First mission!

The next day, Naruto woke up early and sent a clone to the library. The clone had orders to create another 4 shadow clones, which were to immediately transform themselves and start reading books on mathematics, Taijutsu and various medical texts.

Naruto wanted to figure out the reasons why his experience with the Eight Inner Gates Technique was different from the mainstream version that is widely accepted by the world. For this, he needed to have in-depth knowledge of the human body, especially tenketsu and the chakra pathway system.

The blonde then set off to the meeting spot, under a tree at training grounds 7. Although he wanted to make several clones to start working on chakra control and nature transformations, Naruto didn't know what Kakashi was planning to do, although he had some ideas.

Speaking of Kakashi, Naruto still didn't know how to face the Jonin or his team, as he was still angry at them for abandoning him tied to the post, with them not even considering checking to see if he was there hours later.

Shaking away any negative thoughts, Naruto decided that he wouldn't be so quick to judge his team in a bad light. Maybe they had made an honest mistake of thinking that one of the others would come back to check on him. He had made several mistakes throughout his life and knew that nobody was perfect. So he wouldn't hold it against them forever.

Naruto knew that in spite of all of the changes that had happened over the past day, he still desired to have friends and family. Even if the Third Hokage had often lied to him, he still clung to the idea that his first team would be his comrades, friends and family.

As a result, he decided that he would make efforts to try to reach out to his team. However, friendship requires efforts from both sides. If they rejected him, he would treat them amiably since they were on the same team, but he wouldn't go out of his way to help them with their troubles.

By the time he came out of his thoughts, Naruto had already arrived at the training grounds 10 minutes before the scheduled meet up. Neither Sakura nor Sasuke were there, so he rested his back against a nearby tree and closed his eyes.

Yet after waiting for another 5 minutes without any sign of his teammates or teacher, the restless energy inside Naruto practically demanded that he do something to stave off his boredom. So the boy picked up a nearby leaf, attempting to channel earth chakra once more.

The hours that his clones had spent working on his earth nature had resulted in significant progress, with the tip of the leaf crumbling to dirt when chakra was applied.

Of course, this was nowhere near mastery, but Naruto was sure that he would be able to master the first stage of earth nature transformation within a month of training. He planned to start his lightning nature transformation when he had enough Ryo to purchase a steady supply of light bulbs.

Naruto was brought out of his concentration when he heard familiar voices in the distance. Looking up from the leaf, he could see Sasuke and Sakura walking toward him.

The pink-haired girl was constantly talking about one topic or another. While Sasuke seemed to tune out everything she was saying, which didn't seem to deter the pinkette at all.

"Good morning Sasuke, Sakura."

"Hn" Sasuke gave a slight nod of acknowledgement before returning to his thoughts.

"Naruto? You are earlier than I thought you would be…." Sakura gave a reluctant smile to the blonde-haired boy. 'I wanted to spend more time with Sasuke-kun, god damnit.'

Naruto picked up on their reluctance to talk to him and remained silent. If the other two noticed his characteristic change in loudness, they didn't care to make a comment on it.

As a result, for the next 3 hours, Naruto was focused on his earth nature transformation, occasionally picking up a new leaf when the current one was too damaged.

Sasuke was deep within his thoughts while ignoring Sakura, who was constantly talking about things that, in all honesty, he didn't care about at all.

...

Precisely 3 hours from the promised meeting time, a puff of smoke appeared in front of the trio, startling them. "Yo." Kakashi gave a lazy wave.

"YOU'RE LATE!" Sakura screamed at Kakashi, who nonchalantly picked at his ear. Meanwhile, Sasuke just glared in annoyance. This was the third time that Kakashi had been late to their meetings, and he was the one who set the time and place…

Unbeknownst to the three, Kakashi was inwardly surprised at only hearing Sakura scream at him. He had spent time reading the Academy records of the three Genin, and he expected Naruto to also yell at him for being late.

Looking at the boy in question, Kakashi was even more confused at the look of… resentment? That Naruto gave him before the boy turned his head away in silence.

However, the team leader didn't voice his questions. Maybe the boy was also tired and annoyed at waiting for him to come. Little did his Genin know that him being late would be a common occurrence for the group.

"How do I put this… A ninja donkey entered my apartment last night and ate today's plans, so I had to stay up late redoing them." Kakashi scratched his head in embarrassment while inwardly praising himself. 'They've got to believe this, right?'

