"Wait."

Shino stopped in the threshold of the house with his hand hovered over the door knob when he looked over his shoulder, and Shibi sighed. His son had started looking so... tired lately and wasn't home as often as he used to. When he came home after meetings or fulfilling his duties as clan head, his boy wouldn't be home until the following afternoon after that day's practice in clothes he was starting to recognize more easily as both Sakura's and Kiba's. And even then, Shino would be gone two days in a row. Sometimes three. It would only be right for him to grow concerned with each instance. "Come here for a moment, please."

Shino shucked off his sandals and approached his father. Shibi inspected him like he expected to find some sort of wound or physical discomfort that caused his son to be so exhausted, but nothing. Just a the slight steep to his shoulders and something he couldn't quite understand lurking behind dark lenses. 

"How much have you excelled in your training?"

Shino's brow furrowed at the question. "We're getting better an an appropriate rate," he answered. "There have been no fallbacks as far as I'm concerned, and Kurenai-sensei is a commendable teacher."

Shibi peered closer at him. "And your teammates? Are they treating you well?"

"Of course," Shino replied instantly, affronted his father would suggest otherwise. Shibi blinked at the offense taken—protectiveness? Of others outside the clan? Amazing! "Sakura, Kiba, and Akamaru are remarkable in their own rights."

The clan head was pretty sure that was Shino-speak for 'they're my friends and I love them'. Perhaps he was worried over nothing and his friends were as good as he believed them to be. True they'd only been over to the house once, but it also had been to help Shino to his room when he couldn't walk. 

At least they were helping him out of his shell and getting him to be happier, especially after Torune.

But even then, why did he still look so tired?

He was curious to know. So he asked.

"Because training's been quite... arduous. Nothing to be concerned of, Father, I assure you," Shino said.

"If you're sure," he relented. Still, he found his son's words hard to believe, but he let it go. His eyes drifted to the kitchen counter and to the package residing on it, and suddenly, he remembered the other reason he called his son over. "Something came for you earlier, no sender. My insects haven't detected anything malicious."

He watched apprehension and a sliver of fear enter Shino's face, and he saddened. Fear? For what? From whom? And why wouldn't Shino talk to him about it?

Shino carefully made his way to the box and, with slightly shaking hands, untied the string around it and unwrapped the parcel.

Inside was a glass box peppered with small holes with three live butterflies inside, each with crystal clear wings lined with burnt orange.

"The Greto Oto. Can carry nearly forty times its own weight and travel thirteen kilometers an hour for short intervals," Shibi noted with interest. "A splendid gift, and a rare one at that. Have you an idea who sent it?"

Shino stared at the butterflies for a few distrustful seconds before meeting his father's eyes. "I... have absolutely no idea."

::

Kiba stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. It was Tuesday, a chakra training day, four days since that fucker—

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He held it for a few seconds. He breathed out, bracing himself against the sink as he looked back in the mirror. Opening his mouth wide, he stuck his tongue out and looked at the jet black seal that glared mockingly back at him. It was ridiculous and far enough back that people who didn't know of its existence wouldn't notice it if he talked.

He sealed us, he thought angrily. Danzo sealed us and all the Hokage did was watch.

He stuck his tongue back in his mouth and bared his teeth.

Konoha was slowly starting to become a village he wasn't will to fight for and he didn't even have the freedom to tell people why.

Kiba snarled. "Goddammit!!"

A fist met glass and his knuckles bled. He looked at his reflection again—reflections now with all the cracks and pieces that fell to his feet. "Shit. Mom's gonna flip."

He left the bathroom to the pull the first aid kit from under his bed and grabbed the rubbing alcohol and bandages. Akamaru lifted his head from the bed and whined, the faint smell of blood filling his nose.

"Don't worry, it's just a scratch," he sighed. Akamaru barked. "Seriously, I meant it. Just got pissed for a minute."

Akamaru set his head back down with a pout and lolled his tongue out of his mouth. Kiba spied the black on his partner's tongue and felt some of his earlier anger boil up and the puppy, who just remembered the ramifications of his and his team's actions, quickly pulled his tongue back in his mouth and peered at his best friend.

Kiba stayed sitting on the floor, wiping away the blood and bandaging his knuckles as his fangs glinted in the sunlight. Akamaru barked lowly, and he raised his eyes.

