Return of the Flash by Kamikaze132

Chapter 19

The week after the invasion was as Naruto expected. Everyone became busy in clean up duty. The damage to Konoha was considerable, so all the genin teams were under their sensei's supervision and working alongside civilians to rebuild and restore certain areas that were hit harder than the most. One thing that Naruto noticed was that the rookies and their senseis mostly stayed together in a close radius- most probably the senseis' way of giving them all some sort of comfort.

Now that Naruto stood at the gates of Konoha, he reflected on the past week and all that happened as he about to embark on his first S-rank mission. Each day, something new and strange happened. Either way, boredom was avoided and excitement was maintained.

Flashback

Tuesday

All the genin teams along with their senseis were standing in the Hokage's office, waiting for their orders. Naruto found it strange that Kakashi had himself come to wake him up at six o' clock in the morning. He had told him to get ready and meet him at the entrance to the Hokage tower in fifteen minutes. He had disappeared after that.

Since it was morning, and Naruto had figured that everyone would be resting considering what had happened yesterday, it took a few seconds for him to register Kakashi's message, and he found several disturbances.

First, he had never, ever seen Kakashi this early in the morning. The man had a knack for being late to almost everything. He would always tell them to report at the training grounds around five or six in the morning, but he would keep them waiting for a grand total of three hours, every time.

Second, Kakashi never told them to hurry anything up. In fact, the longer they took to complete a mission, the better. Mostly because he wanted to read his porn, but it also might be because of the man's lazy attitude in general. Naruto had almost believed that the man was someone who was impersonating Kakashi, until Kurama pointed out that it was impossible for a shinobi to impersonate the chakra signature of another shinobi.

Naruto had reluctantly conceded to the point and had gotten dressed as usual. He proceeded to the destination via rooftops, noting grimly the amount of destruction the invading armies had caused, even though Konoha had won in the end.

As the tower came into view, he was surprised to note that all the rookie teams were standing there as well, along with their senseis. As he landed before them, all the attention was turned to him. Naruto had shifted self-consciously at how all of them were looking at him, as if he was someone else entirely. Deciding to save himself the awkwardness, he greeted them.

"Yo! What's up?"

That was all that came out of his mouth. He really didn't have much to say, honestly. The first one to react was Shikamaru. "What a drag. He is way too chirpy for the morning," he muttered, slumped as usual.

Naruto shrugged the comment aside and looked for any sign of his teammates. There was none. Approaching Asuma, he asked, "Asuma-sensei, have you seen Kakashi-sensei around? He came over to wake me up, which is kind of strange for him."

Asuma took a drag of his cigarette and blew it out, saying, "I did see Kakashi a while ago. Don't worry, Naruto. We are assembled due to the Hokage's orders. He has to show up; Hokage personally threatened him with his book collection if he did not."

Naruto whistled in appreciation. Not every day the copy ninja with his porn book collection. He went to stand beside Chouji, who was looking more cheerful than his friend. Leaning against the wall, he waited for his team. Chouji pushed the bag of potato chips towards Naruto. "Yo Naruto! Want some?"