Chapter Text
Kakashi sat in his living room, reading his beloved Icha Icha. Across from him, Rezaa and Shou were busy with their own, less interesting reading. Silence pervaded the room, the three introverts content with busying themselves on their own.
Suddenly the silence was interrupted by a loud knocking on the Hatake front door.
Rezaa got up and opened the door to greet Team 7's only extroverted member but was instead met with a group of three familiar genin.
"Hey, Rezaa!" Naruto greeted, "I invited Ben-chan along, hope you don't mind."
"What's up?" Benetto asked, "I invited Sakura-chan to join us as well."
Rezaa looked at the three for another moment before stepping aside to let them in. "That's fine. There can be as many players as we want."
"Cool! What are we playing?" Benetto asked as he stepped past his friend's teammate.
Kakashi closed his book and got up. "We're playing a tactical game called Danger and Deceit. After our last mission, I thought it would be advantageous to get some mission practice in, in a safe environment. It also functions as a team-bonding exercise."
"Oh." Benetto seemed a bit put down by the last part.
"But Ben-chan and Sakura-chan can still join us, ne, Kaka-sensei?" Naruto asked quickly.
"Of course, they are still comrades after all."
"Alright!" Benetto cheered. "How does it work?"
Kakashi pulled out multiple empty scrolls. “Each of you will create a character. You can be whoever or whatever you want to be, even if you want to be from somewhere outside of Konoha. Then I will talk you through different mission-type scenarios and you’ll tell me what you would do in those situations.”
“So we can be whoever we want to be?” Naruto asked.
“Exactly.”
“Then I’m gonna be Hokage!”
“Uh.”
“That’s not how it works,” Rezaa told his teammate. “Hokage is a rank, so if you want to be Hokage in the game, you’ll have to start out as a Konoha shinobi and work yourself up to it.”
Kakashi nodded, “In a regular game, your characters get stronger as you complete missions and defeat enemies. However, since this is supposed to be a form of training, your characters will only be able to get stronger if you are getting stronger in real life.”
“If we can be whatever we want, can I be a kitsune?” Sakura asked.
“Yes, you can,” Rezaa agreed, “and I am going to be a samurai with yokai blood.”
“So you can turn into a wolf?” Kakashi asked, unsurprised.
Rezaa nodded excitedly and Kakashi resigned himself to another game with a wolf shifter. His son was getting predictable when it came to character creation.
When everyone was done describing their characters and putting the information in their character scroll, it was time for Kakashi to start on their first adventure.
“We’ll start with an easier mission,” Kakashi told them, “So we can get used to your characters. You have all met each other in a town on the border of Fire Country. An old man approaches you with a mission. “My daughter moved out of town a few years ago but now that so many bandits are being sighted nearby, I worry about her safety. Please bring her here to me so that I’ll know she is safe.” He offers to pay you a C-rank mission pay. ”
“So we agree to the mission, right?” Benetto asked.
“Right!” Naruto replied.
Rezaa turned to his father, “ Can you give us a map to her exact location? ”
Kakashi nodded and sketched out a map for them. “It’s going to be a two-day trip there and two days back if you aren’t delayed by anything.”
“We all have ten rations right now, so we should be fine.” Rezaa determined.
“We have to keep track of that?” Naruto asked.
Rezaa nodded, “We’ll eat one ration per day, usually after waking up, before we continue on our way. Sakura, you’re also going to have to keep track of your arrows and remember that if you throw a weapon, you might lose it.”
“But that’s so much to remember!” Naruto complained.
“That’s why you’re supposed to write it down,” Kakashi told him, “Now. Do you want to do anything in this town before you head out?”
The genin looked at each other before shaking their heads and looking back at Kakashi.
“ You leave the town and follow the patch that is indicated on the old man’s map. Show me the formation you’re walking in.”
“Since I have the most armour, I should probably be in front,” Bennetto told them.
Shou shook his head. “You’re our only healer. Medics usually try to avoid battle.”
“What about the Sannin lady?” Naruto asked, “She’s a healer but she’s also like super strong and got famous because of her fighting, tight?”
“Yeah!” Benetto agreed, “Plus, I’m playing as an oni, so I should be fine.”
They arranged little wooden figurines–a gift from one of Kakashi’s secret Anbu friends that Rezaa wasn’t supposed to know about–into a formation they were all happy with.
Benetto was not quite in front but directly behind Naruto, who had the highest passive perception. Shou and Sakura were following behind Benetto to form a triangle, while Rezaa guarded the rear.
Kakashi nodded once before continuing. “ You’re setting a good pace to make it in two days. Shou, please roll this dice to see if anything happens to you during the day.”
Shou took the offered twenty-sided dice and rolled.
Kakashi looked at the number on top. “ You’re lucky and don’t encounter anything during the day. With the map the old man gave you, you can see that you’re about halfway to your destination. ”
“Then we should make camp now and keep watch in shifts,” Rezaa told the group.