"I'm still lookin'," he huffed. "Seals are hard and I'm still a genin, so I don't have clearance on much."

A bark.

"Yeah, well I guess that never really stopped us before," he admitted. He stored the rubbing alcohol and rolls of bandages back in the kit before shoving it under his bed. "But Fortitude's an asshole and Absolute Truth doesn't care so we can't say shit. Bastards."

Kiba stood and grabbed his torso armor with the intent to click it into place, but as he turned towards his window, he saw it open a crack with an innocent looking package sitting on the window sill. Akamaru shot to his feet as armor clattered onto the floor.

"Brat!" his mother called from downstairs. "You dyin' up there?!"

"Just dropped somethin'!" he called back, eyes unmoving from the package. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied in simple twine. When he moved closer and sniffed, there was no scent to be picked up.

Odd.

"This could kill me," he whispered as he took the package in his hands. He ignored Akamaru's bark of indignation and untied it, letting the wrappings fall to the ground. "Jerky?" He lifted the bags of meat into the air. His mouth watered at the sight, but he resisted the urge to dig in as he set it down on his cluttered desk. He closed the window, sure to lock it this time, and looked at his partner. "Who do you think would sneak up here and give us gifts?"

Akamaru whimpered. He didn't know either.

::

"Eh, you like stuff like that, Sakura-chan? You must be super smart!" Naruto exclaimed. He and Sakura sat at one of the park tables in the early morning light an hour before each of their training sessions officially began. Breakfast bentos lay on the table in front of them both, Naruto's nearly finished and Sakura's half-eaten as she stared blankly at the two trivia game books in her free hand. Beside her were balled twine and crumpled brown packaging paper.

"Trivia isn't a bad way to pass the hours," she said. She took a piece of broccoli from her bento as her eyes cut to the surrounding trees. No one. "What do you do in your free time?"

Her tongue no longer burned, but the fire in her anger did. The more time she spent with Naruto the angrier she became; not at him but for him, because part of her wanted him to know the love of a parent. He could've been adopted and loved when his parents couldn't have the chance to, but even then he was dutifully denied the chance. He and over a hundred dead children had been refused a childhood with a family because one man didn't have the will to say no.

"I like gardening," he said. She raised a brow.

"You like taking care of plants when you can barely take care of yourself?"

"Hey!"

She stuck the broccoli into his protesting mouth. "Eat your vegetables," she said in the face of his disgust, "or you'll stay shorter than me forever."

She and her team made a promise during their research that the world would know their truths one day.

They were silenced now.

But they'd be damned if they were silenced forever.

::

"What?" Kisame asked. He set down the kunai he was sharpening in an inn nestled on the border of Fire Country. Leader had called upon his return, unfortunately, so he had no time to check in on his pup one last time before the exams started. "What do you mean you couldn't see her?"

Kasumi sighed in her chakra-made puddle. "I can't follow her everywhere, you know. There's certain places I can't be if there's too many other elite chakra signatures around, so I couldn't tail her to Orochimaru's lab, and I was only able to check up on her when she went to the little red bridge on Konoha's training grounds." 

An odd sadness trailed onto the little shark's face, and it made him tilt his head. "What's wrong?"

"Pink... she's a good kid. Her and her team. They made a memorial, you know? Lit a candle for every missing child in those files you gave them and sent lanterns down a river," she informed him. Kisame couldn't help but smile for the heart his pup held. "The three of them memorized all their names. All of them. I didn't think people could ever care so much for something they had absolutely nothing to do with."

He thought back to when they used to visit Saki's grave together, how they'd always buy flowers from that same flower shop, how she'd stand there and listen to him talk and talk about her late mother even though she could recite every word that came out of his mouth when he did so.

"But I think there's something else."

Kisame started to get a feeling in his chest that he hated. "What? What happened? Is she hurt? Did—"

"Hold on, Blue, I'm only speculating," she interrupted. Kasumi ducked down in the puddle for a moment before coming back up. "It's just—I think something went down during the time I couldn't watch over her. I don't know if it was a good something or a bad something, but they were tired. Exhausted. Kind of like you when you defected Kiri."

