Naruto : Monsters: Chapter 76

During our first day prepping packages, it seemed like Naruto would erupt every other minute or so as she spotted a name she recognized. Which there was a surprising lot of.

I don't think she'd ever be able to look at Iruka in the same way ever again.

...

The stink-eye she gave Shikamaru when she spotted his father's name made me eternally grateful that none of my relatives were on the list. Well, none of my direct relatives anyway. The Hyuuga was a large clan, it would have been more surprising than not to not find a single Hyuuga one the list. Thankfully though the few we had run onto so far were distant relatives who I rarely ever interacted with.

It would have been … awkward to say the least if I found out that my dad or god forbid my mother had brought a copy of the book.

As the saying goes, people can get used to anything, and as time wore on Naruto's reactions steadily began to diminish as she adapted to the fact that a lot of her adult acquiesces read smut on the sly, and now she would only let loose a low grumble whenever someone she knew cropped up on the list.

Which made her latest outburst a bit of a surprise.

Hauling the latest pile of books out of the crate, I brought them to Shikamaru and set them down on the desk before walking over to Naruto and glancing over her shoulder to see what the fuss was about.

It took me a full second to spot the name Naruto was staring at, and another second to fully grasp the implication. And when I did, I felt a wicked smile bloom on my lips.

"Naruto," I spoke, never taking my eyes off the name as I did, "I'm calling dibs. I want to deliver this one personally."

"You sure?" Naruto turned her blue eyes up to me, before shrugging. "Fine, it's not as if it makes any difference anyway." She then turned back to the list, giving it a distasteful look. "Still, I never thought he was a pervert too. He seemed so nice too. Is every man in the village a closet pervert or is it just a coincidence that almost all of my classmate's dads are on this list."

"Oh, Naruto," I felt my cheeks hurting from how hard I was smiling. "It wasn't her dad that ordered the book, it was someone else."

"What?" she blinked, turning to look up at me in surprise. "But Hikaru, his name and address is written right here."

She pointed to the spot on the list, where their name and address was clearly printed out in plain black and white. Though unlike every other customer on the list, there was no first name there, just their last.

And knew precisely why.

Naruto frowned down at the name again, a thoughtful look on her face. "But if it's not him, then who is it for?"

...

Hurried footsteps could be heard coming from inside the house as someone ran down the stairs. I could hear them yelling out 'I'll get it' as they rushed to the front door, and I barely had the chance to take my hands off the door after knocking before it was swung open, revealing the nervous eager face of one Ino Yamanaka.

"Hello," She chirped, nervous energy rushing her to speak, "are you here to deliver– Hikaru?" Ino exclaimed, her rapid-fire chattering came to a grinding halt as she finally took in the sight of me.

For a few seconds, the blonde girl stared, her pale blues blinking owlishly, obviously confused. "Hikaru, what are you doing here?"

"Hello, Ino," I said warmly, brushing aside her confusion as I gave her the widest, shit-eating grin I could manage.

She tensed, like a rabbit spotting the shadow of a hawk passing overhead, her survival instincts no doubt warning her of danger, but before she had a chance to do anything, I acted. "I have a package to deliver for you."

Reaching down into the backpack I had set down by my feet, I pulled out a plain brown package – the Icha Icha volume that I was sent to deliver to this address – and held it up before my face. "Care to guess what it might be?"

For a long moment, Ino starred in honest bewilderment between the package and me, her eyes leaping between it and my face several times, unable to understand until something appeared to click in her head.

I could see the exact second it dawned on her, her eyes immediately widening to saucers while her face turned a shade so red that it looked she caught on fire.

That memory, of a blushing Ino dissolving into a stuttering mess, will warm my heart for many years to come.

...

They called Konoha a village.

And perhaps, once upon a time, it was one but that wasn't quite true anymore. Konoha had grown since its founding. From its humble beginning of the union of two clans, it quickly grew into something never before witnessed in the entire history of the Elemental Nations.

A Hidden Village.

