after a while, one by one all arrived except s.h.i.+sui. instead nagato sensei came and "h.e.l.lo everyone, I'm Nagato Uzumaki and I'm captain of this team.

Many were surprised that there's a change at the last minute. I asked "sensei, how come it's you. Why wasn't s.h.i.+sui san here?" he replied "No, I'm not joining tournament if that's what u think. I'm here to pa.s.s hokage sama orders. There are still 6months till the tournament and you are given series of missions each for you "

"s.h.i.+sui Uchiha from root will join at the tournament, take these scrolls". he pa.s.sed to three of them. I asked "sensei, what about me?" he replied "you and me will be a team and this scroll contains contains our missions as team captain I'm holding this scroll"

he turned to others "your scrolls contains all details of your missions but you only have three months. after three months no matter what state you are in you have to abort your missions and meet us at keis.h.i.+. now let's go"

they left one by one. I'm reluctant to leave without seeing Hana, well if I use senjutsu I can just sense her easily but at that time my mind didn't work and keep searching for Hana in the crowd.

at last I left without seeing her. after a while we reached outskirts I asked all the details about the tournament and it's rules. he didn't told me about the rules as they are being kept secret to everyone, the only thing I got the answer is about the kage summit details which happened 6months ago.

after listening I asked "what about takigakure?" he frowned and replied "you don't know about it?" I was puzzled "what?" he replied "they are being shunned and their funds are cut by the daimyo years ago, but they are still independent though"

then I remembered Fu, seven tailed jinchuuriki and thought 'I should visit that place. can't do anything about Naruto but since she's not one of great five villages I think I can rescue her'

Soon, we reached Otaf.u.ki gai one of towns near konoha and rest there till morning.

next day I asked "sensei, whats our first mission?" he laughed "actually there's no mission for you. hokage sama only informed me to train you" I replied sarcastically "well, I expected something like this from that old man after all I'm a precious senju heir"

he frowned "hey, don't speak like that. if hokage sama truly wants you to only live he wouldn't even put you into the list, may be you are as strong as a jonin but still your chakra capacity still haven't reached it yet. what would you do when you exhaust yourself quickly. you never know what happens"

well, I can use senjutsu then, but that sentence stopped it in my mouth as it was supposed to be a secret moreover there are jinchuurikis from other villages. I'm not sure whether I can handle them with sage mode.

I asked "So, in three months I'm training in improving my chakra capacity right" he nodded.

at the same time in konoha, inuzuka compound a girl is training rigorously non stop. "let's take a short break Hana" she nodded and sat down and just wiping her sweat.Tsume mumbled "I wonder what happened to this girl, for the past 6 months she's been training too hard" and she sat beside her

when she was about ask, Hana slowly asked "at this time Diran must have already crossed fire country border right" Tsume who heard that "no, I don't think they go outside of fire country. if you are worried that much why don't you go and meet him, if my guess is correct he might still be in otaf.u.ki gai town."

Hana refused "No, I won't go meet him until it's time" 'Diran, wait for me. soon, I'll able to walk with you together .no longer will I get afraid of staying behind' and she went back to training

now back to me and sensei, there's no learning about new Justus. he's just planned the old way, just fighting till I get exhausted my chakra then rest and recover and then continue. just like that 3 months finished no problems at all we travelled from town to town solved little bit of problems here and there with bandits everything is fine except sometimes sensei mysteriously disappears and appear a few hours later.

when I asked about it, he won't reply anything. I too stopped caring about it after asking once or twice. later after 3months all the members of team met at keis.h.i.+, it's the capital of fire country where daimyo lives but the only issue is people there don't like s.h.i.+n.o.bi much. probably we are nothing more than killers in their eyes. well it's almost same where in all country capitals.

Anyway after we met, we rested there for a night and next morning sensei called all of us "So, guys before we go to land of iron we are going for an S-Cla.s.s mission" everyone gasped I said "sensei, we are doing mission now?" he nodded. kakas.h.i.+ intervened "What about this kid?" I narrowed my eyes "you aren't much older than me to call me like that"

"Hmpf, your statistics says that you haven't done much missions at all aside from some low level missions" I frowned and was about to retort sensei replied "you don't need to worry about him. my student has the highest chances of living among all of us here"

s.h.i.+kaku Nara staring at me and thinking something. Ayuri Hyuga asked "OK, captain what are the details of mission" sensei replied "OK, you know about Orochimaru right, he was defected from village years ago. now we got a lead. he is in Ta no Kuni (Land of Rice Fields). although now it's known as Oto no Kuni. according to the Intel I got, Orochimaru conquered the country and even established his own ninja village Otogakure (Village Hidden by Sound)"

"Currently he's Otokage there and since it's a proper established village we can't attack directly and the mission is to capture him alive if it's impossible then we deliver his dead body."