Chapter 13: Catching a Cat Can't Be That Hard

Even thinking about what had happened yesterday, Yamato's plan proved to be an effective way to see the true capabilities of his students. There was still a lot to work on, starting with Ino, who had the most explosive personality among the three. Hinata was okay personality-wise, but she didn't show her physical ability on the test, so attention had to be paid to that.

(You told me this would be a vacation, Kakashi-senpai).

Looking down at the ground with a disappointed expression, Yamato could only sigh tiredly. After all he was tricked by Kakashi, in the end Yamato ended up becoming a teacher.

(Asahi Toru, huh...) Yamato closed his eyes, and for a few seconds he remembered the moment he met Toru during the exam. The way he moved and the Taijutsu the boy handled was somewhat strange, it was as if he himself had modified some existing Taijutsu style.

(I should try to do more research on my students, so I could plan everything better).

Opening his eyes, Yamato sighed, it had been two days since he was assigned to team 11, but he felt like it had been months, possibly because he felt more stressed being around his students so much.

"Looks like they're already arrived" Yamato said quietly.

In the distance, Toru could be seen, he was wearing that blood red scarf that covered the lower part of his face. Besides that he was carrying some accessories that most ninjas carry with them.

"Good morning, looks like you're early again" With a slight smile on his face, Yamato greeted his student.

"Good morning, Yamato-sensei" Toru said as he bowed. "Ino... Hinata... they're not coming yet" Looking around, Toru could tell that her other teammates had not yet arrived, though that was something that could be overlooked, as it was still ten minutes before 8 a.m.

"It's still a little while, let's wait until they arrive" Yamato looked at the ground as he spoke, until a few days ago he was a ninja of the ANBU organization, but now he had become a teacher because of Kakashi's deception.

In a way it was a good thing for Yamato, as he could learn new things by being a teacher, and he could teach new things to the new generation ninja. This way the teachings of the ninja of old would be upheld.

"You are very agile for a novice, did someone train you?" Yamato asked without taking his eyes off the sky, to which Toru replied with a tired tone.

"Reading books, I learned while reading books" For a second Toru's hair moved due to the gentle morning breeze. He had spent the last few years reading various books he rescued from his old home.

In those books Toru found information about Ninjutsu, Taijutsu and Genjutsu peculiar to the Asahi family. That's why his fighting style confused Yamato, as Toru's Taijutsu is a mixture of various Taijutsu.

"Just reading books, huh..." Yamato took a breath as he thought, he knew which family Toru comes from, so it was logical that he himself gray-eyed boy trained alone all this time.

"Good morning, Yamato-sensei, Toru-kun" Bowing, Hinata greeted the people in front of her. It had only been five minutes since Toru arrived, so Hinata was also early, five minutes early.

"Good morning..." Toru spoke, his expression was the same poker face he always usually has.

In response to this, a slight smile formed on Hinata's mouth, after all she was happy that Toru had also managed to pass the exam.

"Good, they're almost all here, only Ino is missing."

After those words, ten minutes passed, everyone was waiting for Ino, but it seemed like she was never going to arrive.

"Looks like we will start the mission without her" Yamato said while looking at Hinata and Toru. These only remained silent until Ino's shouts could be heard in the distance.

"Wait!"

Running at a regular speed, Ino arrived. A bead of sweat slid down her forehead to finally fall to the ground.

"You're late, you should know that ninjas should be punctual" Yamato spoke, his expression was neutral, so he didn't seem to be angry.

"I'm sorry, yesterday while thinking about Sasuke I accidentally broke my alarm clock" Ino said while trying to catch her breath.

"It's okay, you must be punctual, otherwise your team will pay the consequences" Yamato spoke, for some reason his face reflected an expression that was trying to be scary, although in the end that expression was more comical than scary.

"I understand, sensei. It won't happen again" After that, Ino apologized for two minutes.

-Somewhere in Konoha-

Yamato walked in front of his students, at this moment they were heading to the place where they will receive their first mission.

"So, the missions have different ranks depending on the ninja who will complete them" Crossing her arms, Ino spoke.

"You are correct, for now they will receive basic missions, but over time the difficulty will increase."

"Yamato-sensei, what kind of missions will we have to do as rookie genin?" Raising her hand, Hinata asked, she felt a little nervous, as this will be her first mission.

"The most common missions are searching for pets, running different errands, searching for lost items, normally these are things that anyone can do, but to make things easier these types of missions are entrusted to rookie genin" Yamato spoke with a smile on her mouth, as she felt a little happy to be able to give her knowledge to the new generation ninjas.

"So, if those missions are tasked to the novice ninja, what kind of missions do the more experienced ninja have to complete?" closing his eyes for a few seconds, Toru asked, even though it was more than obvious that he knew the answer, but he wanted to know the point of view of an experienced Jounin.

