𝙇𝘼𝙑𝙀𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙍. | 𝗡𝗔𝗥𝗨𝗧𝗢

XVII

RIKI was finally back in the Leaf Village.

Well, she had been for the past three weeks. On their first day back Sasuke, Riki, Naruto and Sakura were all forced to go and talk to therapists in the Torture and Interrogation department of Konoha. And she was so shaken by the sight of dead bodies and how she had seen Kakashi's hand inside Haku's chest that she ended up crying to Inoichi five minutes into her session, though she'd rather not talk about that.

Riki stood on a small bridge that towered over an even smaller stream, Sasuke to her left, and Sakura to her right. Naruto stood in the middle of the bridge, tapping his feet as they all waited for their sensei. It was 10 am, and they had been waiting for 2 whole hours. Riki sighed as she recalled her lack of sleep and coffee.

But, as if on cue, Sakura and Naruto shouted out. "You're late!" they're both shouted at their sensei, who had creeped up on them. They hadn't even seen him approaching, as usual

Kakashi cleared his throat. "Today I got lost on the path of—"

"—You liar!" Naruto and Sakura shouted in unison.

Kakashi walked closer to them, watching as Naruto bounce with excitement. "Hey, Kakashi sensei? Will we be finally doing something cool?"

"That depends on what you mean by that. If you mean our regular missions, then yes," Kakashi answered.

"Aw," Naruto muttered dejectedly. "I want to do something fun . . . Can't we do something to engage ourselves more, take a mission to, y'know, engage my Way of Ninja?"

And how did that go the last time? It nearly go them murdered, Riki thought.

"I get what you're trying to say . . . " Kakashi assured lamely.

Naruto turned around to face Sasuke, glaring at him. He raised his fists at him as if to wage a silent war against him. Riki and Sakura looked between the two, annoyed.

"Well! Let's get going!" Kakashi cheered rather dryly, walking ahead. His students followed slowly behind him.

"Why's Naruto just standing there?" Sakura asked, earning a shrug from Riki.

"Oi, Naruto! What're you doing? We're going on our mission!"

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Now, the team of genin were on their first D-rank mission of the day—plucking weeds from a garden. An old lady had requested it, seeing as she lived alone as was far too old (or lazy) to do it herself.

Sakura, Riki and Sasuke were all scattered about the field, crouching on their toes as the pulled out small weeds from the lady's garden. Naruto however, had gotten the amazing idea of pulling out all that lady's plants out, including the weeds and herbs, as he tried to outdo Sasuke.

However, when the old lady found out, she didn't seem very pleased.

"Hey, Mrs!" Naruto called out to the lady, running up to her. A big pile of all her herbs lay before her. "I cleaned out all the weeds! All by myself!"

Naruto stated at the lady confidently, only seeing there was something wrong when the lady began to grimace.

"What weeds?" she questioned Naruto.

"Huh? What's wrong?"

"Those are herbs that I've been growing in my garden, and you ripped them all out!" the lady hollered in fury, wacking Naruto on his head.