Man, we had been walking for hours and I was about to faint. I felt my forehead and it was burning like fire. I winced and Kakashi noticed it.
“You alright?” he asked.
“It’s okay, Kakashi-san!” I said, cheerfully. I sensed Sasuke moved next to me. Weird…
“Kakashi-san,” Sakura started. “Are there ninjas in the Wave Country?”
He replied, “No, not in the Land of Waves. But, as a general rule, even with all the differences that exist in local customs and cultures… most other lands have their own hidden village where a ninja clan resides.”
Sakura nodded with some understanding while I had a question mark above my head. Kakashi pulled out the big scroll of the Five Principle Shinobi Territories. The scroll showed a map of the five lands and the five Kages.
“For most countries on the continent, the ninja villages serve as the military force. They protect their own people and handle the ongoing relations with the neighbouring countries. Yet, the villages do not answer to the rulers of the native countries. Instead, they are on equal footing with the government. In the case of very small island nations where an invasion would be difficult to mount, a ninja village is regarded as unnecessary. Among the various ninja villages, in particular, those located in the lands of Konoha, Kiri, Kumo, Suna and Iwa are large – and their strength is immense. Those are called ‘The Five Great Lands of Shinobi’. They are also the only places where the Shinobi leader calls himself a Kage or Shadow.”
I took the scroll from Kakashi and read the rest, “Those legendary leaders: Hokage, Mizukage, Raikage, Kazekage and Tsuchikage are known to ninjas everywhere as the Five Shadows… the ultimate commanders of all of the tens of thousands of shinobi throughout the world.” I then gave the scroll back to Kakashi.
“Don’t worry,” Kakashi said, patting Sakura’s head. “We won’t have any ninja battles in a C-ranked mission.”
I laughed nervously, knowing when we’ll have to fight Zabuza and Haku. I gulped at the thought of it.
Maybe I should have remain in Konoha after all… I could die here, being the weakest person in the group. Oh, the horror!
I touched my forehead. It was still hot… that when I noticed the puddle.
“Kakashi!” I yelled (forgetting to add ‘san’) and a metal chain shot out of the puddle and wrapped itself tightly around the Jounin.
Everyone cried out in shock and the chain was so tight that it cut Kakashi into pieces. LITERALLY! I was so frightened by the scene that I almost fainted… but remembered that it was a substitution. But, of course, the others didn’t know and started screaming their heads off.
Two men appeared in front of me… then disappeared, reappearing behind Naruto and the rest.
“Second one,” one of them whispered.
Naruto was horrified as the chain dude raised his chain.
“Naruto! Move!” Sakura yelled.
He didn’t listen… he was frozen there. I ran to shove Naruto out of the way as Sasuke jumped into the air. Sasuke took a shuriken and a kunai out of his pocket, throwing the star first and trapped the chain against a tree. Then, he threw the kunai in the center of the shuriken, making sure it wouldn’t come off.
I clapped silently, praising Sasuke for his perfect aim. Silly, I know… but that’s just me!
Chain dude tried to pull the chain away but couldn’t do it in time. Sasuke kicked both of the men’s faces hard. With the force of the kick, the chain broke into pieces.
The other dude recovered faster and launched towards Tazuna. I had anticipated that and quickly performed a taijutsu.
(Sooooorrrrrrry!!! Something happened to the front to make it bold!)
The dude flew away and hit the ground. I grabbed Tazuna and dropped him by Sakura, telling her to protect him.
There was a grunt behind and I turned around to see the other dude getting up. He glared at me and said, “Let’s see what you got, pretty thing!”
I put on a brave face but inside, I was screaming like hell.
He threw a punch but I bent down and swiped his legs. He jumped and landed behind me. I turned around… just in time to get scratched on the cheek by a kunai.
I felt my blood dripping onto the ground and a jumble of emotions went through me. Fear, pain, guilt, death… but the strongest one of them was… anger. Then, it was like a jolt of electricity buzzing through me.
Without knowing anything, my hands were automactically performing head seals and I whispered, “Miryogan.”
I heard Sakura gasped.                                                        
Suddenly, lots of feathers started to drop down and circled the dude, who was preparing to throw another kunai.
“Sight…” I continued.
The feathers turned white and surrounded him. Then, he cried out, “I… I can’t see!”
“… Death.”
Then, the feathers glowed blood red and an ear-piercing scream was heard. The feather became white again and slowly started to disappear, revealing a bloody man on the ground.
Sakura, Tazuna and I gasped. It was the dude. He was cut up everywhere and was in a pool of his own blood.
Sakura started screamed in horror… then shouted, “Etsuko! Watch out!”
I turned around to see the chain dude was charging at me. I hadn’t recovered from my shock and had no time to react… but then, Sasuke ran in front of me, opening his arms protectively.
Fortunately, Kakashi appeared and stopped the chain dude easily, making him pass out.
“Hey,” the Jounin said casually.
Everyone looked at the place where Kakashi had ‘died’ and saw pieces of logs. The Substitution  jutsu sooo rocked!
“You didn’t doubt me, did you?” the Jounin asked.
“Coming from the sensei that’s always late…” Sakura mumbled, who was still trying to recover from what happened.
Kakashi turned to Naruto. “Sorry for not helping you out right away. I got you hurt. I didn’t think that you wouldn’t be able to move.”
Naruto groaned and looked devastated.
