Descent of the Dragon ~ A Naruto Fanfic (On Hold)

Chapter 3

^Another pic of Kai. 

Kai's POV:

"Don't. Ever. Ask me to do that again." I kicked a pebble lying in the middle of the road, watching with satisfaction as it nailed a signboard. Shiro and I were on the way back from a babysitting assignment, and for me it had been a nightmare. 

As soon as we'd arrived at the daycare I'd been surrounded by kids in the blink of an eye. And when I turned around all the workers had disappeared, so I was on my own. Spending half a day trying to keep those hyperactive brats calm and entertained was more exhausting than the rest of my life combined.

"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad. Didn't you make a bunch of new friends?" It may have sounded like Shiro was trying to cheer me up, but I knew better. My suffering amused her.

"Easy for you to say, traitor." I glared at her in mock anger. "You abandoned me too. What happened to that teamwork Kakashi was going on about?"

Shiro grinned, unashamed. "You were doing such a good job. I'd hate to interrupt."

"Oh shut up." I'd forgotten while she was disguised as a cat, but this was Shiro's true nature. Just as irritating as she is fun to be around.

Shiro and I kept bickering until we reached the room where teams were assigned and turned in their missions, but were struck speechless once we saw the situation inside.

A cat with a ribbon on its right ear was wailing in agony as a fat woman hugged it to death, rubbing her cheek against the struggling cat's fur. Team 7 stood a short distance away, sweatdropping as they watched the scene. Naruto still had several claw marks on his face, but even he looked sorry for the poor animal.

I sighed--feels like I've been doing that a lot lately--and walked over to the others. "I'm guessing you're the ones who caught that cat?"

"Yeah...." Sakura's reply lacked energy, like she didn't want to admit the part she'd played in this tragedy.

"Don't pets have any rights around here?" Shiro was trembling, no doubt picturing herself in the poor animal's place. She probably wouldn't be transforming for a while.

The Hokage didn't pay any attention to the cat's plight as he went on with his job. "Now, the next assignment for Kakashi's team will be...Hmm...to run errands to the neighboring village....to help dig sweet potatoes..."

"No way!! No thank you~!! Borrring!!" Naruto crossed his arms, forming an X. "Give us something different to do. Something important! Something amazing! Not more of this small stuff. Can't we get some action?!!"

For once I agreed with the idiot, and the rest of my classmates seemed to feel the same way. We were all tired of the grunt work. Kakashi looked like he wanted to stop Naruto, but he was probably tired of these boring tasks too.

"Apparently Naruto needs an explanation of how these duties work." The old man launched into an explanation of mission rankings and how they work, but Naruto wasn't listening. "Let's see, I had pork ramen yesterday....so I'll have miso ramen today."

Kakashi scratched his head apologetically. "I'm sorry Lord Hokage.."

"I don't want to hear it!" Naruto cut our sensei off. "All the old fart ever does is apologize and give me a lecture. But it's not fair. There's more to me than the troublemaking screw-up the old man thinks I am!"

The Third Hokage and Iruka looked thoughtful after Naruto said his piece. The old man took a deep breath from his pipe. "Very well. Since you put it that way, I will permit you to attempt a C-ranked task usually reserved for chunin. The protection of a certain individual."