“Alright, it’s just like on a real mission,” Naruto concluded.
They made up an order in which they would keep watch.
“Sakura, how about you roll to see if anything attacks you during the night,” Kakashi prompted.
Sakura nodded and rolled the same die that Shou had rolled before.
“ You are being attacked by bandits. Benetto, please roll this die to see how many there are.”
Benetto did as told.
“ Luckily, there are only two bandits. They are both carrying axes. What do you do?”
They had already decided on an order in which they would take turns to act, since they didn’t want to roll for that each encounter.
“ I attack the bandit on the left with my sword, ” Rezaa decided and rolled the necessary dice.
“ Your attack leaves the bandit injured but he is not being deterred. ”
“ I try to shoot the one that Rezaa injured .” Sakura decided and rolled as well.
“ Your arrow misses. ”
Shou took the offered die from Sakura, “ I throw one of my kunai at the same bandit. ”
“ Your kunai misses. ”
“ I’ll attack the other one, ” Naruto decided.
“With what?”
“Uh, my tanto?”
“Okay, roll to see what happens,” Kakashi encouraged.
Naruto rolled.
“ Your attack lands. Now roll this one… The bandit is defeated. ”
“Hell yeah! Am I awesome or what?”
Benetto grinned before taking the die from him, “ I attack the remaining bandit with my warhammer. ”
“ The bandits are both defeated. You continue sleeping in shifts and keeping watch. ”
“Then we eat in the morning,” Rezaa told them and marked it on his scroll, “So now we have only 9 days of rations left.”
Kakashi waited for all of them to mark down their rations before continuing, “ You arrive at a ghost town. There is only one house that seems to be lived in. As you look around, you see that there’s a man watching the very same house. He’s wearing a hitai-ate you don’t recognize but his face seems familiar and you can guess that he is a wanted Jonin. ”
“Do we know that the woman we are looking for is in the house?” Sakura asked.
“Yes. As you observe the scene, you see a woman pass by one of the windows of the house. ”
“So we attack the guy and then bring the woman back,” Naruto concluded.
“If he’s a jonin, he’s going to be too strong for us,“ Shou argued, “It would be smarter to try and sneak past him into the house.”
“What’s the fun in that? It’s not like we can get hurt, it’s just a game!”
“It is supposed to teach us how to act during missions. Do you think charging Zabuza would have been a good idea for us?”
Naruto crossed his arms over his chest, “Zabuza turned out fine though! Maybe this guy could be our friend too!”
“You can’t just expect all our enemies to become our friends,” Shou shot back, “It’s not realistic.”
“I got charisma!” Naruto pointed at his scroll.
“That doesn’t mean-”
“How about we split up?” Benetto interrupted them. “Naru-chan and Shou, you can distract the jounin and–yes, you can see if you can befriend him–while Rezaa and Sakura sneak past to go talk to the woman.”
“What about you?” Sakura asked.
“I’ll stay here so I can keep an eye on both groups.”
“Good idea!” Naruto told him, “ I sneak around the empty houses so that the jounin doesn’t see what direction I came from. ”
“ I follow behind him ,” Shou added.
“ The jonin turns to you. “Who the hell are you guys?” ”.
“ I am a shinobi from the Uchiha clan ,” Shou replied quickly before naruto could get a word in, “ I am acting as the bodyguard for the honourable Uzumaki-hime. ”
“What?” Naruto gasped in offence, “I don’t need a bodyguard!”
“Well, you wanted to be an Uzumaki Princess. Princesses have bodyguards.”
“What do you know about princesses?!”
“More than you apparently.”
“ Sakura and I use the distraction to sneak towards the house ,” Rezaa decided. Sakura agreed with a nod.
Kakashi drew up a diagram of the house, “There’s a front door here and another door at the back, with two windows on either side.”
“Should we try to climb through a window?” Sakura asked Rezaa.
“Let’s try the back door first.”
“ The door is locked ,” Kakashi told them.
“Do you have tools to pick the lock?” Rezaa asked.
Sakura looked at her character scroll, “No. Do you?”
Rezaa shook his head, “Maybe you could just burn it down?”
Kakashi cleared his throat, “ Before you can decide what to do, the door opens to reveal a young woman. “What are you doing here?” she asks. ”
“ Your father sent us, ” Sakura told him, “ We’re supposed to bring you back to your old village because of all the bandits that have been sighted in this area. ”
“ ”I’m safe here,” the woman insists. ”
Rezaa looked at his father sceptically, “ There’s a bandit at your front door. ”
“ The woman tells you that she bought a number of barrier seals from rogue shinobi and that she is perfectly safe inside her house. ”
“ Our mission is to bring you back. ”
Before Kakashi could answer, Sakura interjected, “ What if you write us a letter for your dad to let him know you’re safe? He’d probably accept that, right? ”
“ ”Alright, I can do that,” ” Kakashi agreed.
“If it doesn’t work, we’re coming back here.” Rezaa decided.