Chapter 4: Of Kenjutsu and Adaptation 1/4

Disclaimer : Why do I still have this part? I don't even own my own bed, why would you think I own Naruto?

Rating : T at least for bad language and some violence at the moment. Will be starting to climb in violent content and various types of naughtiness from here on out, so watch for the M rating popping up.

Author's Note : So this part is covering one year of the time between the Second and Third Great Shinobi Wars now that my SI, who really isn't an SI but an OC cause kami-sama knows she's better (or worse) than me, is on her way to being a great kunoichi assassin if not even a remotely sane individual. There is an ass load of history, facts of life in a ninja village, some speculation on cannon events that may or may not be true, and psychology knowledge covered by this, but we're setting up the mind sets and situations and getting that shit out of the way for the epic-ness that is the main part of this story to happen the part after next. Supposedly. Don't worry, Natsumi's still cracking perverted jokes at other peoples' expenses and giggling hysterically over their reactions at the same time as meddling in the cannon part of the previous storyline to knock it even further off track. For those of you who want to know about Sakumo's eventual fate… it's in the next one. I think. Which might be delayed in posting because I'm moving again, and I won't know where and when exactly until a week from now. Joy.

Part Four: Of Kenjutsu and Adaptation

Human nature would hold whoever could kill the other had the right morals to enforce their view above others, end of story. Examples would be the Holy Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the World Wars, ect…

Modern society holds that debate and reasonable arguments will prove a set of morals right above another's… eventually. Subject to change on the whims of popular view when 'new' evidence brought to light.

… I think we may be royally screwed.

Her taicho had knocked up his girlfriend when she had been gone from the village and taking the Chūnin Exams.

Hatake Kakashi was a whoops baby.

Natsumi fell to her knees, clutching her aching ribs and trying to breathe between gales of laughter that would not stop. She dimly realized that was exactly why her kenjutsu master had told her to put the bokken down before he told her his news.

Sakumo rolled his eyes at her.

"Yeah, yeah. Gaki. Laugh it up, I see now just how much you care for me." The silver haired shinobi rubbed his face as his apprentice tried to recover from that news being dropped on her. He wasn't really all that annoyed with either the young assassin or the situation, as the Hatake clan did have to be continued sometime, but it was still kind of embarrassing to be forced to admit to your student that you got your girlfriend pregnant and would be juggling a newborn while he taught her in half a year or so.

"Sorry, t-taicho. Reall-ly." The assassin gasped between giggles, peering up at him through watering eyes and unable to do anything with the smirk on her face that gave the lie of her apology away. "Just... I-I would've expected that-t from sensei, not y-you."

The only living member of the Hatake clan, for the moment, groaned in acute pain as he was reminded of his best friend and what he was likely to do with that information. He joined her on the ground as he let his knees give out and landed in a heap on the floor of his family dojo. "He's never going to let me live this down."

The civilian lady Sakumo was seeing was pretty nice, really. Sweet tempered and a girl-next-door kind of beauty, Yamamoto Eri worked in the marketplace near the clan compound district. That was how her old ANBU captain had met her. Natsumi had finally met her face to face not too long ago, after the older looking man had caught her out following them for a laugh. Eri had just laughed herself at the kunoichi after the relation between the two ninja had been cleared up and the reason for the stalking given, handing the misplaced former soldier an apple from the basket she had been holding her groceries in.

Natsumi had flat out ignored Minato's snickering later when she told him why she was bugging him so early that day and what had been up with the fruit.

Eri was awesome.

She was typical of a civilian of Konohagakure too, which is to say a bit more forthright than anyone that lived outside the village gates. Having no qualm in pointing out to the killer that lived down the road from them that they're tracking blood all over the place, would they please clean it up before anyone slipped?

The civilians of Konoha had the right to be that brash, they frequently dealt with people that could set fire to their homes with an exhale and pin a fly to a wall with a sharp piece of metal you wouldn't ever spot on one. They also married shinobi and into ninja clans, though that was rare in the noble clans, and had friends, husbands, and wives that were missing a good number of days out of the year. They ignored it if you entered your apartment or home in the dead of night and when the blood trail lead up to and into your open window; simply putting the keys, which only the civilians ever got around to using, you gave them so they could water your plants and care for your pets under the doormat so you could get it back later when you finally woke up.

A good thing shinobi only trapped the rooms they didn't normally keep weapons on them in unless they were beyond paranoid, just the bathroom and the bedroom were generally lethal if you tried to waltz straight into one.

