Kusari no Naruto

Fifth Link

Naruto, or Karasu, as he was increasingly identifying with, sat on a tree branch. His leg swung back and forth lazily. He swayed his Chains beneath him like some glowing golden chandelier, endlessly delighting Kuma as the massive man stood beneath, batting the swaying chains like a kitten might a piece of string. Really, the man's childishness was unbelievable, especially considering his ungodly strength. While waiting for half their squad to report back to their desolate location Naruto had little else to do.

Thankfully his silent pleas were answered as Saru, Tako and Nezumi all flickered into the surrounding trees. Naruto immediately, much to Kuma's distress, stopped what he was doing and snapped the chains back into his body like noodles being slurped up. The other three members of the squad stared at the two silently for a few moments before subtly shaking their head and ignoring it. That was good, because Naruto didn't particularly want to explain himself.

"So what's the damage?" Before Naruto knew what hit him something fast and powerful hit him right in the forehead; if he didn't have his mask on he was sure that would have hurt. He looked over and just caught Saru's fingers coming out of a flicking motion which was probably connected to the small pebble now lying at the blond's feet. "…Taichou."

Saru nodded happily but wasn't the one to speak, Tako took that honour.

"We scouted out the camps; seems the reports were accurate so far." The team was out here because Konoha had been getting increasing reports of oddly organised bandit raids on nearby towns. It almost reminded Naruto of his first mission out of the village. However these were confirmed to have some kind of Shinobi, or former-Shinobi influence behind them. The bandits weren't just organised, they were trained. Weaker than most genin they might have been, but with that many, quite possibly numbering in the hundreds, they were a threat.

"So did you find the leader?" There had been sightings of at least one man using high-powered Jutsu during a few raids and less confirmed sightings of a group of less powerful people displaying Shinobi-like abilities.

"They have… tents."

Tako nodded, quickly taking over from Nezumi again lest the briefing drag on into the night.

"A lot of them; it would be difficult for even me to search through them all without being spotted at least once, and we can't afford to tip them off to our presence just yet."

Naruto growled as he dropped out of the tree, looking remarkably like a monkey as a chain emerged from his tailbone to swing him to the floor.

"Why don't we just wipe them all out, like before?" A valid question; their team comprised of a lot of firepower even if it wasn't in the form of wide-spread or flashy Jutsu, things that tended to be frowned upon in the corp.

"Because Karasu…" Saru punctuated his statement by slapping Naruto on the back of his head before the boy could react "…we have a confirmed leader this time. If we tip him off and he escapes, then this will all simply repeat again in the future." Naruto just grinned; then they just didn't have to let anybody escape.

"Wouldn't that just mean repeat business for us… Taichou?" Konoha was after all, a rather glorified mercenary group, as all Ninja were. Saru just looked like he wanted to hit the boy again.

"Konoha isn't like that," he stressed. "Plus we would lose faith with the clients," he added as an afterthought.

"Whatever, so what do we do?" Despite being at the level he could be rotated between ANBU cells, most of what he did was still a learning experience for Naruto. As much as he loathed to admit it, Saru was the teacher he had never really had. Hells, as far as Naruto was concerned, the man knew practically everything.