Team 7 had begun to set into a routine as time went on. Naruto and Kakashi would meet up for training at 5, and Sakura and Sasuke would show up at 6. Then the group would conduct teamwork training and formations. During the afternoon, they would get assigned a D rank mission which they would complete by the end of the evening. The missions ranged from weeding, to deliveries, and other such chores.

On this particular day, the team had been assigned a D rank mission to capture and return a missing target.

"I'm in position at point A." Naruto said into the receiver around his neck.

"I'm at point B." Sasuke said as well.

"I'm at point C." Sakura confirmed.

"Alright, do you see the target." Kakashi asked.

"Yes!" The three confirmed.

"Begin the operation!" Kakashi said.

The three genin jumped out towards the target. Sakura made a mad dash and tried to grab them. But the target just jumped over her head dodging. Sasuke came flying out from behind several bushes and managed to grab hold of the target. Naruto then came out as well as several of his clones, he had the whole area enclosed to ensure the target wouldn't escape.

The target began to then scratch and claw at Sasuke's face as he held it.

"Reb ribbon on the ear. The target is the missing cat Tora." Naruto radioed in.

Sakura dusted herself off as she got up, she couldn't help but sulk to herself as she was outmaneuvered by a cat.

Kakashi came out of the woods with his icha icha book in hand.

"Target captured and confirmed, good job guys. Lets go back to the Hokage now." Kakashi said.

The three nodded and made their way back.

...

...

...

After entering the Hokage's office they returned the cat to lady Shijimi.

She held Tora close to her as she rubbed her own face on the cat. The trio couldn't help but notice the look of pure terror on the cats face.

"Oh my poor Tora, how I've missed you so much. Thank you for bringing Tora back to me." Lady Shijimi said before she left the office.

Naruto couldn't help but sigh after she left.

"If I were that cat, I'd run away too." He said allowed.

Sakura and Sasuke silently agreed while Kakashi and the third Hokage smiled lightly.

"Ehem." The third Hokage coughed, gathering everyones attention.

"Excellent work Kakashi, your squad has performed brilliantly these past few weeks. Now I have another D rank mission here for-" The third began.

"Wait, wait, wait. Come on old man, we're more than ready for a real mission, we don't need another chore." Naruto interrupted.

After receiving the previous mission, Naruto knew what was coming up, and he had to make sure they got that mission. Even if he had to be rude to do so.

"Naruto! How dare you address lord third that way!? Do you know why you guys are receiving these missions in the first place?!" Iruke berated.

"Yes, I do, the missions are assigned to villages to complete in order to acquire funds to maintain them. The missions are then designated with rankings going from D to S rank missions, each with incressing difficulty and importance." Naruto explained.

Iruka looked surprised when he heard Naruto explain to him about the missions, he hadn't expected this. Then he looked at Kakashi who only smiled and didn't seem too shocked.

"Ehem, that's enough Iruka, thank you." The third said, gathering everyones attention again.

"Now Kakashi, I'm not entirely against assigning your team a higher ranked mission, afterall, all of our clients that were assisted by your team had nothing but praise. But I want to hear your opinion. Is your team ready?" The third asked.

"Lord third, I believe Team 7 to be more than ready for a higher ranked mission." Kakashi said.

"Alright, well I do have a C rank mission right here, it's an escort mission-" The third began explaining.

He stopped when everyone heard knocking at the door.

"Enter." The third Hokage said.

The door opened to reveal an old man who was red in the face and reeked of alcohol.

"Whaatt?! my escorts are these squirts? They're nust a bunch of brats!" The old man said.

Naruto grinned as he remembered their first meeting with old man Tazuna.

"Especially the short one, do you expect me to believe that he's a ninja!!" Tazuna said as he took a swig from his bottle.

Naruto stifled a laughter at Tazuna calling one of them short. Then he looked over at Sasuke and Sakura and saw that they were both taller than him. Waitx could he be talking about me?! Naruto thought.

He then got on his hands and knees as he felt depressed by the thought of being the short one. Wait a second, didn't he say that he couldn't believe I was a ninja? Naruto remembered. Then he got up and was about to go punch Tazuna before Kakashi grabbed him and held him back.

"Why don't you come over here and say that again you old bastard. I'll show you what a ninja is!!" Naruto yelled angrily.

"Calm down Naruto, he's our client and the one who we will be escorting." Kakashi said.

Once Naruto had settled down, Kakashi released him then straightened his back.

"Now, Mr. Tazuna, I promise you, these kids are shinobis, they are more dangerous than you realise. Especially the short one." Kakashi said smiling with a murderous aura around him.

"Hey, Kakashi-sensei, aren't you barely holding back your anger as well?" Naruto said as he scratched his head.

Kakashi couldn't help being a little peeved, after all, he had been training Naruto personally. So saying that Naruto wasn't a ninja was a jab at his ability to train people.

Tazuna realized he'd messed up and nodded his head quickly.

"Good, we'll go prepare and meet you at the front gates of the village in an hour." Kakashi smiled.

"R-right." Tazuna said as he turned and left.

The thrid Hokage and Iruka sighed to themselves as they witnessed the encounter. Would things be alright? They wondered.

"Alright, Kakashi, you and your team will be escorting Tazuna back to the land of waves. The rest of your team is dismissed, I'll give you the details of the rest of the mission" The third said.

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke nodded their heads and then left, leaving Kakashi behind in the office.

...

...

...