What began as a collection of huts had expanded into something that more reminiscent of a town, or even a small city, than it did a village. In terms of Shinobi alone, Konoha's population easily surpassed the ten thousand mark. With the civilian population added to the mix that number would easily quadruple.

The term Hidden 'Village' could no longer accurately describe what Konoha had become but as most things tended to do, the name stuck. It made a sort of sense I suppose. Konohagakure no Sato meant the 'Village Hidden in the Leaves'. The 'Town Hidden in the Leaves' didn't have quite the same ring to it.

The point being was that Konoha had rapidly grown since its founding, and with it, so had the number of missions it received.

There was a time not too long ago when the number of missions the village would receive in a day could be counted with the fingers of one hand. Back then every single mission was handled by the Hokage himself, who would either accept or reject each offer personally on behalf of the entire village before assigning the approved missions to a team he would have personally handpicked.

Those days were long gone.

Today there were dozens of individuals working fulltime around the clock, whose sole job was to keep track of the massive influx of mission requests Konoha received. It was they who met the clients, negotiated a contract before assigning an available team to complete it.

Only important clients, such as the Daimyo, were ever exempt from this process.

In theory, this meant that the Hokage no longer needed to involve himself in the daily grind of missions assignments, freeing up a lot of time that could now be spent on far much more crucial matters. However Sarutobi, always the sentiment sort, loved to personally get involved with the daily lives of his Shinobi whenever he could, and would take time from his busy schedule to personally assign missions to his men. During certain times of the year, it wasn't an unusual sight to find the ageing Hokage handing out the missions to newly minted Genin, spending a couple of extra minutes to spare them a few words of encouragement.

Tiny things like that were what made the village as a whole see Sarutobi as a father figure instead of just a leader, or perhaps it was a grandfatherly figure these days.

It was, I suppose, a way for him to get to personally know his newest recruits, to remember their faces and get a feel of them. But of course, even he couldn't do this all the time. There were simply too many. Even had he tried to limit himself to just fresh Genin, we were just too much for him to handle alone.

Which was why he would limit himself to meeting new Genin teams for their first couple of mission assignments. After that, the new Genin teams would head to the 'Assignment Center', located in one of the lower levels of the Hokage Tower, whenever they needed to pick a new mission as most other teams did.

Most being the operative word.

Our team was one of the exceptions. Every mission we took we personally received from the Hokage. Every day, instead of stopping by the Assignment Center, we climbed the steps to the top of the tower and headed to the Hokage's office to report the completion of our last assignment or to receive a new one.

Some people would have called it favouritism, others may even go as far as say it was nepotism. Personally, I called it common sense. No matter how many times people tried to convince themselves otherwise, we were not all equal. An Academy student barely managing to keep up with the rest of his classmates was objectively less valuable than a promising student blazing through the coursework with ease. A child born to a Clan of ninjas gifted with a powerful bloodline would always be given more attention than an ordinary child coming from a civilian family.

They were right to do so.

People could call it whatever they wanted, but the simple fact of the matter it wasn't favouritism that saw my team standing in front of the Hokage almost every day. It was pragmatism. And if ninjas were anything, they were pragmatic.

To treat a team with two Clan Heirs, both of whom were considered to be geniuses in their own regard, along with a Jinchuuriki of the most powerful Tailed Beast as if they were just any other random Genin team would have been the height of stupidity.

No one had ever accused Sarutobi of being stupid.

So when we found ourselves lining up before the Hokage in his office that morning, with the old man sitting behind his desk, chewing on the tip of his unlit pipe with his usual genial smile sitting on his lips, no one thought anything unusual of it, it was just another day for team 7.

No one but me that is.

I had been counting the days since my unexpected encounter with Danzo, and it had been fourteen days. Exactly two weeks. And while it was entirely possible that nothing unusual would happen today, that we'd pick another random mission from the Hokage and be sent on our way, as usual, I didn't believe it.

Say what you will of the man but Danzo had never struck me as the type of person to fail to deliver on his promises.

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