A Lily Bloom In the Land of Shinobi

Today was the first day that Team 7 was a real team and not just a prospective one. It was, therefore, the first day that its members were real genin and not prospective genin. Today was a big step forward. Many young genin were in their brightest mood, enjoying the first day in which they'd be allowed to reap the benefits of their long academy education.

And nearly each and every single one of them had their bright mood crushed by their first taste of what genin actually did. But that's neither here nor there, for we do not care about the fate of all those poor little kids forced to pick up the trash in a freezing cold river, the ones that are forced to pick up the literal mountains of shit that gathered in the Inuzuka kennels or the frankly obscene amount of groceries that the richer members of Konoha's society often tasked the retrieval of upon genin.

No, the ones we care about currently found themselves walking through Konoha's main street, their objective being the Hokage's tower and within it the mission office, all three of them already in a bad mood. Or rather, Sakura was the only one who was showing her bad mood, while the other two female members of Team 7 found themselves both sporting different expressions. Satsuki had the ice cold mask in place while Naruko was clearly pleased with herself.

Kakashi was, once again, thanking all eight of the seven lucky gods for giving him his sensei's daughter on his team. He was almost completely certain that the girl would've made pretty much any team work, but this particular team had been perhaps the most well thought out one in the entire roster of recent graduates.

Some thought that Sarutobi might be starting to go senile with some of his decisions, but this proved that the old man was just as sharp as ever. Satsuki simply would not have worked on any other team. A general dislike of weak people would mean that she would've disliked anyone who was weaker than herself, and an inferiority complex born from living under her brother's shadow for the first eight years of her life meant that she'd resent anyone that was stronger even more.

Sakura herself had very shaky confidence and an obviously idealized image of the girl who'd practically been her idol during her academy years. It wasn't odd for a class to have a particularly popular member who everyone looked up to. Usually, however, kunoichi in training tended to be more focused on childish crushes and the pursuit of said crushes. Sakura had completely evaded the fate of her female classmates entirely on that one.

Kakashi didn't care who was the most popular boy in that graduating class, he'd known from the start of the year who exactly he'd get on his team and had never bothered to observe anyone else. He'd done the exact same thing with his prior teams and had always been rather correct in judging their worth.

Naruko was like glue. She made her team stick together simply by being there. She was the single best way there was to keep the flight risk that was Uchiha Satsuki firmly grounded to Konoha's soil. The girl most likely did not know it herself, but she was very much dependent on the blonde emotionally.

And physically, too, if the many, many times that the blonde had made breakfast, lunch and dinner for the Uchiha was anything to go by. Then again, Naruko often cooked for her ANBU guards, so maybe it wasn't so much dependency as it was the fact that Naruko loved to turn the products of her garden into food whenever she could.

Not that he complained, as he'd had many great meals when he was supposed to watch over her. He just wished he could claim credit for teaching her to cook, but he didn't know who it'd been who'd actually taught her the art of cooking. Tenzo had taught her the basics of gardening, but she had quickly outstripped him, so nobody could be sure if it was just her being naturally good or someone teaching.

Kakashi wanted to see what their reactions would be to a D rank, so he decided to be an absolute dick about it and to pick the single worst D rank he could think of. Indeed, he was gonna give them the rudest awakening he could think of before he actually began training his team. After all, he had to know if their teamwork would hold up under a different kind of pressure than what he'd put them under during their genin test.

After what seemed like unending minutes, they finally got to the mission desk, where they saw the Hokage sitting behind the desk, looking for all the world as if he was having a field day. "Jiji!" Naruko yelled happily, running the rest of the distance between the desk and the door to the office. However, the Hokage raised his hand before she could jump over it. Had Kakashi made a guess, which he did, he would have guessed that she intended to jump over the desk and give the Hokage a hug.

She did that every time she saw him, after all.

"Naruko-chan, you're a ninja now, you can't do that anymore." Informed the super old man, smiling widely as she pouted at him. "Okay, just this once." He said, rolling his eyes as he saw the golden haired girl easily jumping over the desk and landing on his lap, her arms thrown around the elderly man's torso.

"… Did… Did Naruko just do what I think she did?" Sakura asked.

"You mean throw away every social convention we know is necessary when dealing with Hokage-sama?" Asked Satsuki in turn, her tone was perfectly even and calm.

