Genkaku (Naruto fanfic)

Chapter 12: C-ranks

"This is Sasuke, arrived at point B."

"Shizuke here, I'm at point C."

She let out a sigh as the ear piece fell quiet as they waited for their third teammate to confirm his positioning. 

"This is Naruto, arrived at point A!" The overenthusiastic and slightly too loud voice crackled in her ear.

"You're slow Naruto." Kakashi commented plainly. "Okay seventh unit the target has moved. After it!"

At the go ahead from our sensei she carefully moved closer to their target, footsteps crunching ever so softly over the dry forest floor. Shizuka's eyes were locked in on the brown furred creature as she moved from the cover of one tree trunk towards the next, vaguely taking notice of her teammates doing the same out of the corner of her eyes.

She had to bite her lip to refrain from laughing at how serious they were taking this.

"There it is!" Naruto whisper shouted as he pointed behind a small bush.

Sasuke's head poked out from behind a thick tree behind the target, a determined look on his face as he slowly inched closer.

"What's the distance to the target?" Kakashi asked over the earpieces.

"Five meters. I'm ready to go dattebayo."

"Hn I am too."

"Me too."

"Okay, go!"

As soon as they got the go ahead, the three of them simultaneously shot out of their hiding places (with different levels of noise) towards the oblivious target. Naruto, being the closest, dove upon it, tightly grasping on to dark fur as the animal retaliated viciously, scratching its paws against the boy's face.

"I got it!" He cackled madly, swinging the cat around in a circle much to the animal's displeasure.

That's right. Their mission was locating and acquiring a missing cat. Though she couldn't really complain as this was the most exciting and shinobi-like thing they'd done so far. Besides that, after her recent outburst, the boys had seemed to be just a bit better behaved around her.

"Does it have a ribbon on its right ear? Is it our target, Tora?" Kakashi's voice sounded slightly staticky over the headset.

"Affirmative. It's definitely the target." Sasuke answered as he casually strolled towards the blonde.

Yeah, they were taking this whole thing entirely too serious.

"Okay, Operation Capture Tora the Lost Pet complete."

"ISN'T THERE A MORE EXCITING MISSION WE CAN WORK ON?! I HATE CATS!"

Shizuka cringed violently as her ear drums were nearly blown out as she sent Naruto a withering glare in response to which he apologetically shrugged with a sheepish expression.

~~~

"Oh my cute Tora-chan, I was so worried about you!"

A rather well off seeming lady, judging from the fine silk she was wearing, squashed the poor cat tightly against her voluptuous bosom. Shizuka watched on solemnly as she understood why it had ran away in the first place.

While she was definitely on Team Dogs, she admittedly felt bad for the poor thing. 

"Ha!" Naruto cackles as he turns up his (scratched up) nose "That cat's getting what he deserves! No wonder he ran away."

Her ears were still ringing uncomfortable and she briefly wondered whether her overenthusiastic teammate had given her permanent hearing damage.

They waited for the lady to hand over the payment to the Hokage before the stately woman pranced out of the room without sparing another look, or a thank you for that matter, at the genin.