The civilians of Konohagakure no Sato were treated better than the civilians in any of the other great shinobi nations, and they knew it.

An entire faction of one of the founding noble shinobi clans of the Leaf was tasked with keeping them safe from both outside threats and the ninja that walked the streets with them, so that fact of life was hard to deny. A lot better than Kumo, from what little she saw of it that one time her ANBU squad had a target in the hidden village itself.

It was also kind of hard not to get confidant when you knew the shinobi you were talking to in the first place. He would be that boy from the family across the street that used to play with you or your own children, or that girl who would always greet you nicely when on her way to the academy.

There also were the legions of D-rank missions that were done every day for them.

It was common for civilians to take a small amount of money and an issue they had or a request to the Genin Corps, which dealt with all D-ranked missions within the village if the missions were not needed by the jōnin sensei currently teaching new teams of jōnin candidates.

The Genin Corps, made up of all the ninjas who would probably never see combat missions or anything outside of Fire Country's boarders and had next to no jutsus above D to use themselves, were really what the civilians were used to dealing with. They made up about forty to sixty percent of the shinobi ranks of Konohagakure at any given time, ninjas that weren't expected to stay in the corps for any more than five to ten years before retiring to raise the next generation.

They were the messenger ninja you saw darting from roof to roof, the ones that cleared up the training fields so any stray weapons, traps, or sealing tags wouldn't kill someone, and the ones that continued to complete the D-ranks so the next group of jōnin candidate genin could take them when it was their turn.

D-rank missions were also the bane of all jōnin-sensei, because of the mind numbing, boring, and tedious work of keeping three preteen genin on task and not goofing off when given a mission to weed a garden or fetch some elder's groceries for them.

Those were the missions used to get new ninjas used to reaching for their chakra to ease more strength out of muscles or speed to their feet, to give them skills they might need on later missions to support themselves when undercover, to build teamwork when one genin was better at something than another. Those missions also ensured that the civilians wouldn't shy away from these new assassins and killers that could destroy a good portion of the village on a whim, since civilians had known said murderers when they had been young enough not to have all that blood on their hands.

Bingo books weren't just for shinobi, after all. Civilians had to know who to avoid the hell out of when outside the walls too… and whose name they could try to use to scare off bandits.

It was social behavioral control at its finest. The civilians that saw you grow up and you spoke to everyday expected you to act like a proper human being regardless of what you did outside the walls, so the shinobi tried to act like proper human beings when inside the great wall that shielded the village. There always would be those few that couldn't, Maito Gai was one name that came to her mind, but it would usually be excused because they came off to civilians like any batty eccentric would.

Nutty but still nice, at least to their comrades in arms and inside the village.

Natsumi breathed deeply a few times, trying to get that sore feeling of laughing too hard out of her ribs. Since they were cracked anyways from their last training session, she probably shouldn't have let herself laugh so much. Tsunade was going to throw a fit at her the next time she saw the Slug Princess. "Propose? There really isn't much else I can think of."

"I guessed that myself, thanks."

"You'll be a great father, taicho. I'll help you and Eri-san out too." The assassin sat up and patted the man on the knee. "So long as you don't try to emulate sensei anymore, I think your kid's going to turn out fine."

"Hey!" Sakumo glared at the cheerful ghost eyed ANBU agent, finally huffing and gesturing for her to get up. "If you're done having a laugh at my expense, let's get to work."

Natsumi grinned at him and darted to where she had set down her bokken.

\V/

"Why do you always grab me to shop with?"

"Cause you hate it just as much as I do. I'm sharing the misery, Shikaku-kun." Natsumi winked back at him, smirking at the flat look the Nara heir was aiming at the back of her head. "Besides, you're a better judge of quality, and this way your kaa-san stops asking you to do chores for her so we don't have to listen to you gripe about it later."

The shadow master slouched even further, and the assassin was sure he would be glowering if he cared any less for what they were doing. "Why not just do as Fugaku-san does? Send a gift of whatever throwing weapons a person favors."

She rolled her mismatched eyes as she tugged him down another street. "Because Fugaku-sama has no imagination. It's Minato-kun's birthday, not the anniversary of his last promotion."

Shikaku finally cracked a lazy smirk. "Insulting and helpful, I like it."