"…And where are these new plans you are talking about?" Sakura asked, curious to find out if this stupid sounding story was true.

Without missing a beat, Kakashi ignored her question and turned around while walking toward the main street of Konoha. "Well then, let's go get a mission, shall we?"

The Genin just stared in shock at his blatant attempt to ignore the question but followed him regardless.

...

While walking behind the group, Naruto couldn't help but wonder what was the point in meeting at training grounds 7 if they were just going to walk back towards Konoha when everyone arrived…

Meanwhile, Kakashi was looking forward to seeing the looks on his Genin's face when they learnt what 'missions' they would be receiving. He was confident that the types of missions in Konoha weren't explained until reaching Genin.

Opening the door to the Hokage's office, the group were greeted with the sight of the Third Hokage sitting at his desk with Iruka as his assistant by his side. Naruto also saw that towards the left, there were three men in charge of accepting and processing mission reports.

"Hokage-sama, we have come for our first D-rank mission." Kakashi requested, his lazy appearance faded slightly as he showed respect for his leader.

The Hokage glanced through the list of D-rank missions, picking one at random. "Hmm… Well, let's start with something more simple. Painting a fence for Watafumi-san?"

As if he had done it several times before, Iruka swiftly sorted through a stack of papers, taking a sheet from near the middle. He then filled out the team taking the mission and the expected payment before handing it to Kakashi.

Kakashi didn't even look at the form, instantly putting it in his pocket. "Let's go, team."

The three Genin followed him, and Kakashi smiled beneath his mask as he felt the glares that both Sakura and Sasuke were giving him. Naruto was still staring down at his feet, but he was happy enough to annoy 2 out of the 3 Genin.

After the team exited, Iruka made his first comment. "I didn't expect Naruto to not make a complaint… that was strange." Having taken over the majority of the boy's classes this past year, he had become accustomed to Naruto's loud outbursts to the point he was expecting it.

The Hokage nodded his head in thought; Naruto seemed a little off today. Even in a formal setting like this, he would usually greet him with all the usual disrespect that he was used to receiving from the boy. However, today he was uncharacteristically silent.

"He probably knew about what D-rank missions entail a long time ago, Iruka-kun. Naruto-kun has been in the office many times when missions were handed out to Genin teams and even some newly promoted Chunin." Hiruzen explained, receiving an understanding nod from his assistant

In fact, what the Hokage said was close to the truth. Naruto had been in the office many times when missions were being handed out, even before entering the academy. However, if not for his sudden clarity of memories, he would've forgotten all about the differences between D, C and B-rank missions.

...

Naruto stood with his team as they knocked upon a door near the village centre. Shortly after, an old woman with greying hair opened the door with a bewildered look.

"Hello, we are here for the mission." Kakashi gave an eye smile to the old woman who was wondering what they wanted.

"Oh? Curse my deteriorating memory, you guys are here for the fence painting? Let me just bring you all inside." The old woman scanned the team, her gaze freezing on Naruto for a moment before dismissing him like he wasn't there. An action that went unknown to half the team.

Kakashi looked down at his student with slight concern, only to see that the boy seemed unfazed. 'Either Naruto is used to such treatment, or he didn't see it.' The Jonin furrowed his brow. Which one was it?

The old woman led the team to the backyard. It had 3 fences roughly 8 feet tall, with white paint so old that it was starting to flake off. "Please paint all the walls with the white paint provided. I will bring out some juice later."

"Wait, what about the top of the fences? We can't reach them!" Sakura asked, hoping for some sort of box to stand on. 'Or maybe Sasuke-kun could let us hop onto his shoulders!' She inwardly exclaimed, sighing as her impulsiveness stopped her from getting closer to Sasuke.

"There are some stepladders in the house that were loaned to me. Unfortunately, there are only th-… two available. So one of you will have to go without." The old woman handed the step ladders to Sasuke and Sakura before walking to the house to rest.

"Well then, guys, I will take this wall." Naruto picked up a bucket of paint and a wooden brush and headed to his self-appointed fence.

"Sasuke-kun, how about we share the same wall?" Sakura asked hopefully. Now that Naruto had finally taken the hint and moved to the opposite side of the garden, maybe they could have some alone time.