His eyes turned to ice. "I left because Suikazan Fuguki was a two-faced shit who betrayed the village I was loyal to," he growled. "To this day Kiri thinks I've killed an innocent man and since then, my loyalty had nowhere to go; I was disillusioned, I didn't know my place in this world." Kisame looked away from his summon and paced the small room. It was only morning outside, but he could already tell it was going to be a long, long day. "Then I met Saki. Then we had Sakura."

"Blue—"

"There's not a damn thing I wouldn't do for her, Kasumi-san. She turned out a better person than I ever was and I'm not gonna let anyone ruin that." But even if it was morning, it was still dark in the room. He wouldn't draw open the curtains; his paranoia wouldn't allow it. "She's out there lookin' for her own truth. There's gonna be obstacles, consequences, punishments. I'm not gonna stop her from learning them." He turned around and the summon saw the pure malevolence on his face. "But if there's ever, ever the chance Konoha unjustly wrongs her—" The hazard in his eyes served as an omen, like the grim standing in the doorway of the dying—"it will burn."

Kasumi nodded. "If anything comes up, I'll let you know." She prepared herself to resume her watchdog duties, but her summoner held up a hand.

"Aside from her looking tired, did she look healthy? Is she doing good? She's not having other problems?"

"Yes, yes, and none that I could sense."

He sat back on the bed and picked up the kunai he'd been sharpening earlier. "Then you don't have to keep an eye on her anymore. For now, at least," he said. "I'll make sure Orochimaru doesn't lay a damn finger on her in the exams, then it'll be another few years 'til I let myself see her again. Any longer and I'll cave in and take her back with me." He breathed out a wary sigh. "But, I can't. The Akatsuki won't have her."

Kasumi drooped slightly. She didn't understand how Kisame could love his pup so much but punish himself so thoroughly, could pledge himself to never harm a child but go on a killing spree to his heart's content—the two contradictions in a man who lived for no one but wanted nothing more than to see another life fully lived.

"Alright," she agreed. "'Til next time, Blue."

::

There was something wrong with her team.

Well, there wasn't anything overtly noticeable, but Kurenai had been with them long enough to know there was something off.

She observed them as they tried to successfully complete a new jutsu she introduced them to a day before: the Hiding in the Surface Technique, a C-ranked supplementary jutsu that allowed the user to phase through their surroundings, avoid attacks, and travel undetected. Technically, they should be at least chuunin to learn the technique, but it was essential for a team that aimed to infiltrate.

Besides, who was going to tell her how to train her team?

Kiba channeled too much chakra into his technique and ended up sinking waist deep into the ground after he took his first step. He yelped in rage. Akamaru started to dig him out.

"Are you guys just gonna stand there and watch?" he sputtered at his two amused teammates. Shino raised an eyebrow.

"Frankly, I expected you to sink down farther."

"You—C'mere! I'll kick your ass!"

"Ah, yes. Threatened by half a body. Terrifying."

Sakura snorted and pressed a first to her mouth.

For all who didn't know them as well as Kurenai did, they appeared as if they were any other group of rookie genin: happy, carefree, yet untainted from the true meaning of a shinobi. She knew better, though. How could she not? Not after Sakura's five year long deception, not after Shino's espionage, not after Kiba's unexpected wit.

And especially not after their learning of the Kyuubi.

A shinobi's duty had always been to look 'underneath the underneath'. Shino, all his dry comments aside, was far too tired than he should be. She knew that he started to spend an increasing amount of time with his team as they were often seen with each other in public, but his level of exhaustion didn't match the others. And it didn't have to be an exhaustion of the physical sort, either. The Aburame were never renowned for physical prowess compared to clans like the Inuzuka and the Akimichi, and even now he hadn't expressed the interest or proficiency of being a hard-hitter of the team. So his problems lay in either the mental or emotional sort.

But what could it have been? His father was a decent man and despite being the only other in a two person household, surely he'd filled the void of loneliness by gaining another family through his team.

What happened to him? And if it wasn't a what, then who?

Shino approached a tree and tried the jutsu out for himself. Cautious, he stuck his arm through the bark instead of his whole body and, pleased, noticed that he was able to push his arm all the way through the trunk. But his pleasantness fell when he pulled on his arm.

He pulled again. Then sighed heavily. And set his head against the wood as Kiba's boisterous laughter rang through the training grounds.

