The Way Into Mist Village (Naruto)

17: Pushback

[OP: "Torches"--The Oh Hellos]

The tasks the group did went well for the most part.

They got some very strange looks from the Mist shinobi, and some of them laughed because they thought anyone who did the work of another village was a chump, as Tenten had feared.

The laughing bothered Shikamaru and Ino more than the others, except Sakura, who felt humiliated.

"This is just making them think we're stupid," she told Wally.

"Nah, most of them said they were glad to have help." Wally shrugged it off. "Those people who are laughing at us are just too lazy to help themselves unless someone makes them, or they think it's beneath them. I've met the type. Don't care what they think."

"It's hard to ignore it. We're supposed to make a good impression," Sakura said.

"Sakura, I realize that you've been here for 2 days and already know just exactly how to do our job," Wally said, with more salt than she'd expected of him, "but you're not in charge. I guess you can go back to the house if you don't want to help. But you're kind of holding me up."

Sakura blinked at him and then huffily went back to working.

"I guess he's not as nice as he seems," Ino remarked, handing more tar to Shikamaru (that was what they waterproofed with). 

"Whether we like to or not, complaining about this while we're doing it will only make us look more foolish," Shikamaru sighed.

"Dumb Leaf can't even do a roof right," one of the Mist on the ground said, encouraged by them not responding to what was said. 

These people were not even in the shinobi force, judging by them not having headbands on, which probably said a lot.

Sai hadn't been listening to everything they said because he didn't recognize it as humiliating and really wasn't listening at all.

Seeing that he was ignoring them, one of the bullies picked up a piece of shingle that had fallen off the roof and tossed it at him.

"Did you hear me, Leaf?" they called.

Sai tripped a little, since it hit him in the leg, and nearly fell forward, but Shikamaru stopped him using his shadow possession jutsu.

Ino sprang to the edge and pulled Sai back on balance so that Shikamaru could let go, since it was hard to hold onto that position for long.

"Hey, that wasn't funny," she called at the bully indignantly. "Someone could get hurt if you do that."

Shikamaru let go of the jutsu, and Sai gave a start of surprise too late.

Camie noticed what happened. Bakugo and Kankuro weren't that far away; the person who needed help cleaning the fish was just by the dock and so was this building... It was a new fish shop probably. 

"Bae--" Camie was carefully helping carry materials without touching anything that would stick to her. "--check out that guy on their 10 o'clock."

Bakugo looked up.

"Someone's trying to start trouble," Kankuro noted. "Not everyone here is happy about outsiders seeing the village. I guess they want us to know that. But we shouldn't react, since Lady Mei will not want to have trouble."

"We were just helping you fix the roof," the bully said to Ino snidely. "What kind of shinobi are you anyway?"

"Me? I'm a mind jutsu user," Ino said , hoping that would make them back off.

If they were smart, it would have, but apparently not.

"A mind jutsu user? That's not useful doing real work--of course a girl would be that. Leaf doesn't have any powerful female Kunoichi," they said snidely.