Chapter 16
The next morning Mikoto set the two boys down before they left for class and told them not to go so deep in the tunnels themselves again.
“But why?” Naruto almost whined.
Mikoto looked at him and simply said “Because I said so and it could be dangerous.” Naruto seemed upset about the outcome but Sasuke was okay with waiting a bit before going back. Those tunnels made the hair on his arms stand on end and he didn’t want to meddle in anything too weird. Although from the look on his friends face, he was pretty sure he was gonna get dragged back before they were supposed to be.
“It’ll be fine.” He tried to comfort Naruto and mollify his mom at the same time. After the scolding, the three of them talked a bit before leaving. Apparently Itachi was patrolling. Sasuke guessed it made sense with Shisui away. Everyone was a bit on edge and even with his young age, Sasuke understood why.
It was hard to set up a new village. Most of them in the last 20 years failed or quickly devolved into poverty. It had been covered in depth at the academy in Konoha. They said it was because the five great nations took care of everyone under them so when people tried to leave, they didn’t understand how to take care of themselves and everything fell apart.
They went to school at the normal time with a promise to come back at lunch. They had enough time to run back home because of how small the initial clearing was. They had even started enlarging the clearing they were in although it was more for the lumber to build than an actual choice to expand.
People were already beginning to mill about. Sasuke could see the smoke start to rise from the blacksmith and the lights were coming on in several of the stores. The two children passed by the expansion being built right next to the smithy. They were apparently going to start blowing glass again. Mikoto explained they had to stop for a while because Konoha was keeping them so busy with missions they just didn’t have time.
“When do you think they’ll be done?” Sasuke asked, looking at the expansion. He was really starting to come out of his shell with Naruto’s influence. There was a time he would have never considered talking to someone that wasn’t clan but with Naruto it was so easy. Sasuke guessed it was because when he was talking to Naruto, the other boy really listened. He didn’t treat Sasuke like the village head’s son like the other kids were bound to do.
Naruto rolled his eyes as he watched Sasuke’s eyes glued to the almost finished frame. “Don’t know. Don’t they have to build more of those oven things?”
“Yeah but it didn’t take long to build the first one.” Sasuke replied.
Naruto stopped for a moment and took a deep breath in. “Smells like the bakery is in full swing now though.” Sasuke was pretty sure Naruto’s brain was connected directly to the boy’s stomach. Even though he rolled his eyes, he took a breath too and Naruto was right. He could smell the distinctive smell of baked goods coming from up ahead.
Before Sasuke could give his reply, Naruto grabbed his arm and started pulling him toward the smell. “Come on, we have time anyway.” They did usually leave early and Naruto already pulled him almost through the door before he could reply so Sasuke figured they were going to the bakery.
“Hello, Aunt Mizu.” Sasuke greeted as he straightened his clothes. Naruto had let him go when they got in the shop to look at the different options. There weren’t a lot but there was some sweet bread and some basic round bread.
“Everything smells so good!” Naruto exclaimed and Mizu smiled. It had taken a few weeks for Naruto to step into her shop and the first time it was Sasuke dragging him. She was happy to see that hesitation completely gone.
“Why don’t we get you boys something before school.” She gave them a kind but pointed look. Sasuke looked away as Naruto started looking again to see what there was. They didn’t have any money yet but that didn’t mean much until they got their charter. Right now, the shops were open but since they could only do basics and everyone was working, everyone would be able to eat.
One bad thing about being such a small village was that both of them had to go to school. Naruto may have been good at hiding from chunin in Konoha but he couldn’t outrun the sharingan as often and was caught. It was funny watching him be drugged in class. It didn’t take long for him to learn the basics and move up to his proper age bracket with all the help shisui was giving him.
They got their bread and finished making their way to class. Naruto was practically buzzing. After he got back into the proper age group, he hasn’t tried to skip another day. The teacher said it was because he learned his lesson but Sasuke knew the truth. Naruto had told him that school was becoming more fun now that he could understand what was going on. Sasuke still had to ask questions for him at times though.
Sleep, School, and training was their routine for the next two weeks. They also helped with building up the village. Sasuke didn’t realize how much work it took to build and maintain a whole village. It boggled his mind to think about how large Konoha was.
“That’s why we do missions by rank.” Mikoto explained at dinner when Sasuke asked her. Everyone was in good spirits because Shisui was due back any day now. “D ranks were usually for new shinobi and Konoha paid them to do a lot of the work we’re doing now. We can’t give out missions unless we have our charter. Technically, we could take missions from other villages but the politics can get a little messy.” She pursed her lips and hesitated on the word messy so Sasuke figured she probably meant bloody. Fugaku made a funny face at the phrasing as well.
“Seems silly that we have to wait so long to help out though.”
Naruto was thinking out loud but Sasuke did put in his agreement. “We handle it just fine and we’re in school.” Sasuke stopped for a moment and thought about his next question. “How do teams get picked for genin?” He knew the teams had to be in groups of three or more but never put much thought into who would be on each team.
Mikoto’s eyes sparkled, the teacher in her taking over. She had helped out on teaching several classes at the academy now that Sasuke was getting older and she took to it like a fish in water. “Different ways. I’ve seen families insist certain teams be put together to keep them united. It’s pretty common with clans in Konoha. We had a famous trio that went to school with the two of you.”
“Shikamaru was one of them!” Naruto yelled in his excitement at knowing something Sasuke didn’t.
“That’s right,” She responded to the beaming child.
Itachi chimed in as well “I’ve seen a balanced team. If the kids have complementing skills. For example, I’ve been paired with the same man more than once because of how detail oriented I am and how flexible he is.” Itachi figured flexibility was the best way to describe the silver haired jounin.
