Chapter 18: A Rookie's Mission Life

Chapter 18: A Rookie's Mission Life

A ninja's main source of income is completing missions.

The missions a ninja can take on, from babysitting to assassinating a daimyo, are divided into five ranks: S, A, B, C, and D. Generally speaking, a Genin can only accept C-rank and D-rank missions.

And for fledgling birds like Sakura who have just become ninja, they usually only take on D-rank missions, ranging from looking after children, helping with errands, and delivering mail, to doing farm work. After the initial novelty wore off, even the mentally prepared Sakura began to feel impatient.

Especially during the busy farming season, Team 7 took on nearly a month's worth of agricultural tasks, which almost made Sakura wonder if she was a ninja or a farmer. If it weren't for seeing other squads doing the same tasks, which helped the three of them feel much more balanced, Sakura suspected Naruto would have jumped up to protest.

As the team leader, when guiding Team 7 on missions, Kakashi would seize the opportunity to turn the tasks into a form of training. For example, he would require them not to use clones or ninjutsu, and to rely only on their hands for farming and such. After a month, Sakura found that her physical strength had actually improved quite a bit.

Sometimes, some missions were purely to train a ninja's endurance—this was the reason Kakashi gave when he accepted a mission to clean up trash from a river and brought the three of them to the bank of an incredibly smelly creek.

Sakura, who was slightly mysophobic, threw up the moment she smelled it.

Kakashi looked at his disciples with schadenfreude and shook his head. "The ninja these days are still too delicate!"

Even Sasuke, who always had a cold expression, broke character for once, his face extremely expressive. Sakura, whose face had turned pale after vomiting, felt her stomach still churning. Only Naruto looked slightly better—especially when he realized he was the one handling it the best.

With long faces, the trio of Team 7 pinched their noses and braced themselves to act as garbage collectors. Kakashi didn't restrict their use of ninjutsu. Naruto, having the strongest tolerance, created a thousand shadow clones at once to help pick up trash. Just as they had cleared about half of it, tragedy struck: when Naruto dispelled his shadow clones, the feedback from the clones' experience of the smell knocked him out cold.

A drop of cold sweat appeared on Kakashi's forehead. As expected of the number one most unpredictable ninja, he actually got knocked out by a smell! He hurriedly sent Naruto to the hospital, leaving only Sakura and Sasuke by the river.

The two of them had to clean up the rest of the river... Sasuke carefully looked at the remaining length, and his face turned ashen. He then looked at Sakura, who had vomited again and again and whose combat power had dropped to zero. Sasuke realized that the remaining work seemed to be something only he could complete. His face instantly went from ashen to red, then from red to white, as if a dye house had opened on his face.

Finally, after five rounds of vomiting, Sakura snapped.

"Aaargh!! I can't take it anymore!" Explode in adversity, or die in adversity!

"Sasuke, get back! Let a professional handle this!" Spurred on by the endless stench, Sakura performed beyond her usual limits. She lifted a hundred-meter stretch of the river into the air at once, revealing the dark, muddy riverbed!

Sasuke was dumbfounded. The river water flew into the air like a giant serpent under Sakura's control. The hundred-meter length was extremely grand and spectacular up close. Every time it swung in the air, it moved with astonishing momentum. Finally, the giant serpent crashed into a filter net, straining out the garbage, and returned to the riverbed as a surging current from the sky.

Sakura was also startled by her own actions. At first, she just wanted to vent a little. She didn't expect to be able to do something to this extent. This was also thanks to her good chakra control, allowing her to handle such a large burst of chakra with ease.

Controlling the remaining garbage and placing it on the ground, Sakura turned to look at Sasuke and saw his eyes wide and his mouth agape in a shocked expression. Pfft! Sakura burst out laughing.

Sasuke quickly put on a straight face and turned away. "What are you laughing at!"

Just as Sakura was about to speak, her body suddenly went limp. Her chakra and stamina were completely depleted, and she collapsed to the ground from exhaustion.

"Ouch, that hurts! I used too much force just now, and I'm a bit drained!"

Sasuke quickly seized the opportunity to mock Sakura to save face. "Hmph... serves you right for overestimating yourself!"

Sakura tried and found that she didn't even have the strength to push herself up. Her whole body was limp and couldn't exert any force, so she raised a hand towards Sasuke.

Sasuke immediately understood Sakura's meaning, but for some reason, he pretended not to understand and replied, "What!"

"Help me up!" Sakura rolled her eyes at Sasuke and said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "And carry me to the hospital so I can rest!"

"Hmph, women are so troublesome!"