"Yes. I meant exactly that." Sakura replied, flatly.

"Oh, then she did just do that, yes." The Uchiha said, blinking. "…I think I should be more shocked than this, but it does not surprise me. It is Naruko, after all."

"Well, she is a bag of surprises alright…" The pinkette resigned herself to the fact that her teammate would never conform to the expectations of what a normal person would do.

"Hm, you didn't just come for a visit, did you Naruko?" Asked the Hokage, looking down to the girl who grinned from her seat on his lap before she untangled herself from him. He sighed, smiled and gestured for her to take her place along with her teammates and teacher, which he did with a flourish of movement that reminded him that he had to talk to her about the length of her skirt. Sometimes it was just indecent.

"We're here for a mission, Hokage-sama." Kakashi informed, blandly, clearly smirking from underneath his mask. Most chunin were apparently very used to Naruko randomly dropping in and hugging the Hokage, though he could see one or two newbies being clearly uncomfortable at the closeness that the Hokage displayed with the jinchuuriki.

Always hilarious, newbies were.

"Naruko, stop doing weird things!" Sakura chastised, glaring at the girl who merely stuck her tongue out and showed a face of clear cheekiness. It was interesting how much she could look unashamed of her own actions.

"…Pay attention." Satsuki commanded, silencing both her teammates.

"Well, leaving aside the sitcom antics, I want the Rescue mission." Kakashi informed. "It'll be good to see if they've got what it takes."

"This is just great, since the scroll is fresh." Sarutobi said, smiling widely and gesturing with his hand to the chunin to his left. The seventeen year old boy snickered and pulled a scroll from one of the drawers. The scroll was very clearly new, since neither the color of the paper had faded to yellow nor had the ink been run yet. Somehow, it emanated a feeling of dread that had all three girls of Team 7 looking at it weirdly.

They felt as if the thing would very soon become the bane of their existence. Even Satsuki seemed to display open apprehension at the presence of the scroll.

"Okay, Team 7, we've got a very important mission today, and I need to know if you three are ready to take on a mission that would have most genin teams balk." Kakashi said, his tone completely serious and grim. "I need you to know before we take this mission that it's very possible that either one or all of you may suffer massive injuries. Are you willing to take it regardless?"

"Of course, Sensei!" Naruko replied almost without thinking. She wasn't one to back down, ever. Satsuki nodded, as well. Sakura found herself unable to say no, not if both of her teammates had already agreed.

She did seem completely insecure at the thought of engaging in a potentially dangerous mission right up from the start of her ninja career, and who could blame her? After all, Kakashi had put it very simply, taking on such a mission was likely to end up with all three of them injured.

If she just knew…

"Okay, then, Team 7 might just be the first team to ever willingly take on this mission." Sarutobi stated, smiling widely, though it seemed oddly… eerie. As if he was trying to smile in another way that made shivers run down the genin's spines. "Okay, then, Team 7, your mission is to rescue Tora."

"Tora?" Asked a rather curious and surprised Team 7 in unison. "Who is Tora?" They asked.

"Tora is a very important individual in the hierarchy of the Land of Fire. Indeed, she is very, very close to the wife of our Daimyo, Kichou-sama." Explained Kakashi.

"Yeah." The chunin sitting to the left of the Hokage said, nodding with a grim expression. "Her disappearance always causes a commotion, but she also is prone to them."

"Who IS Tora?" Asked Sakura, clearly exasperated.

"Tora is… Kichou-sama's pet cat." Sarutobi Hiruzen stated, his face breaking into a smile.

"You cannot be serious." Satsuki stated, as both of her teammates were simply too shocked to offer an actual comment on the ridiculous bit of information that they'd just received.

"Our first mission as ninja is to… Look for a cat!? What kind of ninja mission is this?!" Naruko asked, clearly thoroughly shocked at the idea that they were degraded to performing such ridiculous and simple tasks instead of doing something interesting, like saving a princess, a Daimyo or something like that.

"A very important one. Kichou-sama does love her cat, and she pays handsomely for her retrieval." Kakashi said, blandly.

"Okay, fine, let's just get this over with." Sakura said, her palm meeting her face. "After all, it's just hunting a cat, how hard could it possibly be?"

In hindsight, perhaps she should have realized just how deep the shit they'd just jumped into was when everyone else in the room burst out laughing except her teammates.