai and stabbing it into her hand. “Why am I so different from everyone else that graduated with us? Why am I always, Ah!”

“Sakura,” Naruto looked at her softly.

“I worked so hard, trained as hard as I could for hours, just to achieve my dream of being a shinobi. At first I thought it was just to get closer to Sasuke, but now that I actually achieved my dream, I understand. I became a shinobi, because I wanted to get strong, and protect my friends.” She glared up at Kakshi with determination, bleeding dramatically from her hand. “There we go, I got the poison out, now we can bring the bridge builder back to his village. We, I have to protect him.”

Sasuke and Naruto looked at her with expressions that managed to mix being impressed and being worried. Kakashi smiled at her.

“So Sakura, cool way of getting the blood out and all, but you may bleed out now.” Kakashi grinned under his mask as Sakura began to freak out, almost as if on cue the bleeding picked up even more. “Now would be a good time to stop bleeding.”

“Ah, oh no! I’m so stupid, I didn’t think this through.” Sakura kept panicking as Sasuke walked up to her.

“Here, I’ll dress your wound.” Blushing slightly, Sasuke took Sakura’s hand and delicately dressed the wound. The tenderness of the action causing Sakura to blush.

“No fair! I was just about to offer that.” Naruto yelled out in jealousy causing Kakashi to laugh.