Along Came a Spider

Chapter 3

Hokage's Office, One Week Later

Hiruzen let out a tired sigh as he read over one of the countless mission scrolls that were now stacked upon his large desk, separated in two separate piles. All of which pertained to the missions completed by Team 7. On one side, were the reports given to him by Kakashi Hatake. The other, client testimonies of how the team performed their given tasks, with ANBU Neko 'encouraging' all the clients to be unbiased in their assessments.

Needless to say, Hiruzen was deeply disappointed in Hatake.

It was evident upon comparing the two reports of the teams earlier missions, that the masked Jonin downplayed the teenage Uzumaki's contribution towards the mission while elevating, and in some cases, exaggerating the Uchiha's own work ethic. The particular mission scroll from one of the few clients that didn't need any coercion from Neko had gone into detail as to how the Uchiha had nearly destroyed his garden, due to Sasuke's inability to tell the difference between crop and weed. While the Uzumaki worked diligently to repair the damages the Uchiha had caused.

A stark contrast to Kakashi's own report that blamed Naruto for the damage, and had even gone as far as to dock the genin's cut of the mission payout. Something that Hiruzen would notice would become a reoccurring theme with each and every mission scroll, much to the elder mans regret as he allowed it to happen, trusting his Shinobi to be truthful in their reports.

Each and every scroll, it was the same thing. The Uchiha would do something to upset the client, Naruto would repair the damage his teammate did, and Kakashi would report the missions completion while chastising Naruto, and heaping praise upon the Uchiha before docking Naruto's cut of the payout.

'Seems I will need to reimburse Naruto-kun for his wrongful pay cuts.' Hiruzen sighed, setting down the latest mission scroll in it's designated pile. 'And it looks like I will need to have a long discussion with Hatake about his actions and blatant favoritism.'

The elder village leader then picked a large scroll that held the testimonies of Tazuna, Tsunami, and the rest of the villagers that resided within Nami no Kuni. Mentally preparing himself for what was to come. He already knew Kakashi's version, of how Naruto disobeyed direct orders, endangering the mission, and risking his team mates, namely Sasuke's, lives.

As expected, the client's report heavily differed from the report Kakashi had given. Tazuna had praised the blonde for putting himself in harms way to protect not only the 'Super' bridge builder, but also his team mate, Sakura, when one of the Demon Brothers had gotten away from Sasuke and charged towards the two. Naruto, with his quick thinking, had replaced himself with Sakura and took a puncture wound to the palm of his hand from the spiked gauntlet that had been laced with poison. Before knocking out his assailant.

Tazuna's report then recounted the events during the teams first encounter with Zabuza, and how Kakashi had gotten himself captured by Zabuza, something the masked Jonin had seemingly 'forgot' to include in his own report, and how once again; albeit with a little help from the Uchiha, Naruto had devised an ingenues plan to free the silver haired Jonin from the water prison Zabuza had the man trapped in.

The next part of the scroll depicted the teams time spent at the bridge builder's home, clearly written by the mans daughter, Tsunami. The young woman wrote that during the teams stay at their home, Kakashi would be apathetic to their hospitality, while both Sakura and Sasuke would be down right rude to their hostess, the latter making demands when something wasn't to his liking. Lastly, there was Naruto. The only one on the team that went out of his way to thank Tsunami for her time and effort, and even helped the young widow around the house.