"I guess you wood-n't mind sticking around, huh?" Kiba grinned. He was freed from mid-thigh onward and a few more minutes of struggle would have him back onto his feet. "Guess it sucks, since you gotta hear me bark-ing with laughter." Sakura stopped practicing the jutsu and pressed both hands to her mouth. "How are you gonna re-tree-ve your arm now?"

Shino's eyebrow began to twitch relentlessly. The Inuzuka eventually pulled himself out of the dirt brandished a wider, cheekier grin. "C'mon, Shino, I'm just pollen your leg."

Sakura's shoulders started to shake as Shino looked over his shoulder. He stared long, hard, bitterly, before his mouth curled into a sneer. "I don't be-leaf you."

She couldn't take it anymore. Sakura collapsed onto her knees and exploded into laughter, clutching her sides as a few stray tears streamed down her face. Just the sight of her got Kiba to laugh too—he'd never seen her laugh so hard before. Who knew stupid puns were all it took to get her like that?

"Why're you laughing?" he called out to her. "We're just being frond-ly."

Her laughter started to mix with snorts, and she only laughed louder because of it. Shino coughed to hide his own amusement threatening to bubble up and looked back to the tree and pulled. Nothing. He sighed for the second time.

Kurenai chuckled at her team's antics before quietly ducking back into her observations. Kiba, while as carefree as he always was, still exuded something she couldn't quite understand. There was no shortage or his laughter or his jokes or his recklessness, but his anger is something she didn't want to bolster more than it needed to. Anger was good sometimes—it flooded the veins with feeling and pumped adrenaline through the blood, but too much of anything was never good. 

Maybe it wasn't that Kiba was somehow quicker to anger, but he might be holding on to a type of anger he refused to rid of. That in itself was a terribly unhealthy habit to pick up. Anger, in small, spread-out doses, was what she expected. A long, slow simmer only thickened into repulsive paste.

She would to get to the bottom of that anger one way or another; she would not let him be one of those who died because of it.

Could his anger somehow be linked to Shino's occasional dissociative manner? Maybe on his behalf?

Sakura's laughter subsided when Kiba managed to stick himself into the ground once more, this time ending up wedged in the dirt all the way up to his shoulders. Akamaru whined and slumped down, dirt in his fur and with no inclination of digging up his partner for the second time.

She decided to try the jutsu a second time. When she did, she ran unhesitatingly through one of the larger boulders with her arms crossed over her face as her only protection. She phased through triumphantly, her immensely impressive chakra control shining through, and went to settle her hand on the rock.

But her hand fell through and she frowned. She did it again. And again. And again.

And once she figured how to release the jutsu, she'd sunken ankle-deep into the ground.

Sakura had always been unconventional, and Kurenai had yet to decipher what actions constituted a problem or which ones were just naturally a part of her personality. Her logic and reasoning were odd and were starting to rub off on the rest of her team, but Kurenai was sure she could attribute that to her upbringing. After all, Kiri-esque clothing choice and hailing from Ame? There was already a high chance that her parents, whoever they were, had either been criminals or expatriates that absconded form Kiri. It would explain a great deal and lay out the foundation of her skills and unspoken-of past. 

Oddities aside, she'd been more aware lately. Paranoid, even. There was the constant glance-over-the-shoulder and the consistent survey or her surroundings. Again, did it link to Shino's shift? To Kiba's shift? Three consecutive shifts with three different people within a close proximity to each other spelled trouble. Or, the trouble they might've landed themselves into.

Concern rose as she watched her team—her wonderful, deceptive, promising team—laugh, joke, and train like it had been any other day.

Before, they told her about the Kyuubi. Not outright, but it was something.

What was so dangerous now that they couldn't tell her straight out?

Her red-painted lips pursed together thoughtfully. She would stay observing for the time being, watching even more carefully than she had before, and would try to pick out the consequences of whatever they'd done.

::

After two weeks of painstaking consideration, Kurenai donned the conclusion that whatever Team Eight landed in had run down far deeper than she could've ever imagined and it all lead down to one simple question.

How was Hokage-sama involved?

It started as a subtle sort of thing. When she and the team headed to the missions office for another D-rank mission to add their files at the beginning of her two week observation period, the Sandaime was there assisting and talking genially with the genin that came by. He asked how their time as shinobi was, if there were any complications, if they needed help. 