Here Fugaku added “it doesn’t happen often because elemental jutsu aren’t taught until you have a jounin instructor. They make powerful teams. Usually it’s based on grades. They take the average of the class and see how to best place them based on team scores.”
“That’s silly.” Naruto complained. “What if someone is really good at something that they don’t teach?” Sasuke knew that Shisui was teaching Naruto how to make better traps and play better pranks so he carefully looked at the wall away from his mother’s gaze.
He didn’t want her to read his mind because Naruto had begun successfully pranking the chunin level shinobi and civilians again and hadn’t been caught yet. Itachi knew but he knew everything so that hardly counted. He was also pretty good at keeping secrets so Sasuke figured Naruto would be safe for now.
“It can be yes, but that’s just because the five main villages use these methods.”
Sasuke chewed thoughtfully as Naruto asked his question. “But what if they don’t get along, even if they are strong or get put together?”
“Well, part of being a shinobi is working with people you may not get along with, isn’t it?” Naruto scowled at Itachi’s response but Sasuke continued his debate.
“Yes, but aren’t we supposed to put our lives in each other's hands? How can we do that if we can’t trust each other?”
Fugaku could agree with them but didn’t see many good options so she continued the conversation. The two of them had shown more than once that they were quite insightful when they wanted to be. “You don’t have to like each other to trust each other. Besides, in order to eradicate a bad system, you must have something prepared to replace it.” He agreed it wasn’t the best way of picking teams but didn’t see much else they could do.
That made both boys come up short. They stopped for a moment and the others gave them time to think as they began cleaning up their meal.
Sasuke knew the answer was staring him in the face and he knew that his family wasn’t expecting him to come up with anything the village hadn’t thought of before but he took his leadership training seriously. That’s what his father called it when they sat down like this. Apparently leaders had to think about stuff like this more often.
Usually, it happened in groups too and Sasuke can’t say he minded. The more people to voice their opinions, the better off they are. That and Naruto was a lot smarter than Sasuke gave him credit for in Konoha. He was great to bounce ideas off of and between the two of them they could think of something no one would expect.
“Can’t we just start training early for the elemental stuff?” Naruto was talking to Sasuke now.
“That would mean we would have to take away from the basics and that could be a problem.” Sasuke responded back. “Maybe we could get more teachers?” Sasuke shot back but Naruto shook his head.
“We already don’t have enough and that won’t work for the short term, maybe later thought.” Sasuke knew his friend wasn’t trying to be difficult. They did this often enough that the others didn’t even look at them. Itachi and Fugaku were talking about Itachi’s training and Mikoto was getting some roasted nuts out of the fridge for dessert.
“Too bad we can’t just pick our own teams.” Naruto mused and Sasuke felt like he was touching a good idea.
Before the blond could change trains of thought, Sasuke continued it. “It would be way too much of a popularity thing if we let the kids decide.” He wasn’t vain by any means but knew many of the others would definitely try to bribe him into their team. He wanted to be on Naruto’s team to be honest so whatever system they used had to keep that in mind.
“How about more group activities?” They were getting closer, Sasuke could just feel it.
He turned back to his father and brother, both of them were beginning to look at them again. “What’s required to do missions inside a village? Those D ranks?”
Itachi was the one who answered, being in the police force didn’t give Fugaku much time to think about it. “Well you have to have a qualified instructor and they have to be jounin for you to take C ranks or higher but not much is required for D ranks themselves.”
“Usually the Villages set the D ranks for chores and such.” Mikoto spoke and sat back down. So it’s pretty lenient.”
“I got it,” Sasuke looked at Naruto and saw the exact same face he was making on his friend. They were on the same page at least because the rest of his family just looked confused. “Why don’t we start D ranks while we're in the academy?”
“Huh” Fugaku was more invested now.
“How would that help pick teams, wouldn’t it just take away from the academy?” Itachi was quick to ask his own questions to close the gaps they needed to make it work.
Sasuke was half asking, half suggesting, his next train of thought. “Even though we have the academy now and everyone is working hard. A lot of the others are still having to miss days to set up business and take care of everything because we can’t do missions yet, right?” Fugaku nodded along and Naruto continued.
“We could take one day of the week, maybe Friday and we could do missions on that day. It would mean we could get more work done too because we would be working together.”
“Tekka could organize who goes where and man the mission desk.” Sasuke pulled out the chunin’s name from his mind. He wasn’t really the best at manual labor and had been feeling useless lately. “We could start putting everyone in different combinations of teams for each “Mission”. Sasuke put air quotes on missions because Fugaku said they couldn’t be real missions.
“If we do that, then we could also have help writing out mission reports before we go on official missions.” Naruto added when he remembered all the complaining old man third did about how nobody could do proper mission reports anymore. That would definitely save time in the long run.
“What would we do about instructors and how would we make sure everyone is doing what they're supposed to?” Mikoto asked. She didn’t think any of her students would slack but there was always the chance.
Naruto had the answer to that one. “The teachers at school could move between the groups and see if anyone needs help. They could also move groups so everyone gets along.”
Fugaku was speaking more to himself than the others “We don’t have to keep a chunin or jounin there for every step of the task and we put them where they're needed most.”
Sasuke smiled “It would also mean everyone can try to be grouped with everyone and we could see who works the best together.”
“That’s a great idea! Both of you!” Mikoto praised and the two of them beamed before Sasuke let out a yawn. Looking at the clock, it was past bedtime.
“Looks like it’s time to go to bed and rest up those big brains of yours.” Naruto giggled and even Sasuke’s fogged mind thought the comment was a little funny. “Come on.” It didn’t take her long to get them wrangled to bed and return to the kitchen. The way Fugaku and Itachi were discussing Sasuke and Naruto’s idea while munching on the last of the nuts made Mikoto think there would be even more changes coming to their small village.