Sasuke snorted disdainfully, reached out, and pulled Sakura up. Sakura was currently two centimeters taller than him. Sasuke bent down slightly, and Sakura very naturally wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed herself against his back, and rested her body completely on him. Her pink hair gently brushed against Sasuke's cheek with the wind.

Her warm breath ghosted across the side of Sasuke's face, and he felt his own face heat up.

All this time, in Sasuke's mind, Sakura had existed as a powerful competitor, a strong woman. Even when he had seen her faint during the test before, it was only because she had fought a stronger opponent to the point of exhaustion, which didn't detract from her strong image.

This was the first time Sasuke had seen a non-forceful, dependent Sakura. Her soft-spoken voice and limp movements, and the feeling of her soft body pressing against him, made Sasuke blush a little.

Sasuke supported Sakura's thighs. The feel of her skin, like smooth, fine silk, sent ripples through his heart. Just as he was about to suppress this feeling, he heard Sakura giggle by his ear.

"What are you laughing at!" Sasuke felt he was being mocked. Then he immediately realized that Sakura certainly wasn't laughing at his current nervousness.

With Sakura's personality, she probably didn't even notice...

"I was thinking about your expression just now, hahaha, it was so funny, hahaha," Sakura laughed without any regard for her image. "I never thought you'd make a face like that!"

When did I get the misconception that she was a sweet, soft girl... A vein popped on Sasuke's forehead. "If you say one more word, I'll drop you!"

"Don't! Sasuke-bro, I was wrong!" Sakura quickly admitted her mistake with a sheepish grin. She had keenly sensed Sasuke's slight nervousness. Although she didn't immediately understand why he was nervous, she immediately made a joke to lighten the atmosphere.

They were silent the rest of the way.

The next day's mission was, thankfully, not so outrageous. Taking into account that both Naruto and Sakura had been hospitalized, Kakashi chose an easy and well-paying mission—helping the Daimyo's wife find her lost pet cat.

As it turned out, this pet cat, which had ninja cat blood, could actually use chakra. It was extremely agile, and catching it without hurting it had Team 7 eating dust all morning.

"I dare say, this cat has definitely mastered the art of escaping! It's so hard to catch!" Sakura complained on the way back to turn in the mission. "This kind of mission is so boring! Kakashi-sensei, what's our next mission?"

Lord Hokage, who happened to be inspecting the mission assignment desk, picked up the mission list, glanced at it, and said, "Hmm, you can either help Lord Shiju watch his kid, or go to the neighboring village to help with shopping, or help harvest sweet potatoes..."

"No—don't give us any more of these low-level missions!" Naruto waved his arms and complained to Lord Hokage. "Helping with kids, running errands, doing farm work, cleaning up trash, we've done all of these more than ten times! An elite team like ours can't waste time on these boring missions. We need a more significant mission!"

Sakura and Sasuke silently gave the declarative Naruto a thumbs-up.

Konoha village had a large number of Genin—many without enough talent would even remain Genin for their entire lives. They were the main force for completing this vast number of low-level missions. An elite team with a bright future like Team 7 would generally do the lowest-level missions for two or three months to get used to the ninja life, after which they could appropriately choose slightly higher-level C-rank missions.

Lord Hokage looked helplessly at the excited Naruto and exhaled a puff of smoke. "Alright—since you put it that way, I'll give you a C-rank mission... to protect someone!"

"Let me introduce you first—please come in."

A sloppy, drunk-smelling old man walked out of the adjacent waiting room. Sakura's heart stirred. Isn't this the bridge-building expert from the original story, Tazuna? Accepting this mission meant that she was about to face a real, life-or-death battle between ninja...!

"What is this... the ninja responsible for protecting me are these little brats? A blank-face, a flower vase, and a silly-looking shorty!" The drunk Tazuna really couldn't control his mouth. The venom in his words was so potent that even Sakura, who had always prided herself on being calm, was tempted to go up and punch him.

As for Naruto, after discovering he was the "shortest shorty," he had already rolled up his sleeves and was charging forward.

"Please don't say that," Kakashi said, pressing down on Naruto's head to stop his riot. He felt very helpless with this ill-tempered client and the impulsive Naruto. "My subordinates are very strong...!"

"Tch... I'll prove to you I'm not a flower vase," Sakura gave Tazuna a sharp glare, then called out to Sasuke and Naruto, "Let's go, time to train, blank-face and silly-looking shorty!"

"Don't call me blank-face! Are you looking for a fight, flower vase!!"

"I told you I'm not a shorty!"

After setting a time to meet, the three of them left, bickering all the way.

The Land of Waves, huh... Although it would be a very dangerous mission, an unquenchable sense of anticipation and excitement ignited in Sakura's heart. That must be the desire for battle!