Chapter 21: The C-Rank Mission

Chapter 21: The C-Rank Mission

Disclaimer:

Dialogue

'Thoughts'

-Author notes-

Chapter 21: The C-Rank Mission

Team 7 arrived at the Hokage's office during the early hours of the morning. The sun had just come out, and they were all still feeling tired but somewhat excited about not having to do chores today.

"Professor, don't fall asleep." Naruto nudged Kakashi on his arm when he started to close his eyes. The man looked ready to fall asleep at any second.

"I'm fine...I think I lost the habit of waking up this early." Kakashi grumbled.

"I knew it! You are always arriving late because you are sleeping!" Sakura complained.

"Why call the team meetings so early then?..." Naruto wondered if their professor just wanted to mess with them.

"Team 7, pay attention!" Iruka shouted.

The Hokage cleared his throat. "Yes, thank you, Iruka...as I was saying, your C-rank mission will be to protect a certain individual."

"Oh, who are we protecting? Is it someone famous? Maybe a famous actor or a rich merchant?" Sakura asked.

"You think they would put genin to protect someone like that?" Naruto raised an eyebrow. This girl was supposed to be the smartest in the class. It made him question how bad the other ones were.

"Well...you are about to meet him." The Hokage moved his eyes to the door. "You may come inside."

The door opened, and a tall old man entered. If his clumsy movements and the bottle of sake in his hand did not make evident how drunk he was, he then started talking.

"W...what...what is this? Are...these the ninjas I hired?" He mumbled while looking at Team 7 with an expression of disdain and very red cheeks. "They are nothing but brats..."

"No. Wave is a small country, so it doesn't have a Hidden Village and has to rely on hiring ninjas from other countries. There are many small countries like that in the Elemental Nations." Kakashi explained.

"So we aren't going to encounter any enemy ninjas then?" She asked.

Kakashi's face grew serious. "There is always a risk of that during any mission outside the village, so we should be careful. That being said...enemy ninjas are not part of the mission. Otherwise, this would not be a C-rank."

"No enemy ninjas..." Naruto moved his eyes toward a suspicious-looking pond of water as they walked by.

It was very faint, but he could feel some chakra emanating from that water. Animals could have chakra too, but that was just a puddle formed by rain. 'Wait...when is the last time it rained?'

While Naruto was starting to realize the danger...two large figures emerged from the small puddle and immediately launched an attack against Kakashi.

Their professor was quickly tangled with some chains. The two individuals stood on each side of Kakashi and held onto the ends of the chains before pulling them hard.

"Huh?" Sakura turned around.

"An ambush!" Sasuke shouted.

Kakashi made an expression of surprise before he was apparently ripped into pieces by the chains.

Sakura screamed in pure shock at the macabre spectacle.

Sasuke reacted a bit better and at least got ready for battle. It had become obvious that those two were enemy ninjas and were trying to kill them, as well as the person they were supposed to protect.

Even with his dulled senses, Naruto knew that Kakashi was fine. It would take a lot more than this to kill that person. He just didn't understand why the need for this charade.

'Is he trying to assess how the team will react in a real combat situation?' That would make sense. This is the first time Sakura and Sasuke are faced with a real deadly encounter.

Things were a lot different for Naruto...deadly encounters were basically his daily life for a large part of his previous life, so he had no trouble remaining calm. 'Well...how do we handle this?'

A.N: - Remember to comment, vote, and/or leave a review if you have the time. Those things help me a lot and I would really appreciate it.

You can Support me on P@treon if you like and get 20 advanced chapters.