-21- These days-
- 21 - These days -
-Minaru-
‘I can’t believe how boring these tasks are.’ Sai commented in their link.
‘Quit whining, Sai. At least you guys can stay inside. We have to till the fields in this crazy sun!’ Minaru grumbled, earning herself a chuckle from Shikamaru who was working next to her. They had the task to help with one of the fields outside of Konoha’s gates. The farmer there had broken his leg and so he needed help with almost everything. And so team 10 was tending the fields while team 11 was inside watching the three children of the farmer. His wife was at the market to sell their produce.
‘We have to watch kids that are only 3 or 4 years younger than us! And they don’t listen! At all!’ Shin almost yelled. Just a second later Minaru could hear something shatter on the ground inside the house. She winced sympathetically.
‘Would you rather get out here and continue to dig up the dirt, Shin?’ Shikamaru asked into their link. He stretched to work out some kinks in his back.
That shut the two of them up. ‘No. Thanks, but I think I’ll pass. I’ll go back to arguing with these brats.’ Shin shut down the link, Sai following immediately after.
Minaru looked over at Choji who was starting to sway on his feet at this moment. When she approached she noticed that he was sweating immensely. “You okay, Cho?”, she asked worriedly and placed a hand on his shoulder.
He nodded, but he was out of breath when he answered. “Yeah. Totally… fine, Mina.”
Shikamaru narrowed his eyes and looked at him as well. He casually came over to join them. “You don’t look fine to me. When’s the last time you’ve eaten something?” Minaru blinked and went through the day they had spent together in her head. Shikamaru was right. He hadn’t touched any chips or other food since they started work this morning, too busy digging up the field.
Choji shrugged nonchalantly. “Don’t know… breakfast?”, he mumbled and worried the hem of his shirt.
Minaru looked at him with wide eyes. “Have you gone crazy?! That’s way too long for your metabolism!”, she hissed and searched through his pockets for something to eat only to come up empty handed. ‘He left without taking any food with him. And I’m pretty sure that wasn’t an accident.’, she sent her deduction into the link.
She could feel Shikamaru’s agreement through their connection. He made Choji sit down and looked at her. “Stay with him. I’ll look for Asuma-sensei. He still has some snacks for emergencies that our mums left with him.”, he said.
She nodded and mouthed a silent ‘Hurry’ to him before she wrapped an arm around Choji’s shoulders. The boy was practically burning up from inside. Kana had told them that Akimichis burned through a lot more nutrients until they grew into their bodies. And they needed more body mass to sustain their clan techniques. So when they became a team she had asked Minaru, Shikamaru and Asuma to look out for him and make sure he ate enough. She hummed lowly and pulled his head to her shoulder.
“Why would you hurt yourself like that, Cho?”, she whispered to him, slowly rubbing circles across his back.
He sniffed into the fabric of the light shirt she wore on this day. “I hate it.”, he answered.
She blinked a few times. “What do you mean?”
“Why do I have to be the only one who needs to eat all of the time? No wonder everyone keeps calling me fattie. I just want to be normal.”, he clarified.
Minaru sighed and shifted so she was sitting in front of him. “Look at me, Cho.”
He obliged after a few seconds and she placed her hands on his cheeks, forcing him to look directly into her eyes. “Let these freaks talk however much they want. They have no idea what they are missing by placing you into a corner. Their loss, our gain. You are the kindest guy I know and at the same time I know I can always count on your strength to protect Shika and myself.”, she said.
Shikamaru chose this exact moment to return and held out a nutrient bar to Choji. “She’s right. There’s no one I would trust to have our back like you do, Cho.”
He had two more bars with him, so Minaru took one from him and Shikamaru joined the two of them on the ground, unwrapping the bars. After a minute Choji unwrapped his bar as well and began to munch on it. You could practically see him regain his color.
‘I should have noticed that it gets to him when others mock him for his size.’, Minaru sent into the link.
