Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. This fanfiction is not earning any money.

Anbu Training Mission

by Ebona Nite

Uzumaki Naruto, now 16, had reached the rank of Jounin the year before. He'd finally qualified for Anbu which, unfortunately meant more training. Luckily, Anbu Training Missions were higher than D-ranks.

Which was why he was so excited when he burst into the Anbu compound's missions office.

"YO! Anbu Trainee Fox reporting in! So what's on the list today, Captain, huh huh huh?! Combat training? Infiltration? Recon-"

"Calm down Fox. I'm giving you a new one today, an evasion training mission in conjunction with another team's search and retrieval training. It's B-rank with hazard pay, and you'll all be reporting in to a "contact" for the retrieval team's drop-off at the end of it."

"COOOOL!!"

"WILL YOU SHUDDUP!!"

"Sorry sir...."

There was a lot of muffled snickering from around the room. A lot of the more experienced Anbu were grinning openly.

"Anyway, that special henge of yours that affects the physical body instead of being just an illusion will be an asset to this. Normally you or your contact person puts up a genjutsu to affect the physical senses of the search/pursue/retrieval team. The disguise is essential. Think you can keep it up for long periods of time with a high level of strenuous activity?"

"No problem! So what's the mission parameters?"

"Okay trainee, your mission is the Fire Lord's Wife's Cat -"

"WHAAAAAAT!!!!"

"Will you quit it with the yelling!"

"Whaddaya mean, I gotta hunt Tora again?! I thought I was finished with the stupid D-ranks after I made Chunin?"

"You aren't hunting Tora, you are Tora."

".... Wait, what?" The other Anbu were howling with laughter at this point - it never got old, watching the newbies get "brought into the fold."

The Anbu captain snickered at his expression. "Kid, the real cat Tora died over 40 years ago, and was not nearly so difficult to capture by trained ninja - even genin - who could use chakra to increase their reflexes. And did you really think the Fire Lord's Wife would come down to Konoha in person practically every day? She stays up in the palace and lets us use her image for training our genin... and Anbu trainees. It's an A-rank secret known only to the Hokage and Anbu. So you'll be henging into Tora, running amok while the freshly graduated genin team chase you for up to 3 hours – if they haven't caught you by then or you haven't gotten tired or bored, you can let them capture you and end the mission at that point – and your "contact" henged as the Fire Lord's Wife plays their little act. Everyone goes home irritated out of their wits. A couple of these, and you can move up to being pursued by Chunins, Jounins, and Anbu, under different disguises. Every new Anbu Trainee starts with this for evasion and high-chase-sabotage training."

As Naruto stood there, jaw dropped, the captain turned to the rest of the room.

"Okay, who wants the accompanying C-rank contact/disguise "Fire Lord's Wife" mission...?"

END