When she ushered her team ahead of her, their eyes raised towards the Hokage in a manner that was almost eerie.

They were silent, tense, stone.

The Hokage merely smiled down at them in return, but Kurenai could spot the slight strain in the wrinkles of his face. "Hello, Team Eight," he greeted them. "How have you all been faring so far?"

Shino answered first, his tone flat and uncaring. "Well."

"Ah, I see. Anything that needs to be brought to my attention?"

Kiba's jaw clenched as he ground his teeth together. "No."

"And the three of you don't need help on anything?"

Sakura crossed her arms and stared with the iciness of a mid-winter's day. "We're not the ones that need help," she said. Kurenai heard the confused murmurs of the other chuunin in the room but kept her eyes on the Sandaime through the peculiar interaction of him and her team. While gauging his reactions, she saw a bit of something—shame?—before he smiled down at them in that grandfatherly way.

"I'll keep that in mind. Now, your mission."

Four missions were assigned to them in the span of those two weeks, and she couldn't help but think that they were purposefully assigned to her team. They all required more than a day to complete and were all stationed outside the village, almost as if...

Kurenai's eyes widened a fraction.

Almost as if the Hokage was trying to keep them out of the village.

Team Eight had the gift of being able to conduct thorough research, she knew that much. They wouldn't have learned of the Kyuubi and Naruto's true heritage in two days otherwise, and they must've been very good at it to scrounge up information from public-sanctioned library texts and the people of the village and come to the startlingly correct conclusion.

During the short amounts of time between missions that she'd actually been allowed to touch down on Konoha soil—which ranged between barely a day to two—she decided to spend the time trying to puzzle out what she wasn't understanding.

So after the first of four missions assigned, she went to Aburame Shibi and asked him how everything was with his son.

"I see. So you've noticed it to," he said. Kurenai ran her eyes over the interior of the main Aburame Household, taking in the sleek wood so dark it was nearly black and thanked the clan head who graciously poured her a cup of tea. "I suppose it's only natural, seeing that you're his sensei, after all. Tell me, is he as tired out there as he is if I see him at home?"

"If his tiredness includes bags under his eyes and acting as if nothing's wrong when there is, then yes," she replied. Her eyes narrowed. "Aburame-sama, if I may ask, what do you mean by if you see him at home?"

She couldn't see behind his trademarked glasses, but his melancholy seeped through his blank mask. "Shino's taken to staying at Sakura-san's place every so often; I assume the same with Kiba-san as well."

"So he... doesn't come home anymore?"

"If it makes him more comfortable, I have no quarrel. He's expressed a favorable opinion of his team," he said, then frowned. "I don't know what's caused it, though. Nothing has changed in this house for years, but right after he was assigned to his team..." Realizing what he sounded like, he shook his head. "I apologize. It wasn't my intention to slight you or the other genin. I'm only worried about his well being."

As am I. "I understand," said Kurenai. "Is there anything you could think of that could've had him end up this way?"

Shibi pondered for a moment and stirred his tea. His stirring slowed as he looked down at the silver spoon, and his frown grew more pronounced. "There's only one topic I know of that could truly upset him." She leaned forward curiously as he set his spoon beside his cup. "Yuuhi-san, let me tell you about my nephew, Torune."

Shibi's tale hadn't been an inspiring one. She didn't know much about councilman Danzo other than he was a member of the council, but Shibi told her the man had accosted his nephew to be employed under a "Konoha-approved" organization and hadn't heard of him since. Shino was crushed when he learned of it; Torune hadn't even been given the chance to say goodbye.

His voices dipped low as if divulging a terrible secret. "I've never told him this because of the guilt I know he'd feel," he said. "But Danzo originally wanted to take Shino. Torune wouldn't see it through, so he offered himself up to take his place."

After the second mission, she went to the Inuzuka household. Tsume wasn't in, so instead she headed to the veterinary clinic and spoke to the Head Medic Inuzuka Hana.

"Kiba?" Hana repeated. She peeled off her gloves and tossed them into the nearest trash can. "I mean, yeah, he's been actin' kinda off lately, but I don't think too much of it. He eats as much as he normally does, still hates getting up early, keeps making his dumb jokes."