‘I didn’t notice anything. So don’t blame yourself. We’ll keep our eyes open from now on.’, Shikamaru answered.
The evening of the same day Minaru felt a slight burning sensation from the Anbu tattoo on her lower back. Since they couldn’t be found out, they had discussed the marks with Shisui and everyone had chosen a different spot for their tattoo, a place they would have no trouble to keep covered at all times. Shisui had also put a secondary seal on each of them that they could use to hide the tattoos every time they had to leave the village without at least one of the others in their team. Shisui had chosen his right wrist, he was always wearing a black band there that had his summon-scrolls attached to it. Sai’s was placed directly above his heart, the normally bright red tattoo kept in black and gray on his skin. Shin’s blue and silver tattoo was on his right upper leg, just under the straps of his kunai-pouch. And Minaru’s own dark red tattoo was on her lower back between the two golden swirls that Raya had told her were the sign of the Rayana’Te.
She reached back to massage the skin and got up from her spot on the front porch. “You okay, Mina?”, Ino asked.
“Yeah. I just remembered I forgot that I promised Shin to meet up and help him with his taijutsu. I’ll most likely be back late, don’t wait for me.”, she said with a placating smile.
On her way out of the house she said goodnight to Hanako and Inoichi. She made a mental note to talk to Iruka about a flat for herself, now that she had started to earn her own money. She liked the Yamanakas, but their arrangement ended a week ago when they graduated and she guessed it would be good for her to have a space for herself. Not least because of situations like right now.
Once she was out of sight from the house she jumped up to the roofs and raced over to the Hokage tower. There was a small room near the top that was placed under several illusion seals where they would meet with Shisui-san. There they stored everything they owned as Bird, Wolf and Bear now. Sai and Shin joined her a few houses before they reached their destination. “A guess what’s up?”, Shin asked, his eyes fixed on the tower.
She shook her head. “No. Could be something totally new or one of the possibilities from the Before that weren’t solved yet.”, she answered.
Sai nodded slowly. “We’ll learn soon enough.”, he said and shifted to jump up the tower.
They entered the small room through the window and looked around. Shisui wasn’t there yet but a scroll was placed in the center telling them to meet with the Sandaime once they were changed and accounted for. And to bring their masks because there would be others present.
Sai hummed under his breath. “Well, then let’s get our gear on. And let’s hope Shisui will be here by then.”, he said.
They nodded at each other and Minaru split off toward a screen near the back of the room. She didn’t exactly mind getting changed in front of the boys but they had blushed so badly the first time she did that, that Shisui and herself had brought the screen into the room for her to get changed in private after that. She slipped out of her clothes and put on her gear as Bird. First came a sleeveless black shirt that showed her stomach and a long black hooded jacket with a golden bird embroidered onto its back. She left the jacket unzipped to show the shirt underneath. Her black pants had golden stripes running up both of the sides of her legs and her lower legs were bound with bandages that went all the way down to her shinobi sandals so that she could move freely.
When she came out from behind the screen she saw that Shisui had arrived in the meantime. He greeted her with a nod and proceeded to tie his hair back so it wouldn’t get in the way. His clothes were completely black with the exception of one blood red crow that was visible on his shirt.
“You know anything about our mission?”, she asked when she joined him at the table that held their weapons. She pushed some of her summoning scrolls into the prepared holsters on her jacket and fastened her kunai-pouch on her leg.
He shrugged. “I heard some rumors about a missing ninja that they wanted to interrogate from some of the Police Officers. Could be this one but I can’t be sure.”, he answered.
She nodded. “We’ll hear about it soon enough, I guess.”, she said and tossed one of the kunai-pouches at Shin who caught it deftly and put it on before coming over to the table to pick up his Tanto and his Katana.
Once the four of them were done putting on their gear they all put on their masks. Minaru had used what knowledge about sealing she had managed to gather in her last life to develop a seal that could be applied to a mask that didn’t wear off and always showed the same henge. It had taken her nearly a year to finish it after they had first started to work as Wolf, Bear and Bird. But it had been easy to get one for Crow then.
