Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Hidden Truths ❯ A New Mission ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the places, characters, or events associated with it.

Chapter 1: A New Mission

It was quiet in front of the warehouse. It had long since been abandoned after the company had gone bankrupt. The wood that made up the building looked like it was starting to rot.

Fall was upon them and the leaves were constantly falling from the trees causing more work for the already overworked people of the nation.

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke were standing in the enclosed courtyard waiting for Kakashi to show up.

“Why is he always late? He always does this,” Naruto complained.

Sakura looked at him and replied, “I’m sure he has a good reason this time.”

“He never has a good reason, Sakura,” he retorted. “He just shows up when he wants.”

“How about you shut your mouth for a while?”

Naruto turned around and stared harshly at Sasuke.

He was taller than Naruto but barely. His spiky, dark-blue hair stood rigid against the wind. He wore his signature blue shirt with detached sleeves and grey shorts.

“Why don’t you say that to my face?” Naruto yelled.

The boy stood there silently, looking at the blonde-haired boy with an expression that was unreadable. “Well because I would still like to be able to hear but with your constant yelling, that is becoming increasingly harder,” he finally said.

“Will you two stop fighting,” Sakura pleaded.

“Hello team. Getting along as usual?”

It was Kakashi, wearing his jungle green vest with his blue pants and long sleeve shirt. His face, as usual, was mostly hidden behind his mask and forehead protector save for his right eye and his white hair.

“What’s your excuse for being late this time? Forgot to stop reading that stupid book?”

“Actually Jiraiya wanted to have a word with me. And you just fail to realize the many aspects of a relationship. Your frequent attempts at Sakura when there plenty of other girls and one that tell likes you, makes you look even more pathetic.”

“Pervy Sennin? What would he want to talk with you about?”

“Naruto why don’t you just shut up?” Sasuke butted in, “Why don’t you worry about your own problems like the fact that your zipper is down.”

Naruto looked down and then quickly turned around to adjust his zipper.

“I don’t see how we’ve accomplished one mission. The only sane one of you three is Sakura and she’s still obsessing over the idiot who nearly destroyed the Konoha. It still boggles my mind how you could be so foolish as to believe that Orochimaru would give you power.”

“As it stands, I still need that power. I still can’t beat Itachi. It is my job to defeat him and as long as he lives, it is my job to kill him.”

“Blah, blah, blah. Revenge this, revenge that. Why don’t you give it a rest,” Naruto said, tucking his hands behind his head.

“If you two could at least put aside the fighting, I can tell you about this mission, or as much as I’m allowed.”

They all looked at him as if they weren’t speaking the same language.

“What do you mean ‘only as much’ as you’re allowed?”

“Very simply put, I am unable to reveal parts of the mission until we are already on our way. Now, this mission is at a higher level than you’re used to; an A-class to be exact. However, due to the lack of available Jounin,” he looked at Sasuke crossly, “we are forced to use you. This will be an eight-man mission to compensate. The four of us are the first half, and the Fifth has been kind enough to allow you to choose the remaining three.”

“Hey wait a minute, that’s only seven. Who’s the last person?”

“I don’t know his name. The Fifth said only that it is a boy about your age.”

“Yeah, but I bet even he can’t beat me,” Naruto blurted out as he grinned widely.

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up. The Fifth spoke very highly of this person.”

“She’s an old hag! She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Well then I guess she was wrong about you too, then.”

Naruto frowned at this comment.

“As I was saying, you all get to choose the other three people you’d like to join us.”

“That’s easy, Shikamaru, Neji, and Tenten. They aren’t on missions either.”

“Yeah, we’ve been through a lot with them and we all know what we‘re capable of. It would work out in more ways than one.”

They all looked expectantly at Sasuke.

“Whatever,” he replied impatiently.

“Well, now that that’s settled, I will see you three at five-thirty tomorrow morning. I will leave it to you to inform your comrades of the mission and the small amount of detail I have afforded to you.”

“But you haven’t told us anything,” Naruto pointed out.

But Kakashi disappeared, leaving the three of them staring at the wall where he had previously been leaning against.