"Has he been... angrier? At all?"

"Not that I can think of."

One of the Haimaru brothers in the staff room barked and Hana looked in his direction. "That did happen, didn't it..." she murmured. She turned back to Kurenai. "Kiba smashed a bathroom mirror to shit 'bout a week ago. It was bad, like, glass on the ground, blood on his knuckles bad. Mom freaked out and asked what happened and he just said he lost his temper. He had to weed out the whole backyard and clean the kitchen top to bottom for that one."

Kurenai remembered his bandaged hand and remembered asking where he sustained such an injury, as she'd never seen him make it during training. He'd only shrugged and claimed he burned his hand on accident when some oil splattered in the kitchen.

He lied, but that wasn't what concerned her. There was no need to lie if he simply lost his temper, and if he lost his temper, he would've used the same excuse with her as he did with his family. Kiba's lie was inconsistent, and that made everything even more suspicious.

What was Kiba truly lying about and what had the Hokage done to them?

A sickening feeling churned in her stomach like grog made from nothing palatable. Her team's chilling attitude towards the Sandaime and his ignorant reactions to it would only make sense if there was something to hide. But what did he do? And what did the team do to deserve it?

Why wasn't she informed?

Why wasn't she there to protect them?

"Sensei?"

Kurenai stopped her retreat from the clinic and turned. "Yes?"

Hana stood with her hands tucked in the pockets of her vet's coat with a gleam of worry in her eyes. "If you're stopping by to check with your team's families, you should know about Sakura, right?"

Right. Sakura's living situation. "I do. Is there something you're concerned of?"

"It's just that Sakura used to come over a lot when she and Kiba were in the Academy. Kind of a cold kid, but she lightened up a lot the longer we knew her." Hana glanced to the side uncomfortably. "I knew she wouldn't come by as much since getting a new team and a new place and all, but if something's up with Kiba, then there's definitely something up with her too."

After the third mission, Kurenai stood in Sakura's apartment after bypassing an impressive standard of traps. She was pleased and not at all shocked to find that the traps extended to Uzumaki Naruto's apartment next door, but her delight was cut short with what she found inside Sakura's apartment. Or, lack thereof.

It was like walking into a house showing instead of stepping into an actual home. The kitchen was clean and impersonal; no stains aside from what must have already been there for years, and the plastic table only added on to a less inviting feeling. There was nothing in the hallway save for the marks of wear from owners' past. Once she entered the single bedroom, she was greeted to the sight of plain white walls, a neat desk, and four scrolls posted over a neatly made bed.

She drew close to the scrolls, recognizing them as Sakura's handwriting.

The first: Remember what you witnessed here. This is what happens to fools who think they can change the world.

Her brows pulled together. What Sakura witnessed? From the look of it, it was like she witnessed a death, a murder, or something along the likes of that. Either way, the implications were less than savory.

The second: Did you understand that, girl? You're their homegrown advantage. How does it feel to be used?

That read even worse than the last. Kurenai didn't know the 'they', but she knew how much an asset was worth to those who had one. Sakura's home life must have been rougher than she'd previously imagined. She certainly had talent, but enough to say she should be used? But then again, Amegakure had always been filled with both refugees and undesirables since being torn by numerous wars that weren't even theirs to begin with.

The third: Because I'm not a good man.

What were these words? What were these... philosophies—maxims that Sakura forced herself to look at everyday? Was she following these words? As a reminder? These were terrible!

And the last: You will be an exemplary shinobi or you will be nothing at all.

Kurenai's jaw locked. Now she had some idea why Sakura pushed herself so hard during practice.

After the fourth and final mission in that two week period, she found herself sitting in her apartment with cold tea, her students' files, and a replaying of her findings. Nothing odd had been formally documented, but they were so obviously at ends with the Hokage. Their attitudes were changing, but nothing could be noted in their files. Something deeper was running to places she couldn't see, and if she didn't find out soon, things were going to get worse. She was sure of it.

Kurenai stood from her seat as she sensed a presence in front of her door. She opened it to see a chuunin office worker posed to knock, but quickly gathered himself and offered her a polite nod. "Yuuhi-san, Hokage-sama would like to see you for a mission briefing."

A thread of annoyance rose in her core and she pushed it away before it could weave to the surface. She smiled. "Thank you. I'll be there immediately."

