Kakashi stayed quiet as Sakura and Sasuke conversed. He wasn't too keen on voicing out his opinion, because frankly, he didn't have anything to say. Naruto seemed irritated, but Kakashi knew Naruto would get over it. Always. Naruto never knew how to keep a grudge, but what bothered Kakashi was the tone of voice Naruto used. He even had a look of disturbance as he felt the stare of Sakura.

He knew for a fact that Naruto didn't like people staring at him. For what reason, he didn't know.

"Kakashi-Sensei, do you think he's mad at me?" Sakura asked. Kakashi's attention was then directed to the cherry blossom of Team Seven, yet to bloom.

He seemed to be thinking about it as he tilted his chin up only slightly. He decided to answer, "I don't think so. For as long as I could remember, he was never one to hold a grudge."

Sakura tilted her head. "As long as you could remember?"

She thought about it for a brief moment. "Kakashi are you saying that you knew him for that long?" she asked, while she furrowed her eyebrows. She was quite interested in the subject, she's been wondering about this for a while. 

"Well, long story short, I knew him as an infant until now," he said. 

Sakura blinked a couple of times. "What, really?" she asked in disbelief.

Kakashi thought back to the moment he kept guard on Naruto's mother. Watching her and Minato interact as she was pregnant with Naruto. It was nostalgic, thinking back to those days. "Yes," he said nonchalantly.

Sakura wondered why he took so long to answer but decided not to ask. She knew that it was none of her business and she knew the limits of privacy. Other than that particular reason, she knew Kakashi well enough to understand he was just being himself. That was the easiest way to put it. Sakura walked in silence, deep in her thoughts. When the wind finally reached her hair she breathed in and out. It was quite a refreshing feeling when one was outside after a while.

Though the refreshing feeling and smell of grass were ruined by the smell of alcohol. It wasn't the best smell. Another thing that caught her attention was the elder voice that was speaking groggily towards someone. Someone being-- "Naruto, what's going on here?"

Naruto's attention averted lazily and effortlessly towards the small group behind him. Naruto seemed to ignore his question as he stared blankly at Sasuke and Sakura. That action confused Sakura and Kakashi. Kakashi was not interested, merely curious. Sasuke wasn't close to interested in the conversation.

He didn't need any further unnecessary interactions.

They had all stood beside each other by the time the man spoke up. Naruto was between Sakura and Sasuke and noticed one thing, the man was right.

"I told you. You are extremely short, kid," the man repeated himself, making all the others understand. For some reason, Sakura and Sasuke had to be curious. They seemed to look down at him, noticing the boy was quite short.

"So it seems," the blonde pre-teen said, looking quite drained by the conversation. He wasn't looking forward to this trip. I am hoping it will be a short trip as it is supposed to be.

As they spoke about the missions rather minimal amount of details, Naruto began to feel bored. "Leaving already," the silver-haired ninja said, clearly amused. He always seemed to be amused when something irritated Naruto. The boy did not like that one bit, but then again, he has the same habit. He just doesn't show his amusement most of the time.

"I am leaving. They can take their sweet time as they pack, but I will be leaving straight away," he said plainly. He didn't seem to hold any emotion in the words he had spoken. A sign that there was definitely something bothering him or it could be that he's just bored again. Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "You think it's a bit suspicious as well, don't you?"

Naruto nodded briefly. "Yes, there is something he has not told us..." he paused as he turned to leave, "...and I am going to find out."

With that being said, the young boy left. Kakashi sighed at this. He knew that Naruto would have this problem as well. Thinking that he would do things on his own and that he didn't need anybody's help. It wasn't necessarily that he didn't need help, but he thought of everyone's safety when he left. He knew something would happen, so he left to take care of any threats to his new teammates. It was a good trait, but it would get him in trouble as well.

"Well, I guess I can't do anything much about that," he said, slowly walking back to the other kids he had to practically babysit. Maybe it was an exaggeration, but he just felt like that at the moment.

"Right, you should be leaving soon to pack. We're leaving today itself," Kakashi said once they were done with discussions.

Soon after they left just as said, surprisingly with no arguments. Without Sakura being annoyed by someone and Sasuke being his brooding self, they were pretty quiet. It was a surprise that they didn't notice Naruto was gone. That's a mystery that I don't really care about.

[-]

"Where are they?" Sakura asked in irritation. She sighed in frustration. They had finished packing quite a while ago and it didn't take much time either. It was a short trip after all. They just needed to be alert, that was the only challenge. It was a seemingly simple mission, keeping the man safe, but Sakura had a weird feeling about this mission. Otherwise, she wouldn't have had to worry about it, but she felt like something was wrong.

She looked beside her to see a blank expression on the dark blue haired pre-teen. I don't know about Sasuke, though. She kept another sigh in this time.

There was no use in getting upset over stupid stuff.

After a while, she finally saw Kakashi walking like nothing was done wrong. Or he didn't quite care. Tazuna, behind him. She thought him being late was just temporary, but she noticed that it was a habit. A habit she didn't like at all.