"Of course you do. Two birds, meet one stone." Natsumi sniffed haughty as she stopped to check a window display. "I'm highly tempted to let Mikoto-chan borrow my bladed hair sticks for her wedding just so she can stab him when he's being too uptight Uchiha on her. Especially if the two of them are going to force the rest of us into attending a formal wedding with some of the biggest snobs in the village."

The dark haired and tanned teen standing next to her as she scoped out store windows cocked his head to the side curiously. "Borrow?" The assassin had stressed that one word strangely, almost in a sing song kind of tone.

"Yeah. You know; something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue?"

"Can't say I've ever heard it before." Shikaku frowned, looking off in the distance and probably trying to place that quote in his head.

"Huh, and here I thought that ancient tradition would never die." Natsumi tapped her fingers against the glass she was looking though. "How about that?"

"A well-crafted piece of work." The Nara heir remarked as he peered through to where she was pointing. "Saa, I thought you said gifting weapons had no imagination behind it."

"Standard weapons, no matter the quality, yes. We go through them like water." The assassin opened the door, wrinkling her nose at the tang of hot iron that gusted out of the blacksmithing store. "Unique weapons, though, those tend to be kept carefully stored away or used only when in emergency. Because non-standard weapons in a fight usually means jutsu aided or with some kind of effect you have to be insanely careful around."

Standard weapons were also issued per month, out of the replacement funds the village took out of every ninja's pay. It kept the traffic down in the blacksmith shops for others that would need the services of a blacksmith, otherwise there would eventually be one hell of a waiting list to get kunai, senbon, or shuriken in large enough quantity to not care if you lost two or three every time you sparred with another or lost entire braces of them on mission.

Every time you or your team brought in an enemy shinobi or nuke-nin you also got a bonus per pound of steel they had on them, because that ninja's weapons were sent to specific shops to be melted down and reused in the Konoha standard molds. There also was a standing D-rank mission posted every week to collect lost weapons in the training fields, and Natsumi could recall Jiraiya getting that one for the team more than once.

Besides, those were some very familiar three pronged kunai.

"Kushina-chan would be proud. Pranking enemy ninjas."

Natsumi threw him a smirk over her shoulder. "What can I say? I'm multitalented. Think I should get him some new brushes, or would that be infringing Kushina-hime's prerogatives?"

Hey, maybe her kouhai would get a hint for his hiraishin sooner.

"She's getting him some better quality ink and more blank scrolls." Shikaku gave her an unamused look as he followed her into the store. "And yes, I know you all are really using me to keep track of who's getting who what. I demand a bribe if I'm going to keep doing this."

"We could also sit there and poke you with a stick when you try to take a nap."

"…you're mean, Natsumi-chan."

\V/

Sometimes, Natsumi really hated the mission office ninjas.

The only way out of the Genin Corps without picking up some major skills in a specialization and finding a sensei to teach you more was a promotion, and only about a third of the ninja that were sent to the Corps ever made chūnin.

The Chūnin Corps were the shinobi version of nine-to-five workers of Konoha. They ran the sensitive information to one ninja or another; filing away Intelligence and jutsu knowledge in respective libraries; looked over the missions contracted to the village and tasked other shinobi to complete them; processed the unholy legion of paperwork that grew every day; filled in the ranks between the jōnin candidates that hit the same rank as them; and eventually retired and did the same thing as a civilian except for the whole 'prior shinobi experience' and filling in the battle ready ranks of ninjas available.

The newer Chūnin Corps members were pretty nice, excited by the rank most had thought they would never see.

The older ones that were or nearly were retired were assholes.

It was almost like they knew when a ninja of the jōnin-track had plans and conspired to make them or someone else you wanted there miss whatever was going on. Like how she was going to end up missing her kouhai's birthday if this took as long as they said it would.

She pinned the poor messenger-nin with a glare over the top of the scroll. "This couldn't wait two days?"

The career genin rapidly paled. He might be older than her by at least two years or so and taller, but she was a rank above him that he wasn't imagining he'd see. "Sorry, ma'am."

Natsumi blinked, not expecting his answer to the question because it had been mostly rhetorical and slightly hostile. She had though he would run after giving her the missive, Minato and Inoichi had repeatedly claimed she wasn't pleasant in the morning when woken up before she wanted to be.

"Whatever, scram." She blearily checked the just rising sun for a moment and then slammed her apartment door in his face.

Swiftly yanking off the worn shirt she had stolen from Inoichi when they were still genin and his laundry had ended up in her pack for whatever reason, she started to make a list of what she had less than two hours to do it all in as she started the shower.