The chuunin took his leave and shut the door, a small scowl taking her lips. Another mission? Her team deserved a break, and even if they'd been assigned a chain of simple D-ranks, it didn't mean that they'd be happy about getting shoved out of the village with every assignment. This was getting ridiculous! The Chuunin Exams were in a month and a half and if she didn't have the time to train them, what was she going to do?

She sighed and slipped on her sandals before flickering out of the apartment. For now, she would keep her assumptions close to her chest. All she had were her observations and the reasoning that lead to it. Until she found concrete evidence, she would act as if she wasn't suspicious to begin with.

When she arrived at the office, there was only the Sandaime, and he greeted her with a kind smile. "Good morning, Kurenai-san."

"Hokage-sama," she returned with a respectful bow. "You called me here for a mission?"

"Ah, yes." He held up a scroll. "A C-rank for you and Team Eight, actually. It's a follow up to the B-rank Team Seven undertook and recently returned from." Kurenai tried to keep her stance lax; everyone had heard of that disastrous mission when they returned a mere two days ago. All members had been hospitalized and signed up for a psyche evaluation. "It's nothing remotely close to the magnitude of the source mission, and you'll simply be checking around the village to see if any of Gato's men had been unaccounted for. Team Seven left before any of the post-fighting cleanup could be handled."

Inwardly, her hackles rose. If she remembered correctly, that mission had taken place in—

"Wave Country is your destination and shouldn't take you more than two weeks to complete," he continued. "Your team must be tired of all the D-ranks they've been assigned, so a C-rank should be a wonderful experience for them."

She got the feeling that refusing wasn't an option.

"I'm... sure they'll appreciate the opportunity," she said carefully as she took the scroll into her hands. "After this mission, may I request we receive fewer assignments? I would like to take the next month to train my team for the upcoming Chuunin Exams."

"You intend to sign them up?" he questioned. The Sandaime takes a puff of his pipe. "Would that be wise, Kurenai-san? They're only rookies, after all. Perhaps they aren't prepared for such a daunting task."

She blinked in surprise. "Hokage-sama, I have faith in my team. Their progress has come in leaps and bounds, and I'm positive that they'll prove themselves worthy to hold the chuunin title in this village."

Kurenai expected him to stare at her for a long while before smiling and conceding, just as he'd always done. He was always one to spot sincerity and trusted his shinobi whenever they made a passionate claim that runs straight through their minds and hearts. She believes in her team. She knows they'll succeed. They're ready; they've always been ready.

But his expression didn't change. In fact, it might have grown colder. "I implore you to reconsider, Kurenai-san. No one is ever truly ready for what comes with the promotion of rank."

"They're qualified. More than qualified," she insisted.

"There will be tough competitors this time around. Maybe next year they'll be ready."

"They're ready now!"

"They might not be able to shoulder the responsibility, nor the knowledge, that comes with the title should they succeed."

"Hokage-sama—"

"Team Eight sets out tomorrow at 1300 hours," the Hokage stated firmly. She swallowed and held her arms at her sides; the hard look in his eyes made no room for argument. "You are dismissed, Kurenai-san."

With pressed lips, she bowed and took leave of the office. Once the door closed behind her, her expression turned grim.

That in there was no coincidence.

::

Sakura, Shino, and Kiba lingered at the gates with packs strapped to their person and identical looking brown packages that fit in the palms of their hands. They exchanged wary glances.

"So I'm not dreamin', right?" Kiba asked. "This is, like, the third thing we've all gotten over the last two and a half weeks. The first I got was jerky and the second was a pack of real good quality senbon. You guys sure you aren't messing around by pretendin' to get yourself something?"

"It serves me no purpose to gift myself," Shino replied as he frowned at his package. He received butterflies and a case of fire-repellent sealant for his weapons. "Why? Because it's wasteful and I see no purpose in wrapping a gift. If they're going to find out what it is anyways, then eliminate the packaging and hand them the item. There is no benefit otherwise."

Kiba shook his head. "Wow. You must love surprise parties, huh?"

"I don't like surprises."

"And I'm not surprised you said that."