Sarutobi-sama greeted them with a soft smile once they entered his office through one of the hidden passages in the tower.
Minaru let her gaze wander around the room for a second and spotted Kakashi and Tenzo in their respective Anbu gear in the corners of the office. Shikaku was standing next to the desk with his back to them, next to Ibiki who grinned brightly at them. The interrogator didn’t know their true identities but they had worked together with him on several occasions over the last years and a tentative sort of trust had been established between their team and the scarred man.
Minaru slightly lowered her head at him before bowing to the Hokage. “Hokage-sama.”, she said. They had decided it would be best to keep the act of her being the leader up, even though Shisui had taken over that position since he was the oldest and had the highest rank of them all. The Uchiha Clan had told everyone that Bird was the leader of their team. So it was in their best interest to keep up appearances.
“Thank you for coming so fast. I think we could need your help.”, the Hokage said and Shikaku turned around at this moment. He looked at them with wide, surprised eyes.
-Shikaku-
“Hokage-sama.” Shikaku tensed up at the soft female voice that filled the Hokage-office. He hadn’t heard them coming in. And he didn’t sense a single touch of Chakra in the vicinity. They were good - not many were able to get a jump on him by completly masking their Chakra.
“Thank you for coming so fast. I think we could need your help.” Sarutobi said and Shikaku turned around.
He had heard rumors about them but it was the first time he actually saw them face to face. Or more like face to masks. The woman of the group was standing at the front. She wore mostly black clothing, her toned stomach was visible under her shirt but she had no visible marks that could help identify who she was under her mask. The only hints were that she was pretty small, her figure was pretty skinny and she had almost no bust. The mask covered the top of her face and was pure black with a flying golden bird painted on it. Many had tried to decipher what kind of bird it was, going by descriptions and the few pictures that existed of them, but had ended up just being able to tell it was a ‘bird’.
Wolf was standing to his leader’s left, he was wearing a black hoodie that left his stomach exposed and had several imprinted claw marks on the fabric. His pants were sitting low on his hips with more claw marks tattooed there. He was a lean young man who moved with a soft grace. Shikaku had voiced his guesses that the man was also specializing in seduction a few times. The only one who hadn’t mocked him for it was Anko. Wolf's mask was black with a blue wolf, his head thrown back in a howl, painted on it.
On Bird’s right, his arms crossed in front of his chest, stood the weapon master of the team, Bear. He wore wider clothing that masked his movements when he handled his Tanto or his Katana. The short Yukata he wore as a top was dark gray and he had tucked into the black Shinobi-pants. The hood he wore came from a mesh-shirt he wore under the Yukata and covered his hair. His mask was white with a prowling blue bear painted on it.
And then there was the newest member, Crow, standing at the back of the team with his hands almost completly hidden in the sleeves of his cloak. He was an illusionist as far as people were able to tell in the short time he was with the others, he showed up about a week ago when the team had hunted down a slave trader who kidnapped children and young women in a village near Konoha. He wore completely black clothing, a tightly fitting outfit that allowed for quick movements with a longsleeved cloak thrown over it. A blood red crow was printed onto his shirt, right over his heart. His mask was black as well with a flying red crow painted on it.
Bird looked at him and Ibiki for a short while before concentrating on the Hokage once again. “What happened?”, she asked. Shikaku was getting even more impressed by the small female. She wasn’t talking very loudly but her whole being caused everyone in the room to pay attention to her when she talked.
“One of the teachers at the Academy tried to manipulate our Jinchuriki by isolating him even more than he already is. We were able to catch on before he could get Naruto to do something stupid but he escaped the holding cells at T&I about three hours ago.” Ibiki explained in a low growl.
The four shinobi looked at each other for a while, silently communicating with each other. “We will need to see the cell.”, Wolf said then, turning back to them.
