Kaze No Kokoro (Naruto fanfic)

Competition

Several days had past, each filled with D-rank missions during the day and, for Midori, reading and writing lessons at night. The first two days Midori had tried to help Naruto, during missions, as much as she could, but the blond seemed to dislike it so she stopped. The girl did always make sure to keep a close eye on him in case he were to put himself in any serious danger.

That morning they were, once again, waiting for Kakashi to wake up. "Midori-chan why can't you just drag him with you when you come, you're always on time." Sasuke and Sakura nodded at that. Midori looked at them blankly for a second before answering.

"He's too heavy."

With that her attention drifted elsewhere while her team bickered. 'People are approaching Konoha.' But before she could focus, and find out who, Kakashi arrived. This time saying he got lost. 'Why does he even try making an excuse.' Midori thought.

"Hey, hey, Kakashi-sensei! We, team 7 have been only doing easy missions, right? Isn't there a mission where I can play an active role, and something that's more... exciting? Something that makes my 'way of the ninja' you know, and my heart you know, like this?" Naruto was burning with desire and Midori was trying to keep a straight face as she wondered how Kakashi was going to talk himself out of this one.

"Oh, I see, I see. I see what you're trying to get at." Naruto then turned to Sasuke with a burning glare. 'Damn it. This guy tries to get me indebted to him during missions and takes away all the good parts. I'm not going to lose to you.' Midori sighed. 'Ah~, now I'm somewhat glad I stopped trying to help him.'

Naruto seemed to be off in his thoughts when Kakashi snapped him out of it. "Hey, Naruto, what are you doing? We have a mission." The bickering didn't stop until they got there, then they were... pulling out weeds, exciting stuff, in silence. Naruto, wanting to one-up Sasuke, started pulling out everything green. "Ah, Naruto, that's..." "Please don't disturb me, Midori-chan. I have to focus on the mission." With a sigh the girl went back to the task.

When Naruto was done he had made a big pile of plants. Then the owner came out, Naruto got yelled at, and they went on to the next mission, cleaning a river.

Before long Naruto slipped and fell. He got saved by Sasuke before he could fall over the waterfall. Midori had tried to help the blond as well, but Sasuke was closer so she had gotten her scarf drenched for nothing. She sighed, trying to wring it out on the side of the river when Kakashi spoke.

"Midori, you should really take it off, you'll get a cold like that." Midori looked down before looking towards her teammates, they turned around, trying to be subtle about it. 'Ah~, having a team feels like this. It's nice.' She took off the scarf and gave it to Kakashi, who teleported home and back, putting it away. Midori felt slightly... naked, but her team made her feel brave. Maybe, just maybe, she'd be fine without it. Atleast for today.

The next mission was walking dogs. Naruto just had to go for the biggest one, didn't he. Midori was trying to get Kakashi to tell her what he'd been reading, the jounin was being very secretive about it, as Naruto was getting dragged away by his charge. The sudden explosions made Midori jump covering her ears, wincing. "Ah! See what you did Naruto! You even made Midori's ears hurt!" Sakura said. Naruto looked slightly guilty at that. "Sorry, Midori-chan" the brunette assured him it was fine, though.

They were walking through one of the quieter roads of Konoha. "This is what you get for being reckless." Sakura said. "You're a guy that needs help all the time." At Sasuke's words, Naruto lost it, only getting stopped by Sakura.
"The teamwork is out of order lately." Kakashi sighed. "Yeah! And you're the one who disrupts our teamwork, Sasuke! You always stick your nose into everything."
"That's you, idiot. If you don't want to owe me anything... become stronger than me."