Sakura rolled the package in her hands. Trivia books and a small jar of bruise salve had been the gifts she'd received, and she had yet to discover the reason behind them. What they were getting weren't simple trinkets, but items that catered to their individual likes and interests. Would Shibi-sama have done this? Or Hana-san or Tsume-sama? Maybe even Kurenai-sensei?

She opened her package and her teammates peered at her hands where they saw two bottles: one filled with soldier pills and the other with blood replenishing pills. One of her eyebrows lifted. "These are only made on request," she said. "Or if the maker is a medic-nin. Either way, I think it's safe to say whoever we're dealing with is at least a jounin."

"So maybe Kurenai-sensei, Shibi-sama, or my mom," Kiba said. He opened his next and found a set of sixteen makibishi caltrops. "Okay, maybe not my mom. No one in the clan uses these because of how much damage they do to dog paws if they're lost. Like, they're useful and all, so it's gotta be Kurenai-sama or Shibi-sama. For real."

Shino's was a pack of smoke bombs. He stared at them for a few unnerving moments and thought to each of the presents they'd received. They've only been getting them after The Incident, and there's only one person who was bound to show them that much kindness. "Do you suppose... Cat has been leaving these for us?"

Akamaru, bundled in front of Kiba's jacket, let out a quiet whine. Kiba patted his head and lowered his voice. "Hey, is it okay for us to be talking about him out here?"

"It's only the neighborhood stray, Kiba. Remember when we met the cat a few weeks ago?" Sakura said. She shared a pointed look with them to get them on her wavelength. "The last time we saw the cat was when he stopped by my place after training a while back. He thanked us for the fish we gave him."

Shino tucked the smoke bombs in his coat as a thoughtful look crossed his face. "We only gave him one fish and he's brought us a total of nine mice. Why would he keep coming back? He already said thank you. We don't need anything else."

"Maybe he's trying to show us how thankful he is?" suggested Kiba. "He really doesn't need to, 'specially when we were at the river that night."

"Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but cats always do as they please," Shino replied. "Have you ever heard the phrase 'curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back'? Perhaps he desires more fish."

"Whether he wants it or not, he knows we can't get anymore," Sakura said, her eyes shifting to green ice. The air around them dampened. "We're not welcome at the fish markets anymore. He knows that."

::

Kurenai tilted her head from her place behind a tree as she heightened her senses and listened in on the group of genin. She only appeared when Sakura mentioned a neighborhood cat, which wasn't such an odd claim. Konoha was crawling with strays.

But it soon became obvious that they weren't talking about cats at all.

We're not welcome.

 Her fists clenched. What was going on?

She drew in a calm breath, painted a smile on her face, and appeared before her team in a small puff of smoke. "Good afternoon! Are we all ready to head out?" she asked. All the former tension they had rapidly faded as Kiba grinned and slung an arm over Shino's and Sakura's shoulders.

"We've been ready for days," he said. "Me an' Akamaru have never been outside of Fire Country before!"

"Neither have I," Shino commented. He looked to Kiba's other side. "Sakura, have you been in any place other than here and Ame?"

She shook her head. "Not really. With Ame as it is, there are multiple security checks you need to pass both leaving and coming into the village. It's a hassle to move too much."

Kurenai understood her sentiment. Amegakure was highly secretive with a lake surrounding the entirety of the village, not unlike how a moat was to a castle. Rumor was that shinobi who hailed from there were notoriously short-tempered and were a hub for both assassinations and the creation of new techniques. Aside from the refugee and criminal populace, that is. Though harboring a heavy isolationist policy and having near-impenetrable security measures, the only real thing Konoha knew about them was that they were a lower shinobi village with a mysterious leader that fostered trade with Kusagakure, Tanigakure, and Tsuchigumo.

"Well, now's only the beginning, You'll go to many different places throughout your careers as shinobi," said Kurenai. If Hokage-sama ever approved of their progress. "Let's set off, everyone! The sooner we leave, the sooner we get back to start your training for the Chuunin Exams!"

And as the three took the lead down the path towards Wave, she watched them go with promise in her eyes and her back towards Konoha.

Even if there are targets drawn on your backs, I won't let anyone get the chance to aim. I am your sensei, and I will be your shield.

Not even the Hokage can take my duty away from you.

::

And here's a wonderful fanart by ladyizo on tumblr! Check out their blog and the writer168 fanart blog!