Shikaku nodded. “I can bring you. I would like to be there when you find him.”, he stated
Bear tilted his head and looked at him. “Why?”, he asked.
“My son’s female teammate is good friends with the boy. And I knew his parents.”, Shikaku said. He was still furious about the laws the civilian council had managed to put in place that barred every Clan from taking care of Minato’s and Kushina’s son.
Bird’s gaze was sharp when she turned and looked at him. But it softened after a few seconds and she nodded. “Allright. Let’s go.” She lifted her hand to tell Shikaku to lead the way.
Together they wandered down into the deeper parts of T&I. After a few minutes Bird said: “You knew his parents, you said?”
He clenched his teeth. “Yes. We were friends. Most of the Clanheads were friends with them.”
Bird hummed under her breath before shooting him a look from the corner of her eyes. “Can you explain to me why he is alone when his parents apparently had so many good friends in Konoha’s Clans?”, she asked.
Shikaku couldn’t explain why, but he somehow knew that she was genuinely invested in Naruto. So he answered truthfully. “A week after his parents died, the civilian council passed a law forbidding everyone who knew them to interact with Naruto. They claimed that it should guarantee him a ‘normal’ childhood.”
Bird scoffed. “I should have known that these old badgers had something to do with it.”, she said and shook her head.
Shikaku looked her over. “You know him.”, he said.
She shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ve met him. And I’ve met his parents. I never understood why he had to grow up alone. Thank you for clearing that up for me.”
“You’re welcome.” They had reached the holding cell Mizuki had been staying in. Shikaku stopped and pointed at the door. “This is it.”
The four shinobi entered while Shikaku stopped near the entrance and Bird spun one time, taking in the room. Bear stepped up to her and looked down at her. “You think you can still track him?”
The corner of her mouth lifted in a smirk. “Are you kidding me?” She reached into one of her pouches and pulled out a small scroll. Once she let a drop of blood fall onto the paper a puff of smoke enveloped them. Two big cats of prey were standing in the room immediately after. Shikaku suppressed a shudder. It was one thing to be next to Ninken like Kakashi’s pack. But having a massive tiger and an even bigger snow leopard suddenly standing right next to you in a small room was something else entirely. The two cats raised their heads to look at Bird in askance. “Someone escaped from here a few hours ago. We need to know where he went.”
A grin spread on the snow leopard’s face. ‘Easy as pie. He was sweating up a storm in here.’ A male voice sounded in Shikaku’s head. The two cats sniffed around the room for a while before nodding. ‘Let’s go hunting.’
They tracked Mizuki through the village and a training ground into the woods surrounding the village. Shikaku took his time to see the team’s dynamics with his own eyes. They were working differently from anyone else he had met over his time. It was clear that Bird was the leader and decision maker. But once out in the field she fell back to join Crow in the supportive roles. Wolf and Bear took the lead, following closely after the two Cats that led them, following the trail Mizuki had left.
They had fanned out a bit. The Cats took the point, Bear and Wolf to their right and left respectively. Shikaku was directly behind the Cats while Bird was behind him to his left and Crow to his right also a bit behind him. They were spread out farther than he would have done it but somehow it worked for them.
He noticed that when they found Mizuki. They made no sound, Crow just took his elbow and pulled him up into a tree. Bird landed next to them, taking in the situation. The traitor was sitting in a wide clearing with a lot of opportunities to slip into the woods before they could reach him. He seemed to be taking a break to catch his breath. Bird made a sign with her hand and Crow disappeared without a sound. And Shikaku couldn’t see Bear and Wolf anymore.
Then she slipped away as well. He couldn’t describe it differently. One moment she was there, the next she was simply gone, vanished into the shadows of the forest.
He waited with bated breath. It was the tiger who first pounced onto Mizuki. The traitor rolled away with a surprised yelp only to come into the range of Bear’s Katana. He barely managed to dodge it and got to his feet right as the man took another swing at him. He caught the Katana with his Kunai and dove down, a Kunai sailed over his head and hit Bear in the chest. The man dissolved into darkness. A clone, impressive work. He hadn’t seen them change the real one with the clone.