Time for shinobi was a strange thing. Only Intelligence, R&D, and medical specializing ninja actually used timestamps; for patrols around Konoha, shift changes, experimentation notes, and patient medication records.

That was it.

The rest of the shinobi world used the sky. You had until high noon for a spar, get to this location before sunset on that day ended, the target needs to die before the moon rose, be home before the sun rose again.

The only reason that was the way it was, was because the tick of any clock would betray a shinobi's presence to those with sharp enough ears since there were ninjas around that could pinpoint an enemy by their breathing. That on-mission sensitivity was hard to come down from and also made it hard for most shinobi to deal with the incessant tick of clockwork near them, so they never usually used them when off-duty or at home either unless they were genin or they lived with civilians. Some shinobi got good enough to judge the hour by how high or low the sun was, and some even got to half hour increments, or by their scarily accurate body clocks.

Those skills usually only developed around the time a lifelong ninja got around the sannin's age of mid twenty, and by then you'd never remember to put that in your report.

The digital timepieces of her last life wouldn't have been a problem, but nothing around her said any kind of technological development was heading in that direction anytime soon.

It was probably how Kakashi got away with being chronically late after the Yondaime's death. The memorial stone was in a forested part of Training Grounds Three, and anyone asking him to be somewhere when the sun rose wouldn't have a good way to argue when the sun actually rose with the forever tardy Hatake without sounding like an insensitive dick over the Fourth's death.

If the worst happened, she was going to lobby for a clock to be put in the memorial stone.

Natsumi sighed heavily and assembled a quick mission pack after wrapping herself in a towel, taking the pre-packed rations she had stored in her fridge and throwing that into the backpack she always had ready for a trip outside the village. It held a few changes of clothes, her sleeping roll sealed courtesy of Kushina, replacement weapons if needed, and the other odds and ends she had found useful in other missions in ANBU already, it was only in need of perishable supplies and her ANBU kit, because that was in a sealing scroll sealed into her closet door since ANBU technically didn't exist.

The whole business of being sent a missive by messenger nin about a mission was a little worrying to her, because she wasn't on a cell and notices from the mission office were not given to her but to Sakumo if she was requested for her shinobi specialties or as a kunoichi to run a mission.

After genin rank of the jōnin-track, you were sorted into one of two categories for chūnin.

Either you were assigned a general use cell with a leading tokubetsu or full jōnin, or unassigned for further training. Natsumi, Minato, Kushina, Fugaku, and Hiashi were all unassigned chūnin. She and her kouhai for their apprenticeships for kenjutsu and fūinjutsu respectively, the only Uzumaki in the village because of the nine-tails, the Hyūga clan head because he was a clan head, and the Uchiha heir because of his work with the Military Police. Then there were the cells, of which only Chouza, Shikaku, and Inoichi were on the same one while Mikoto and Hizashi were on separate teams.

Missions were also taken in one of two ways when you were a chūnin. Either your team leader decided the cell you were assigned needed a new mission or the mission office needed you to take such and such mission with shinobi A and B and or C because you all had the specialty mix to complete it as requested, but those last ones were funneled through unassigned ninja's masters if available or the leader of your cell for scheduling around training and injuries.

It was also the only way a chūnin of the Chūnin Corps could get another promotion, to impress a jōnin that led the mission and get a recommendation for a partial rank advancement.

A shinobi wouldn't be able to pick a few of their own missions until B-rank, or tokubetsu jōnin. That rank was when permanent pre-structured cell formations were normally dissolved, unless you were tasked with a team of chūnin to lead for the experience, and either new teams were made up specifically for a mission or you and how many other ninjas picked up a mission out of the mission office's list of available jobs that needed completion.

A-rank shinobi, full jōnin, were a league all of their own and were allowed to pick and choose their own missions that called for their specialties, both for themselves and whatever team they were asked to lead, unless requested by name by a client.

ANBU was another matter entirely, but they had their own mission office and the missive didn't have that black stamp on the bottom for a needed assassination mission.

Why the hell had an unassigned kunoichi with an available master to handle mission requests just been summoned to the mission office when the sun hit the base of the Hokage Monument?

(ooo000ooo)

As the first one there, the ANBU assassin checked around the meeting place and picked a spot so she could see who she was going on this mission with.

She hadn't yet had the opportunity to take a mission with other chūnin she didn't know, as Sakumo would only be letting her do the D to C-ranked assassinations needed by ANBU if they came up for the time being. Perched in a branch as she was, Natsumi was only mildly surprised when the male Aburame chūnin nodded to her when his bugs pinpointed her in the tree.