"I think it would be better if we each took a wall." As soon as the pink-haired girl finished, she was shut down by Sasuke, who glared at the wall. 'Am I seriously going to waste my time doing this?'

Slightly depressed at being shot down without a second thought, Sakura sighed and went to the last unoccupied wall before freezing. "Kakashi-sensei, what are you going to be doing?"

"Oh, don't mind me, Sakura. I am supervising you to make sure you do the job right." Kakashi gave a lazy wave before rummaging through his pockets and pulling out the orange book he was reading in the Genin exam.

Sakura had a growing tickmark at the blatant laziness of her Jonin-sensei but took her frustrations out on the floor.

"Hopefully, I don't get paint on this dress. It would be a nightmare to remove." The pinkette grumbled. 'Yeah, and if we do, let's clobber our sensei! ~Shannaro!'

Kakashi looked toward his blonde student. The boy was the first to start painting and the Jonin could see that he had experience in doing so. So by this point, Naruto was close to reaching the top of the first plank.

Kakashi had expected him to ask either Sakura or Sasuke for a step ladder but was shocked by Naruto simply making a hand sign and conjuring a shadow clone.

The existence of the clone pulled Sasuke from his thoughts and Sakura from her conversation with Inner-Sakura, both looking curious as to why Naruto was summoning one of his solid clones.

The team then saw the clone hop onto the shoulders of its creator, with Naruto picking up the paint can, allowing the clone the dip his brush in the bucket.

After the clone had finished painting the top of the first plank of wood, Naruto crouched down and started from the bottom of the second plank, slowly making his way to the top.

Naruto thought about making more clones to help with the painting, but after thinking about it, he decided not to. There were only 3 buckets of paint in total, so multiple clones would have to share a single bucket, which would cause a lot more trouble than it solved.

Sasuke and Sakura turned back to their respective fences, glad that they didn't have to share a stepladder. Not only would it get annoying quick to constantly have to ask to borrow the ladder, but they would have to wait, making the mission take even longer than it should do.

...

About 2 hours later, the sun had reached its peak and was blasting everyone in Konoha with heat.

Sakura was sweating from the constant exposure to the sun while being worried that she would tan because she had heard in the Academy that Sasuke didn't like tanned girls.

Sasuke wiped the sheen of sweat that had gathered on his forehead, inwardly cursing that he had to continue painting even in this heat.

Meanwhile, Naruto felt much less hot. The bright orange jacket and trousers he wore acted as a reflective screen, dissipating some of the heat, making it much more bearable.

"You guys sure are working hard. I made a good decision to hire some ninja to get the job done." The old woman walked out of the house, holding a tray with 3 glasses of juice.

She smiled at the progress. The fences almost were covered in their first coating. 'I need to submit another mission for the final coating….'

The old woman handed a glass of juice to Kakashi, Sasuke and Sakura before heading back in.

Sakura and Sasuke were far enough from Naruto that they couldn't see the blatant mistreatment that the boy suffered, but Kakashi was in clear view of everything.

However, what could he do about it? Threaten the woman that he would report her to the Hokage for playing favourites? It's not like he had any evidence.

In the end, Kakashi made a mental note to talk to Naruto and the Hokage if the boy showed any sign of discomfort from the treatment he was receiving.

Kakashi lazily walked over to Naruto; the sudden shade from his shadow caused the boy to look up from the fence he was painting. He held out the glass of cold juice, prompting the boy to give a strange look at his sudden gesture.

The silver-haired Jonin looked confused; he didn't remember doing anything to earn Naruto's ire. Maybe the boy was far more aware of the differences in treatment that he received from the old woman than he thought.

Kakashi almost thought what he saw was a mistake as Naruto's facial expressions reverted to normal as the boy gently took the juice out of his hand before downing it.

"…Thank you, Kakashi-sensei." Naruto politely thanked the Jonin, not knowing what to do with the sudden thoughtfulness shown.

"No problem, Naruto." Kakashi took the empty glass and walked back to his sport in the shade, unsealing a water bottle from his pouch and taking a sip.

...

Less than 30 minutes later, Naruto had finished painting his side of the fence. He looked around to see that Sasuke was almost done himself, while Sakura was lagging behind.

Instead of asking Kakashi what he was required to do next, Naruto only did the obvious. Help his teammates. The blonde took his paint bucket and started painting the opposite end of Sakura's fence.