Mizuki looked around frantically and narrowly dodged a lightning bolt that came flying at him. While he was bent down Crow appeared behind him and reached for him, locking his arms in place. Mizuki struggled until Wolf stepped up to him and put a hand on his chest. “Stop.”, the man said.
Mizuki’s eyes widened, he was shivering wildly for a few more moments before he fell unconscious.
“Well, that was anticlimactic.”, Bear said with a low whistle, coming out of the trees on the other side of the clearing. He collected the Kunai that had destroyed his own clone and wiped it off on his sleeves.
Crow scoffed lightly. “What, you thought a single shinobi would be able to put up anything of a fight against the four of us?”, he asked with mirth coloring his voice. “I doubt there are many who could pull a stunt like that.”
Interesting, Shikaku thought. He sounded older than the three other members. He would guess the three others to be around twenty going by their bodies and language, the new member seemed to be about 5 years older. And while he may come off as arrogant with his self confidence, Shikaku guessed it was well founded. He had seen them in action. Their teamwork was flawless, they didn’t need to talk much to work together and they easily dodged their teammates’ attacks while attacking themselves.
Bird, who had come back onto the clearing from the direction he had seen the lightning bolt coming from, approached Shikaku and stopped right next to him. “Can we leave him to you?”
He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “You’re not coming back with me?”
She smiled lightly. “There’s a reason for the fact that we are nothing but ghosts to most of the citizens of Konoha, Shikaku-san. And it’s better to keep it that way.”, she said.
He sighed and muttered “troublesome” under his breath. Then he nodded. “Allright. I’ll bring him back in.”
She chuckled and bowed, a hand placed over her heart. “Thank you. Until the next time we meet, Nara-sama.” And just like that he’s left alone with the unconscious Mizuki, the four Shinobi having vanished once more.
-Minaru-
They get assigned a few easy tasks over the next three weeks as team 10. Mostly they help older citizens out with grocery shopping or weeding or things like that. Suspiciously they get the easiest missions whenever Minaru had to take a mission with Shisui, Sai and Shin the evening before. Whenever that happened she fixed the Hokage with a suspicious gaze only to receive a bright smile around his pipe. Shisui’s team had been called in twice more, first because there was a Root agent who was spotted spying out the Nara’s forests.
Minaru personally delivered him to the main house. Enma jumped so badly when she appeared right on their front porch that she had to suppress a giggle at his shock. Shikaku took one look at her captive and thanked her before going off with the still shocked Enma to interrogate the man. Yoshino had invited her for tea but she had politely refused. Only to come back as Minaru a few minutes later to spend some quality time with Shikamaru and get the tea she had earlier refused.
The second time they were sent to search a Root base that was discovered at the edge of the Forest of Death. They came up with a lot of papers for T&I to read through. Which was good for Minaru because she still helped out there occasionally. Ibiki and Anko asked her for her help for the reading and the rest of the team was pulled in to help as well. It took them a whole week to sort through everything.e
She had asked the Sandaime why he had sent a Genin-team to help with the information sorting. He had looked at her for a few minutes before answering that he knew that there were only few he could trust unconditionally. And if she placed her faith in her team he would do so as well. She had delivered a list of people that were absolutely loyal to him a week later.
On the morning of their one month mark as Genin they entered the Hokage-tower only to be greeted by a loud shout. “No! No! No! No, thank you, Jiji! I want to do, you know, a more incredible mission. Find us a better one! All of the other stuff is so boring!”
Minaru rubbed her ear and winced. Naruto was really loud. Had she been like that as well? Gosh, she really hoped not. “Naruto, show a little respect. This is our Hokage! And you are just a Rookie! Everyone starts off with the simple duties and works their way up!”, Iruka admonished the boy.