Never having the same problem other kunoichis she grew up with, as long as they had less than eight legs she was fine with the insects, the assassin leapt out of her perch and landed lightly next to him. "Know who else we're waiting on?"

"I do not know who all was assigned to the mission. Why? I was not the one picked to lead on this mission."

The ghost eyed kunoichi straightened up with a nod to show she understood. "I was, though I was told you've run missions with our last member. Mesuji Natsumi, nice to meet you."

The bug user considered her a moment behind thick, dark glasses. "…Aburame Shibi."

Oh. "The heir to your clan?"

A nod was her only answer. Having dealt with both Hyūga twins and Uchihas when they were not feeling very talkative, Natsumi just nodded back and kept quiet.

The crashing sounds of someone running through the underbrush started coming their way, and the assassin had to wonder if whoever that was making Shibi subtly cringe was the last member of their temporary team.

An Inuzuka… if the wild hair, red triangles on the cheeks, and the large dog following her were any clue. "Well, at least I ain't gonna have to wait on your asses. Let's go. Tsume the name, girl."

Wait… ah, fuck.

Didn't Shibi and Tsume dislike each other until the bug user saved either the dog or the other teenager from death?

Natsumi just knew this mission was going to give her a headache, and maybe some more cracked ribs.

Damn it, her last set had just healed up under Tsunade's hands three days ago.

\V/

"It's not my fault sempai is out of the village." Minato gave Fugaku the look he considered that comment to deserve. "She had a mission. I'm just the one telling you."

"Lay off, Fugaku-san." Kushina aimed her brush at the Uchiha heir's head, warning him that she had no problem getting ink all over his face if he didn't stop. "Some of us only have so long free, so stop complaining if someone who is on mission anyways isn't here."

Fugaku huffed at them. "Our research will not be able to continue without Natsumi-san."

"Then complain to the mission office." Hizashi offered levelly, ignoring the glare aimed his way from the older teen. "But we should return to the main reason we are here before nii-sama needs me to leave and return to the clan compound."

"Yep! Minato-kun's birthday!" The redhead abandoned her work and stole one of Natsumi's favorite way of flustering one of the males, all but laying down on the flushing blond's lap. "Aren't you excited?"

"I don't need a birthday party, Kushina-chan." Her fellow fūinjutsu user claimed, warily eyeing the teen encroaching into his personal space. Natsumi did it to him enough, he didn't need Kushina picking up that habit too.

Chouza froze with one hand in his bag of chips. "Why not?"

"But it has been a while since all of us had the time to meet up at the same place, other than the now monthly meetings we have at Biwako-sama's or Tsunade-sama's compounds." Mikoto countered quickly before the orphan could give a reason they would have to respect, smirking at his annoyed look. "If Natsumi-chan can make it back, it would be even better."

"Besides, remember how pissed she was when we let you claim that last year and she found out?" All but laughing at his fellow blond's predicament, Inoichi turned his grin at the rest of them. "Minato was all but pouting the whole week she wouldn't talk to him."

Minato finally turned fully red, glaring at the mind walker. "She wasn't all that happy with you, either. And I can distinctly recall some cringing on your end."

"So the moral of the story is we're having a party whether you like it or not." Shikaku interrupted before the sniping could get worse. "Natsumi-chan gave me her presents for you before she skipped out for her mission, and I don't feel like annoying her the way you two idiots did. She's bad enough when she's cheerful."

Both blonds blinked at the Nara heir, and Minato started frowning. "Wait. If you knew sempai wasn't here, why did you let me tell Fugaku-san when you got here first?"

"Cause I don't feel like being glared at either. Still don't, so stop it."

\V/

This was… hmm, awkward.

The main part of their mission was done and it had only been a day since they set out, but… her two fellow shinobi were still setting the other off.

Natsumi looked between the Inuzuka teen and the Aburame, wondering what kami she had pissed off lately. Shibi, being a naturally quiet kind of guy as well as a seemingly impassive shinobi, was rubbing Tsume's, a very loud kunoichi with less than tolerant patience for standing on ceremony and for what she saw as useless, fur the wrong way by simply staring at her.

At least the assassin was kinda sort of sure he was staring. The sunglasses made it hard to tell.

They also really did know each other for a long while now, if the way Tsume was barking at him was any measure.