“I’m going to go tell Shikamaru,” Naruto shouted and ran off, hopping the wooden fence that lead to the street.

There was a loud crash followed by an old man screaming Naruto’s name.

“Idiot,” Sasuke mumbled.

“Well I guess I’ll go tell Tenten, so I guess you’re going to tell Neji, right?” Sakura asked.
“Whatever.”

She looked at him and could see that something was wrong. She thought she knew what and told him, “Look, you shouldn’t feel bad about what happened. If I was you, I would have done anything to defeat Itachi.”

“I don’t regret anything I did. I had a mission, and just like any other, I will do anything to accomplish it. What happens to everyone else isn’t my business,” he replied monotonously.

“Why are you so cold-hearted?”

“Because the ones I thought I could trust, the ones I looked up to, they betrayed me. And I have no reason to care for anyone but myself.

“If there was anything I learned from Itachi, it’s that those close to you are your limiters. The only way to surpass them is to cut all bonds with them, both emotional and physical. You hold no emotional bonds, especially love. Love is for fools.”

Sakura stared deeply into his eyes, trying to see if this was all a joke.

“So me and Naruto… you only think of us as limiters? Is that all we are!?! Just something that holds you back? I used to think you were the best. You were the best in the academy, I looked up to you. Naruto even looked to you. He won’t admit it but if it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t have been able to get as far as he is now. But not once did you ever slow him down. Because of you, he got stronger. Your bond with him helped him get farther. But you think that people only hold you back?”

Sasuke looked at her darkly; he didn’t much like being told he was wrong. “Though your speech was very touching, it doesn’t matter to me. You are nothing but a third-rate ninja who lives off the success of your team. That is the only way you survive. Naruto is the same.”

“I had respect for you. I loved you. But now I realize that you’re nothing but an asshole!”

“Big words for someone so pathetic. You are nothing to me. And if you ever get in my way, I will kill you.”

He stood up and disappeared behind the fence. Sakura listened to his footsteps as they trailed away slowly. She didn’t understand what had just happened that would make her hate Sasuke so much. It was a feeling she wasn’t used to. She had always liked him since they first met.

This was the same person she begged to stay away from Orochimaru. The same person she cried over night after night for three straight years. And now this anger that she felt towards him made no sense to her.

There was a creaking noise from above and she quickly turned to find it. Up on the roof of the abandoned warehouse was a cloaked figure staring at her.

The two looked at each other for a while before the cloaked figure began to walk to the other side of the roof, out of Sakura’s line of sight.

She jumped up onto the roof and tried to follow. But as she reached the other side, there was no one there, neither on the roof nor on the streets below. Had she imagined it?

She turned around and went to head back but the rotting wood collapsed beneath her feet. She was falling towards the floor with nothing to grab at; and then she stopped mid-air. Looking around she saw what had stopped her descent.

There was a net, or so it seemed, that had flown out beneath her. And standing in the rafters, was the cloaked person who she had seen. Had he saved her? And how did he get in? There were no doors except from the courtyard they had just been in, and there was no broken glass.

The mystery person grabbed a shuriken and threw it at the rope, cutting it in two and Sakura continued her descent which was luckily only ten feet and she twisted her body so her feet would hit first.

She looked up at the cloaked figure but he was gone.


Outside Shikamaru’s house, Naruto was explaining the mission to Shikamaru. Shikamaru had been previously raking leaves and continued to do so even as Naruto broke the news to him.

“Another mission? But I just got back a few days ago,” Shikamaru complained.

“Come on. It’s an A-class mission, I bet even you couldn’t turn up that. You haven’t even been on one before so it must be killing you to know how hard it is. Even I’ve been on an A-class mission--”

“Protecting Princess Koyuki. You already told me and to be quite honest, I don’t think I could handle that. What’s so important about this mission anyway?”

“Well, actually, Kakashi sensei didn’t say much about it except that we leave tomorrow at five-thirty and there’s some other person coming, a boy I think. The old hag says he’s really good.”
Shikamaru stopped raking and stood the rake straight up to rest his chin on it. “Why don’t you have any respect for her? Why can’t you just call her the Fifth like everyone else?”

“She’s over fifty years old! She’s a hag.”

