Father Figure

Chapter 3: Familiarity

"I hate to send you off so soon after you arrived but if you're gonna stay, you'll have to contribute," the yellow-haired Hokage spoke as he walked around his office, grabbing various files from shelves full of scrolls and portfolios. "I would let you stay without compensation but with mission demands high and very few shinobi to complete them as a result of the recent war, I'm afraid I just can't convince the council to let this one slide."

"I understand, and it's not a problem. I'll help however I can," Naruto answered, standing tall in front of Minato's desk. A bit of that Hokage's Instinct was slipping through after concealing that part of himself for so long. Now, it suited him well, standing tall before his father and offering his assistance.

He'd been in the past for exactly one week. In that time, he'd managed to get away with following his father to work each day without having to complete any work himself. But, he knew, it was just a matter of time. Minato was right--there were very few shinobi available for missions... he'd seen many exhausted men and women returning from missions to be sent immediately on another. Naruto even managed to peek in the missions book and noticed over half of them were still left unchecked, with more coming in each day. It was so different than the mission demands Naruto was used to in his time—a time of relative peace with few mission requests from neighboring lands, a perk to the lack of warfare.

"Your mission is to deliver some medicine to a war amputee in a small village on the outskirts of the Land of Fire. There's detailed information in the file," Minato said as he handed Naruto the yellow folder. "Kakashi will accompany you on the mission to ensure mission completion and evaluate your skills," the Yondaime added as he scratched something down on some file. Naruto nodded to the silver haired nin standing stoically in the corner, face conveniently hidden by the cat-like mask he wore. He'd never seen Kakashi in ANBU uniform yet. It seemed like that porcelain mask turned a switch on in him, going from a lazy, slightly annoying teenager who could care less about procedure to a dutiful and wholly committed soldier. Naruto had ANBU under him in the present and for the first time ever, he wondered what kinds of lives those well-conditioned ANBU lived when they didn't have to conform behind an anonymous porcelain mask.

And, Naruto couldn't help but wonder for a moment what kind of person he might be if he wasn't hiding behind a mask himself. If he could just tell Minato the truth about who he is and how he travelled here by accident from the future with one of Minato's own jutsu...

"I trust you'll fare just fine on your own, it's only a B-rank... but should something go wrong, Kakashi will be shadowing you from a distance and can intervene if necessary."

"Hai," Naruto chimed duteously, nodding before taking the medicine he was supposed to deliver off the Hokage's desk and setting out.

It was a cool day, especially with travelling mostly in the shade. The trees offered relief and shelter from the sun on the blazing hot days but did nothing good on the cold ones. He'd wished for a moment he could draw from Kurama's chakra and get there faster but going into Kyuubi mode would certainly draw suspicions. Damn shadow ANBU... and Kakashi, of all people--the one most suspicious of him. Naruto let out a soft sigh as he continued to leap through the trees at a regular shinobi-like pace.

He arrived as planned at the small village on the border of the Land of Fire and Land of Stone. It was a small labor village with notably few children. Either they were all locked up inside or... he paused for a moment, leaning on a tree and looking upon the dirt streets and a tiny woman carrying buckets of water from a nearby well back to town. No capable men left to do that job... no children, either... It pained Naruto to think about the reality of the situation. Children were prime hostages in war, especially from small villages so close to the border such as this one. Most of the capable men went off to fight, and from a village such as this one, those men were ill-trained. Many not even genin level.