"Hmm, the missions that Chunin and Jounin rank ninja are tasked with, are usually assassination assignments, searching for criminals and anything that has to do with keeping order in our village, that's why they are tasked to the more experienced ninja."

With a serious tone of voice, Yamato replied, after all he too had to complete assassination missions.

(So... at some point in my life as a ninja I will have to kill...) Toru closed his eyes and thought, as a ninja he had to be willing to end the life of whoever tries to harm the village, but just remembering the word death made the bad memories of his past come back.

"We're almost there" Yamato said.

They were approaching a door, they were still about six meters away, so it would just be enter, ask for the mission and leave. But everyone's eyes looked to one place when the door in front of them opened.

Out of that door stepped four people, one adult and three children. Each one had a different color of hair.

"Senpai?" Yamato said, making his students look at him.

"Ah, hello" The man spoke, his hair was silver in color, he had a mask covering his mouth and nose, plus the forehead protector covering one of his eyes.

"How did you do with the exam, did everyone fail?" the man in the mask asked, to which Yamato with a slight smile replied.

"I followed your advice, I must say it turned out better than I thought it would."

"Haha... from what I see everyone passed, it's amazing. And it looks like you have an interesting team" The man spoke as he looked at Toru.

"Who is he, Kakashi-sensei?" Appearing to the side of Kakashi, a golden haired boy spoke, that boy was Naruto.

"Oh, him? This is Yamato, he was my teammate when I worked in a certain organization" Kakashi spoke, his tone of voice for some reason was somewhat muffled.

While Kakashi and Yamato stopped to talk a bit away from their students, Ino and a certain pink haired girl met.

"Sakura."

"Ino."

The two looked at each other for a few seconds, just by looking at her you could tell that they get along well and badly at the same time.

"You seem to be on a very weird team, Ino" With a victorious smile, Sakura looked at Ino, who only smiled back.

"And you seem to get ignored all the time, Sakura."

Their eyes met and a strange moment connected them. But that ended when Ino looked at the boy who was farthest away from everyone.

"Sasuke!" Raising her hand, Ino approached Sasuke, who only kept quiet.

"Sasuke, how have you been?" Ino asked, but Sasuke kept quiet, only to seconds later walk away from Ino walking in the direction of the exit.

"Where are you going, Sasuke?"

"Ha! Who got ignored, huh?" Sakura appeared behind Ino as she spoke wryly.

"You..."

While Sakura and Ino were talking, Sasuke was heading for the exit, on the way his eyes met Toru's.

"Looks like we're even."

After saying that Sasuke disappeared, leaving Toru looking down the hallway.

(We're not the same, we're not the same) Toru thought, he hadn't talked to Sasuke for years, but now for some reason he had become bolder.

"Hello, Hinata" Naruto greeted, to which Hinata simply returned the greeting.

"Hello, Naruto. Looks like we have similar teams" With a slight smile, Hinata spoke, a few years ago she was shy to talk to people, but thanks to someone that shyness disappeared.

"Hahaha, you're right. I thought Sasuke and Toru were the same?"

"You think they are the same?" Hinata spoke up.

"Yeah, kind of."

As Naruto and Hinata were talking, someone interrupted them.

"Naruto, Sakura, we have to go."

With strange book in hand, Kakashi spoke, after that Naruto and Sakura followed the man in the mask.

"We have to hurry too" Raising his hand, Yamato smiled, after all he had spoken to a friend he respected a lot.

-Somewhere near the forest of death-

The shadow of a mysterious creature was moving through the trees.

"Ino, get ready."

Yamato's distorted voice rang through the communicator.

"Yes, sensei."

Ino replied, at that moment Ino was trying to find the creature with her eyes.

"Hinata, did you find anything?"

Again Yamato's distorted voice was heard, at the same time the communicator let out a sound of static.

"What's going on?"

Yamato removed the communicator from his ear, for some reason it had stopped working.

Meanwhile, in the shadows of a tree, the figure of a long-haired boy could barely be seen.

(Where is he? We almost managed to catch him, but... for an animal of that size to have so much strength and agility is almost impossible).

Toru observed the place, there was no trace of the mysterious creature, something that made the search even more difficult.

"Hinata, I stopped listening to Yamato-sensei a few seconds ago Did something happen?"

Touching the communicator to her ear Toru spoke, to which the voice on the other end answered.

"There is interference in the signal, possibly someone else is using the same channel as us" Hinata said while holding the communicator to her ear.

"I see, what about Ino, is she not responding either?"

"No, it seems the signal was distorted on her communicator."

On the other end of the communicator, Toru sighed, this mission had become very problematic. Who knew capturing a cat would lead to so much trouble?

"Then we'll have to capture it ourselves" Toru's hair covered his eyes for a moment due to the breeze, after that Hinata answered.