“But! But we keep getting the crappiest possible duties!”, Naruto wailed.
Right after that Hiruzen started his monologue about the different types of missions and the Shinobi-ranks that get the higher ranked missions. Minaru tuned out for a few minutes to look at the Lady who was just paying for the accomplished mission of catching her cat, Toura.
A loud sigh made her look back to the mission desk. The Sandaime looked at Naruto then his gaze fixed on Minaru for a second. “You want a more interesting mission, Naruto?”, he asked.
“Yeah!” Naruto cried out, slumped onto the ground.
“Alright. I might have something for you. If you work together with team 10. They have already proven that they are ready for higher ranking missions.”, he said and motioned toward them. Naruto, Hinata and Sasuke turned to look at them in shock.
The three Genin of team 10 looked at each other surprised as well. Choji raised his hand to tap on his chest in a silent question for his teammates. Shikamaru and Minaru both denied with a move of their wrist. They had no idea that they would be taking anything else than another D ranked mission anytime soon. Three heads turned to their sensei who wore a pleased, secretive smile. Minaru narrowed her eyes and looked at Asuma with a clear question in them. He just shrugged and smiled at her.
“Didn’t know that you already worked through the requirements with your Genin, Asuma.” Kakashi said with a drawl.
Asuma huffed. “They are good at what they are doing. And they worked together perfectly from the start.”, he said. Then he turned towards his father. “What would be the mission?”
“It’s a protection mission of a certain individual.”, he said.
Minaru was happy that she was standing behind Choji at this moment because she couldn’t suppress tensing up. Right. How could she have forgotten about him?
‘Mina?’ Shikamaru asked in the link, sounding concerned.
She breathed in and out deeply a few times. ‘I’m fine. I know about the mission he’s talking about.’, she answered.
Shikamaru hummed lowly. ‘One you did in your last life, too?’
‘Yes. Don’t judge him by his looks.’, she added and then turned her focus to their client.
“Call in Tazuna.” The Sandaime said at this moment. Apparently the others had talked things through in the time it had taken her to calm down. Tazuna entered and he was just as she remembered him. Gray hair kept short, a rope wrapped around his head. A backpack on his back and loose dark clothing. A bottle of sake loosely in his left hand. But now that she was older - if only in spirit - she saw what she hadn’t the first time. The lines around his eyes that spoke of constant worry - for his family and his project. The alcohol that was used as a substitute for too little food, showed by the fact that his belt was a little too tight on his waist.
“These kids are supposed to protect me? Are you kidding me? They are all just a bunch of super brats.”, he scoffed and took another swig from his bottle. “Especially the shortest one with the stupid looking face. Are you even a ninja yet?”
Minaru stepped up to him before Naruto’s temper made him cause even more of a ruckus. Tazuna startled a bit and looked down at her. “We might be mere children in your eyes but we have been trained to be fighters for years. We should be more than capable to handle whatever comes your way as long as you were sincere in your mission signup.” She smiled at him and showed her fangs when she saw him gulp visibly. Then she returned to Shikamaru’s side. The Nara wrapped his arm around her waist, Choji mirroring him on her other side.
Kakashi looked at her questioningly for a while before turning to Tazuna. “Can you be at the front gate in two hours?”
Tazuna scoffed. “Sure.”
Asuma nodded and turned to his Genin. “Allright, team. Let’s all meet up in two hours at the Front Gate then.”
They nodded. “Yes, sensei.”
When they left the room Minaru almost ran into Anko. “Hey, kitten. Where you off to?”, the snake-summoner asked with a bright smile.
“I need to pack. We’re leaving on a mission.”, she said.
“Huh.” Anko blinks in clear shock. “Didn’t expect them to let you guys out of the village this early. But good for you. Once you come back we’ll need to go get some dango together, kitten. I wanna hear everything you experienced on the road.”
Minaru laughed and hugged her for a moment. “I’m looking forward to it.”