Kakashi saw this and nodded his head with a hidden smile under his mask. He was glad to see that Naruto had really taken the teamwork aspect to heart.

Sakura also noticed this. Instinctively, she wanted to get angry at Naruto, who she presumed to be trying to win her favour. Yet knowing that she would be the one to hold everyone up under the sweltering heat resulted in her swallowing her insult.

It didn't take long for the trio to finish the mission, with Sasuke taking the initiative to help Sakura and Naruto after he finished his wall. After completion, the old woman signed the form while thanking Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi.

By this point, Sakura and Sasuke had noticed that the woman had left out Naruto's name when thanking them, to which the pinkette pulled up after they left.

"So, Naruto. What did you do to earn the old woman's anger?" Sakura questioned, unintentionally pulling up a topic the Naruto had hoped they would avoid.

However, looking at his team, he could see that Sasuke was also interested in what he had to say despite not showing it. While Kakashi's shoulders were tensed, ready to explain in case Naruto messed up.

"Ahaha, you know me, Sakura, always pranking everyone." Naruto scratched the back of his head with a forced grin that seemed to fool everyone except Kakashi.

Sasuke scoffed, losing interest in whatever they were talking about, while Kakashi's shoulders relaxed. 'So he was aware….'

"I knew it! There's no way that the nice old woman would hate you for no reason. Of course, it's your fault." Sakura pointed at Naruto dramatically, causing the blonde to wince.

The villager's treatment of him due to the Kyuubi was still an open wound for him. He figured it would take a while until he could truly move past the issue.

"That's enough, Sakura. Let's hand in the mission." Kakashi interrupted before Sakura could continue her rant, receiving a thankful look from Naruto.

...

Team 7 were once again in the Hokage's office, ready to hand in their completed mission.

"Hokage-sama, Team 7 have completed their mission." Kakashi handed the completed form and money to the workers on the left, who signed the mission off as complete.

The mission workers then handed the money back to the Jonin, who distributed it equally across the team. Naruto fed Gama-chan with the cash while thinking '5000 Ryo divided by 4 is… 1250 each. That's barely enough for a week of ramen….'

"We will see you tomorrow then, Hokage-sama." Kakashi led the team out of the building. He then looked towards his squad, gauging their expressions and fatigue.

Sasuke was slightly tired, but he tried not to show it. Sakura was extremely tired; her emotions were also agitated from the heat. On the other hand, Naruto looked nonchalant, 'truly a stamina monster.' Kakashi thought.

"I will see you at the same time, the same place tomorrow." Kakashi waved goodbye before poofing into smoke.

Naruto felt a little underwhelmed. If they were only going to do D-rank missions, he would have liked it if they could do more assignments. 'What about training? Is he supposed to teach us, or are we expected to learn everything ourselves?'

Naruto decided that if Kakashi was going to be 3 hours late again tomorrow and do 1 mission with the team before leaving, he would get some physical and clone training in. He might even ask if he could do several more D-rank tasks using shadow clones to earn more money to buy jutsu from the library.

"Sasuke-kun, would you like to go to a restaurant together?" Sakura asked excitedly. She was looking forward to spending the Ryo that she had just earnt. It was the first bundle of money that she received that wasn't pocket money or birthday money.

Sasuke just shook his head and walked away, 'Today was a waste of time', he thought to himself. Sakura trailed after Sasuke, attempting to change his mind with both of them, leaving Naruto alone without a goodbye.

The boy in question looked hurt for a moment before shrugging it off and walking towards the village centre.

After transforming himself into a random man, Naruto stopped by a ninja store to buy some special light bulbs used by ninjas for lightning nature transformation exercises. He then proceeded to head to the training grounds to make up for lost training time.

Author's notes: Whaddup, thanks for all the reviews. It's nice to see people enjoying my first story. This chapter is a little longer than usual, but I couldn't find a way to condense it without missing big chunks of detail.

Sorry if it disappoints people that Kakashi isn't going to be ignoring Naruto. It was just difficult for me to write that a ninja like Kakashi would be ignorant of Naruto's treatment.

About the romance, I am not sure what is exactly going to happen since I don't really have a detailed plan. But I guess it won't be for a while because, ninja or not, Naruto is 12, which means its kinda weird for me to write it at that age. Especially if he ends up with an older woman like a few suggestions I have had. Although I can guarantee that it won't be Ino, Hinata or Sakura etc.