After a painfully obvious lie of an excuse, they stalked to their destination. The two older men were just about to step out of the boundaries of the gate but soon stopped. "Wait. Where is Naruto?" Sakura asked, looking around for the said boy.

"Oh, don't worry about him," Kakashi said, oddly enough, cheerfully. 

"What do you mean by that?" Sasuke narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

Kakashi gestured to the forest ahead of them, which they would soon be surrounded by. "He left already," he said, still having a cheerful look on his face. Sasuke glanced at his Sensei, interested by this new revelation.

"What?" Sakura asked, confused.

Tazuna seemed to be having a good laugh at the front. "That kid is a weird one."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow as he finally spoke, "Why?"

What is that idiot doing? The mission is to protect someone while taking him to the Village of Waves. He's planning something or he stupidly didn't leave after all.

"Said something about being bored," Kakashi said as he glanced at the laughing bridge builder. Sasuke threw the idea of Naruto having a good reason out the window once hearing that.

"It seems that Mister Tazuna has a few guests," said a blonde haired Jinchuriki as he stayed hidden in the shadows. He had been watching two hidden mist ninjas, whom, ironically, had been watching his fellow team members. He sat effortlessly hidden from the two men. "My energy was wasted, because of these two." He sighed. "I went all the way to look for answers only to follow them back to the Hidden Leaf Village," he said, ruffling his shining blonde hair. He closed his eyes for a brief moment before starting back towards the ninja. "I should not underestimate the potential of trouble they will cause," he said, looking deep in thought, "yet I do not think they will be a threat, too. It is not them I am skeptical about. I am sure Hatake can handle the two easily."

With that being said he decided to keep himself hidden. He didn't feel that it would matter if he was there or not. He still wasn't going to reveal his actual combat skills. As a matter of fact, he actually wanted to see a bit of Sakura's and Sasuke's combat skills.

He managed to follow them for some time to notice that one had disguised himself as a puddle. "Odd," Naruto commented nonchalantly. As always a blank expression on his face. It is an odd tactic. Are they trying to get caught and noticed? There should surely be a plan behind this obvious attempt...?

To Naruto's surprise, it was their plan. He didn't know there were ninjas like those two. He didn't know that he wasn't right this time and was actually over thinking things. Naruto was quite used to being surrounded by skilled individuals. One of the reasons he wasn't comfortable being in a team with inexperienced members, such as Sakura and Sasuke.

It was odd for him to think that was their master plan. "It is a bit disappointing if I must be blunt," Naruto commented as he saw the two being captured. He found himself only commenting while he stayed hidden in the forest trees. It was rather boring now that the men were caught, but he stayed stuck to the tree branch he sat on. He waited patiently and staring blankly at his teams leaving forms.

He stood up, putting his hands in his pockets when he was sure they had left. Swiftly and quickly the blonde jumped off the tree branch and landed lightly on his feet. He stood in front of the two unconscious men. "Wake up," he said lazily yet plainly as well. "They are completely unconscious I see. Fine," Naruto said shrugging, "if I must. I will be using those methods to extract information."

He took his hands out of his pocket and stretched himself. "It has been quite some time since I've done this," he said, forming a poker face.

Meanwhile, as certain events take place with Naruto, the others had quite an interesting conversation themselves. The walk was silent most of the time. Once they found themselves in a boat, they began conversing. Or rather, interrogating the bridge builder known as Tazuna.

"So that's it," Kakashi mumbled under his breath. Looks like Naruto was right. There was something this man had kept hidden.

The man managed to convince them to stay with him, mostly using the guilt card. Speaking about his grandson and daughter who would mourn over his death. The guilt card was quite an ace card indeed.

I win. Tazuna thought with a look of triumph.

"We're here."

The four exited the small boat and stayed as quiet as one would be. They didn't want to catch any unwanted attention. Kakashi squinted his eyes as he saw a figure deeper in the forest. A blob of black, orange and yellow standing calmly staring back at them. "Naruto," Kakashi stated.

"Oh, he finally showed up. Where have you been, shrimp?" asked the elder man bluntly. It didn't seem like the man cared either way though, but he felt like teasing the boy. He was a hard one to anger though, but he could tell that he actually got on the boy's nerves.

The blonde pre-teen stared blankly at the man. He didn't have the effort to put up with the man. He would rather be with those two men, but no, they just had to give up the information that easily. They gave up almost immediately and it wasn't like Naruto enjoyed doing those things to them. He was just disappointed that he had to be with Tazuna again so soon. 

"I had to run an errand, sorry for the inconvenience," he apologized, but one could see he wasn't the least bit sorry. "I got quite the interesting information recently." he turned to face the three capable shinobi. 

"What did you learn?" Kakashi asked, knowing exactly how he got the information and who were the resources of the information. It was a good thing I left them there for Naruto to take care of. I'm worried though, what did he actually do to them?

"Well, to put it in simple terms, the renown businessman man did not just hire anyone. We also have a very dangerous assassin on our hands," Naruto stated in monotone as if there wasn't any danger of being killed, which there was.

"Weird kid," Tazuna perked up.