"I understand, we could meet Ino, I know where she is" Hinata said, to which Toru replied with a tired tone of voice.

"Well, let's go then" Toru said, to seconds later disappear in the blink of an eye.

-Location of Ino-

"What's going on? Sensei, can you hear me?" Ino tried to communicate, but all she could hear was static.

Seeing that the communication had been cut off, Ino sighed, it had only been a day, but she already felt like she would lose her sanity at any moment.

(Damn, how can they leave me alone? Especially that fool Toru. Besides, if I can't hear sensei's orders we won't be able to complete the mission before the sun sets) Ino took a seat on a tree branch, she kept quiet for a few seconds until she heard a noise.

*Hiss...*

The snort of a cat was heard.

(It's him! I have to catch him!)

Ino stood up and looked around carefully. She was prepared to catch the cat, however, it won't be that easy.

*Meow!

The cat lunged at Ino in an attempt to use its claws as weapons, but Ino dodged it and the cat landed on another tree.

(This cat is crazy, it's too aggressive! How can it be so fast?!)

Ino looked at the cat with fear, she knew that if she stood still she would be attacked by the feline.

"Ino!"

Hinata squeezed, causing the cat to go back to hiding in the leaves of the trees.

"We lost communication with Yamato-sensei and you, so we decided to come" Appearing through the leaves of the trees, Toru spoke, causing a slight look of annoyance to form on Ino's face.

"You're late, the cat was about to rip my face off" Ino said as she moved a little closer to Toru.

"Is it still here? I mean the cat" Toru asked, ignoring what Ino had said earlier.

"Hmph, it hid in the trees, but I still can't locate it one hundred percent."

After hearing that, Toru looked at the leaves of the trees, and for a second he saw eyes glowing in the darkness.

"I found it" Toru said without looking away from the cat.

"Really? And what are we waiting for?" Ino spoke while trying to find the cat with her eyes.

"Wait, I have a plan" Stopping Ino, Toru spoke, his look was a little different than usual, though to the naked eye it was the same look as always.

"What do you mean, I don't think a plan coming from you would work" Said one as he looked at Toru with annoyance.

(Never changes, huh...) Closing his eyes, Toru thought, Ino's attitude was a problem, but he knew that in the future that will change, so he just let Ino act as she pleases.

"I think Toru's plan might work" Entering the conversation, Hinata spoke up, she had already heard Toru's plan, and although it was simple it could be a very effective plan.

"No, you guys just have to listen to what I say, that's how this works" Ino spoke with an authoritative tone of voice, something that made Toru's patience diminish a bit.

"The plan I made involves you heavily, without you, my plan doesn't work" With a neutral expression, Toru looked at Ino, who was interested in what Toru had said.

"Wow, so you can't do anything without me huh" With a slight arrogant smile on her face Ino agreed to use Toru's plan.

Minutes after that, Toru, Hinata and Ino were in strategic positions, each was at a point somewhat away from the others, forming an imaginary triangle.

Inside that imaginary triangle was the cat, the purpose of it was to make the cat stay in a single place where Ino could see it so she could use her secret jutsu on it.

"Let's begin."

Taking two kunais with wires tied in his hands, Toru observed the target.

(He is still keeping himself hidden, it is necessary to make him come out of hiding so Ino can use the jutsu, if she can't see him everything will be ruined.)

Toru held the kunais for a moment before a glint appeared in his eyes.

(Now)

After saying that, the two kunais were thrown near the tree where the cat was, instantly Toru appeared, he had used the clan tension to propel himself to get there faster.

"You won't escape!"

Toru tried to reach the cat, but the cat was more agile and flexible, so it was able to escape easily, but it is was not a problem, as Toru had foreseen this.

"Hinata!"

While the cat was trying to escape by jumping between the trees, in front of it Hinata appeared, making the cat change its course, it was now running straight into the trap.

Since from a bush Ino was watching everything that was happening, she had been pointing at the cat with the strange position of her hands.

(Gotcha!)

"Shintenshin no Jutsu [Mind Transfer Technique]."

At the mention of those words, a sound similar to the howl of a wolf could be heard, after that Ino fell unconscious, and the cat stopped.

This was the jutsu of the Yamanaka family, capable of transferring the mind of a user to another person. Thanks to this, Ino was able to control the cat.

"Here I come!" Using a blanket, Hinata wrapped the cat so that the cat couldn't escape, seconds later, Ino returned to her body.

"We did it!"

Hugging Hinata, Ino celebrated her vicariate, after all she was part of this whole plan.

Meanwhile, Toru watched from the tree where he tried to catch the cat.

(Sooner or later I'll have to do something about Ino, for the time being I'll let her continue acting like a spoiled child)

The shadow of the trees made Toru's eyes sparkle, and as the wind blew Toru said:

"Manipulating Ino will be easy..... I should prepare myself for the day when I have to do it."