Shikamaru ignored this comment and muttered to himself. “Well if the Fifth says he’s good, it might be worth meeting him. But I wonder why all the mystery? And why wouldn’t the Fifth no more about this person? I don’t really have a choice though do I? Naruto’d probably annoy me to death if I didn’t come.”

“You’ll come then?”

“I guess. I gotta go prepare then. Dad! I have another mission!” he yelled as he walked into the house, placing the rake at the side of the door.

“But you just got back.”

“I tried that already. It‘s Naruto, he wouldn’t give up if I said no.”

Naruto smiled at the thought of Shikamaru getting annoyed by him after about an hour or so. But he didn’t have the time to joke around; he told Iruka he would meet him at the ramen shop soon.

The night was drawing nearer and the shadows from the fences and trees were becoming longer. The temperature was dropping and the wind seemed to be dying down. The first of the stars were starting to show against the expansive, cloudless sky.

The roads were becoming less occupied and the many houses that lined the street bore signs that families were sitting down for dinner.

The crisp leaves crunched under his feet as he trudged down the street. He decided to take a shortcut because he was already late as it was.

He turned into an alley that had little light to brighten it up, but the shadows weren’t completely covering the alley.

It was quiet except for the crunching of the leaves under his feet.

There is a whistling sound but Naruto can’t pinpoint it until it stops at the wall. In front of him, there is a kunai in the wall. More whistling, Naruto jumps backwards and avoids the flurry of kunai.

But more come and he spins to avoid them and then dives forward to avoid another group, burying his head in his hands as the last kunai hits the wall.

Silence.

He looks up, he comes nose to blade with a kunai. Attached to the kunai was an explosive note and beneath it was the words “I’d run if I were you” written on it.

Naruto stood up as fast as he could and dashed out of the ally, expecting the tag to explode before he could get out of its radius. He dived into the street and covered his head.

But there was no explosion.

People were staring at him in a bewildered fashion and quickly walked by.

Naruto got to his feet and dusted off his clothes. He shrugged it off and continued towards the ramen shop where he found Iruka already waiting outside the curtain.

As they sat down and ordered their ramen, Iruka began to talk about the previous mission he had been on. “Speaking of which, I heard you’re team is on another mission,” he added.

“Yeah. Shikamaru, Neji, and Tenten are coming too. And some other guy too, but Kakashi sensei didn’t say who it was.”

“Well he doesn’t know much about him either. Even the Hokage isn’t entirely sure what he looks like. I talked with her about him and the only thing she said was that he might be stronger than you and Gaara.”

The shop owner placed the two bowls of ramen in front of them and went back to work.

“I don’t understand it,” Naruto said after eating some of his ramen. “Why would Sasuke risk destroying the entire village just to get to his brother?”

“Sasuke is confused and in a lot of pain. He knows what it’s like to not have a family like you; but it’s a bit more complicate. He had a family. He had people he cared about, people that cared about him, to have all that taken away is very painful. With you, you never had anything. And you’ve learned to get by and do the best not to let it affect you. But to have everything taken from you in a heartbeat is unbearable.

“He would do anything to let his family rest in peace. And Orochimaru would do anything to have Sasuke. He used power, the thing Sasuke wished for the most as bait.”

“But why would Sasuke believe him?”

“Because the curse seal gave him a small taste of that power, he assumed that if he would give him power just to make a decision that he would give more away.”

“But he didn’t plan on letting Sasuke get to Itachi without taking over his body. Even I could see that.”

“Pain can sometimes cloud your vision. It wasn’t his fault.”

It was a while before either of them talked. They both had plenty to say, but the subject of Sasuke seemed to be one that neither of them could fully grasp.

“I have to go,” Naruto said after he finished the rest of his ramen. “It’s getting late and I have to get up really early tomorrow.”

“Well this is a first, you actually being prepared.”

Naruto scratched the back of his head, “I just can’t wait to meet this guy.”

“Okay. Well I wish you luck tomorrow. I hope you all come back safely.”
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Okay, there’s the first chapter. I hope you all liked it. I’m hoping to get more reviews than I’ve been getting over at ff.net.