“Anyway, good job, you guys!” Kakashi looked at me but I wasn’t even listening to him. “Naruto, don’t  move. There’s poison on his guy’s nails. We need to take it out right away.”
“WHAT?!”
“We have to open up your wound and leech out the poisoned blood. Don’t move much or the poison will spread through your body. By the way… Tazuna-san,” Kakashi said.
“W-What is it?” the bridge builder stammered.
“I need to talk to you. You too, Etsuko.”
Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were tying the knocked-out dude a tree while Kakashi walked towards the other dude on the floor. He bent down to check his pulse… then looked up. “He’s dead. Etsuko…”
I quietly started to walked away but Kakashi grabbed the back of my shirt.
“Tazuna-san, why don’t you help the rest to tie the person up?” Kakashi suggested, still having a hold of me. “I’ll talk to you later.”
The bridge builder nodded and walked towards the team.
Kakashi turned around to face me with a serious look. “What happened?”
“I-I didn’t mean to kill the guy!” I immediately said. “I’m sorry…”
Kakashi sighed. “You don’t need to apologize.” Then, a loud noise came from the group and Tazuna. He sighed. “They’re causing a ruckus. I’ll go take care of them. Etsuko, you rest for now. Sasuke! Can you come here?”
Sasuke jogged over to us as I sat down on under a tree, leaning against it.
“Mind if you treat Etsuko’s wound for me?” Kakashi asked. Sasuke gave a quick nod and Kakashi walked towards the group.
I was screaming inside as Sasuke took out a small cloth from a bag and put some kind of medicine on it. He bent down next to me and I tried my hardest not to look at him in the eyes. And I could feel Sakura’s death glare on me from a hundred meters away…
Sasuke placed the cloth on my cheek wound and I yelped out as I felt a sharp pain.
“Hold still,” he hissed. But when he did it again, I jerked my head away from him in pain.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You don’t need to do it. It’s nothing important…”
“Yes, it is,” Sasuke said as he tried again but failed. “Being a ninja is difficult and will encounter many injuries. A small scratch like this is nothing compared to what will happened in the future. And you’re already acting like if you are going to die from it. If you want to survive today, stop moving and just let me clean the wound!”
“But it hurts…”
“I know. Just bear with it.”
I nodded slowly. Sasuke dap the cloth on my wound but first, he held my head firmly but gently so that I wouldn’t move much. I bit my tongue to stop myself from screaming out loud from the pain.
It was done after three seconds and Sasuke took out another cloth, pouring water onto it. This time, it didn’t hurt so much and I allowed my body to relax.
“Sasuke?” I said as he put away the wet cloth. “Look, I’m sorry for… you know, calling you a duckbutt…”
“Hn,” he replied and took out some kind of band-aid. “Baka.”
“Aw, come one!” I giggled as Sasuke put the band-aid on my wound gently, giving it a firm rub to make sure that it sticked properly.
I got up and we walked over to the rest of the group.
“These guys are Chunins-class ninjas from Kirigakure (Hidden Village in the Mist),” Kakashi was saying. “They are ninjas know to keep fighting no matter the cost.”
“How were you able to detect our action?” the Chunin questioned, still glaring at me for killing his partner.
“It hasn’t rained for the past few days and it’s sunny today so a water puddle shouldn’t exist. I wasn’t the only one who noticed.” Kakashi smiled at me and I returned the smile.
“Why did you let them attack if you knew that?” Tazuna asked, rather angry.
“If I was up to it, I could have killed those two in the blink of an eye. But…” Kakashi sent a glare at Tazuna. “I needed to know who the target for these two was.”
“What do you mean?” the old man asked.
“In other words, were you being targeted or was it someone from our team? We have not heard anything about you being targeted by ninjas. Your request was to protect you from armed groups like gangs and robbers. This is a mission that’s above a B-ranked. Our job was to support and guard you until you completed the bridge. If ninjas are our enemies, this mission have been an expensive rank B.” Tazuna looked ashamed. “It looks like you have your reasons but it only troubles us if you lie in your request’s details. This wasn’t part of the mission.”
“We need anaesthesia to take out the poisoned blood from Naruto…” Sakura said, looking at the blond’s hand. “We need to go back to the village and see a doctor!”
“This sure is a burden…” Kakashi said, scratching his head. “Let’s go back to the village to cure Naruto.”
This made Naruto mad. Before anyone could stop him, Naruto lifted a kunai and stabbed his injured hand.
“Why am I so different?” Naruto muttered. “Why am I always… damn it! I’m never going to be frightened and try to back out of things. I’m not going to lose to Sasuke. I vow that to this pain in my hand. I’m going to protect old man Tazuna with this kunai!” He turned to us with a smirk. “The mission is still on.”
Kakashi let out a deep sigh. “Naruto, it’s nice that you took out the poisoned blood so spiritedly… but you’re going to die of blood loss if any more comes out,” he said with an innocent smile.
Everyone stood in silence for a minute. Then, Naruto’s face went pale.
“No, no, no, no!” Naruto yelled desperately, shaking his arms. “I can’t die like this! Help me! Help me!”
“Don’t worry, Naruto,” I said, trying to calm him down. “You’ll be fine.”
“Naruto, show me your hand.” Kakashi took Naruto’s hand and examined it carefully. His eyes widened for some reason.
“Am I okay?” Naruto asked nervously. “You have a serious look on your face.”
“You should be okay,” Kakashi answered, taking out some bandages and wrapping Naruto’s hand with them.