Naruto was back inside his apartment as he was grabbing his things. He wore his black sandals and a pair of black loose fitted pants with bandages wrapped around his right thigh where he held his kunais in. Then he wore a short sleeve mesh shirt and a white shirt over that. Finally he put on his orange sleeveless hoodie with the Uzumaki symbol on the back. He placed his shuriken pouch around his waist behind him to the right, while he paced another pouch filled with scrolls on his left side. He then grabbed his bo staff and placed it on a scroll. He then formed a hand seal and the bo staff vanished in a puff of smoke. The scroll then had a symbol for staff marked within the center of the circle of seals.

Naruto placed the scroll in his left pouch and then grabbed his backpack, which he filled with a food, bandages, and other basic supplies. Afterwards, he grabbed his leaf forehead protector and put it on. Once he had everything, he left his apartment and ran towards the village's front gate.

Once he arrived, he saw Sasuke, Sakura already there with old man Tazuna. He ran up and greeted them.

"Yo." Kakashi said as he appeared right in front lf them.

"Looks like everyone is here and is ready. Before we begin, why don't we introduce ourselves." Kakashi suggested.

"Right, I'm Uzumaki Naruto, the future Hokage!" Naruto grinned.

"Hah, you Hokage? I'd see pigs fly before seeing a shrimp like you become Hokage." Tazuna laughed.

It took everything Naruto had not to deck the guy in the face.

"I'm Tazuna the bridge builder, I'm building a bridge that will save the land of waves." Tazuna said with pride in his eyes.

"I'm Haruno Sakura" Sakura smiled.

"Uchiha Sasuke" Sasuke said.

"And I'm Hatake Kakashi, team 7's leader." Kakashi smiled.

"Now then, lets go." Kakashi said, and he lead the group down the path leading away from the village.

The day was bright out and there wasn't a cloud in sight.

"Hey, Kakashi-sensei, are there any ninja in the land of waves?" Sakura asked.

"No, only hidden villages have ninja, and they are under the control of the Kages of each village. There are five nations and each one has a village, there's the village hidden in the leaves, which is part of the country of fire. There's the country of water, with the village hidden in the mist, the country of wind, with the village hidden in the sand. The country of lightning, with the village hidden in the clouds, and then there's the country of rock, with the village hidden in stone." Kakashi explained.

"I see, so we should only run into bandits, theives, or wild animals then, right?" Sakura asked again.

"That's right. So you don't have anything to worry about." Kakashi said smiling.

The group passed a puddle of water on the ground. However, only Kakashi and Naruto paid attention to it while the rest continued walking along.

"Hey, Mr. Tazuna, why did you say that building your bridge will save the land of waves?" Sakura asked.

"You see, the land of waves is a poor country, and because of that, there are many things we can't do. So that's why I'm building this bridge, it will connect us to trade routes that will save the country from dying." Tazuna explained.

Sakura nodded her head as she understood the reasoning. But Kakashi felt there was more to the story. While Naruto knew that Tazuna hadn't told them everything yet. But the group continued to keep walking down the path.

Once the group had walked away some distance, two heads popped out of the water silently. They then jumped out and began rushing towards the group.

The two of them wrapped up Kakashi in bladed chains and pulled. Slicing Kakashi up into pieces.

Seeing Kakashi get killed like that caused Sakura to fall onto the ground and screamed out. Tazuna also looked surprised as he witnessed it. The two ninjas then rushed at Tazuna. Sasuke jumped inbetween the incoming ninjas and Tazuna and kicked them in the head, sending them flying away.

Naruto gathered his chakra and body flickered behind the one of the ninjas and knocked him out. Seeing their plan fail and his partner get taken down so easily, the other ninja decided to run away. But before he could get away, Kakashi appeared before him and punched him in the gut knocking him out. The ninja then fell to the ground and was surrounded by the group.

After binding up the two ninjas Kakashi turned and faced the group.

"Judging by their headbands, they were hidden mist shinobi" Kakashi commented.

Sakura gulped.

He sighed as he spoke. "I have a few things to say. First, Sakura, why'd you freeze up? I understand that you thought I was dead, but you left Tazuna completely exposed. If it weren't for Sasuke, the mission would have ended in failure. Naruto, Sasuke, good job on keeping a clear head in that situation."

"If you could handle those two ninjas so easily, why'd you let them attack us like that?" Tazuna said angrily.

Then kakashi turned to face Tazuna with a deadly look in his eyes.

"Tazuna, while it's true I could have taken care of them, I needed to see who their target was." Kakashi explained.

"What do you mean?" Tazuna asked.

"I mean I needed to know whether they were targeting you, or one of us. If they had been targeting one of us, then it's our problem and we only dragged you into it, in which case I would have apologized. But instead, they were after you." Kakashi explained.

"Since those ninjas were after you, it means this is no longer a C rank mission. This is now undoubtedly at least an expensive B rank mission or higher. I think you have some explaining to do." Kakashi said coldly.

"While I will see a mission completed, my priority is to my team, if any one of them were to die because we lacked vital information, then their deaths would have been on your head." Kakashi finished.

Tazuna felt sweat drip from his forehead as Kakashi glared at him.

"I-I can explain" Tazuna said as he breathed out.

Author's Notes: I'm getting pretty excited here. I dunno about you guys. But we're finally getting into the Land of Waves arc. This is undoubtedly one of my favorite arcs when Naruto first aired. Especially when he tapped into Kurama's chakra for the first time. That scene gave me chills watching it. Anyways, I hope I can create an equally badass scene in this for you guys to enjoy. Look forward to it. Peace!