Mission Expert

"Early as always, Kiba, Shino." When Yuun and Hinata arrived at the meeting place, Kiba and Shino were already waiting there.

"This is the first mission we've had since becoming ninja! How could we be late?" Kiba shouted confidently.

"Tsk, seeing how energetic you are puts my mind at ease." Yuun gave him a mischievous once-over. "We have to complete four D-rank Missions today, so do your best."

"Haha, bring it on!" Kiba yelled. "I'm not afraid of you!"

"I hope so." Yuun shrugged indifferently. Either way, he would not be the one suffering.

Mission One: Assist Kirishima Snack Shop with moving. Difficulty: D-rank. Mission duration: two hours.

Mission Two: Help the Shijū Family babysit. Difficulty: D-rank. Mission duration: two hours.

Mission Three: Clear the weeds in E214 District. Difficulty: D-rank. Mission duration: one and a half hours.

Mission Four: Clean Hokage Rock. Difficulty: D-rank. Mission duration: three hours.

After a full day of missions, the three members of Team 8 were exhausted. Hinata was doing fairly well; she was a girl, so the dirty and strenuous work had mostly not fallen to her. Kiba and Shino had it rough, though. Whether moving or weeding, neither job was easy. The most troublesome task had been cleaning Hokage Rock. Compared to that, babysitting had not been particularly tiring.

"What's wrong? It's only the first day, and you can't take it anymore?" Squatting before Kiba and Shino, who were already sprawled on the ground, Yuun cheerfully rubbed salt in the wound. "This won't do."

"Quit nagging!" Kiba stubbornly tried to get up, but his exhausted body refused to cooperate. After several failed attempts, he could only kneel on one knee and gasp for breath. "It's just a little trouble. How could that possibly beat me?"

"Hehe, is that so?" Yuun said teasingly. "What about you, Shino? Can you still hold on?"

"...I can..." Shino was not in much better shape than Kiba. His stamina had never been particularly impressive, yet he had not done much less work than Kiba. He could still endure it, but he was nearing his limit.

"Tsk, let me do the math." After counting the reward money in hand, Yuun smiled. "Not bad. A pretty good haul for today. Then it's decided—we're going to soak in the hot springs!"

Yuun had always done whatever came to mind. Since he had decided to visit the hot springs, they went straight there. The rewards from four D-rank Missions were obviously not enough for the four of them to splurge, but with Yuun adding his own money, it was more than enough.

"Ah..." Both Kiba and Shino could not help crying out as they were tossed into the hot spring. Soaking their exhausted, nearly falling-apart bodies in the warm spring water felt so comfortable that words could not describe it.

"How is it? Feels great, right?" Yuun, soaking in the hot spring as well, stretched lazily. He had to admit that hot springs were remarkably effective at relaxing the body.

The two were too exhausted to answer Yuun. Akamaru, on the other hand, enthusiastically paddled around the pool with a doggy stroke. From the look of it, this was not his first time soaking in a hot spring.

After soaking for over half an hour, the two had finally recovered quite a bit. It was just in time to enjoy a feast.

"You did very well on today's missions, but barbecue isn't quite suitable right now, so we'll have a hot spring feast instead." Yuun said with a smile.

"This is amazing." Looking at the full table of hot spring cuisine before him, Kiba felt as though he was drooling. "Then I won't hold back. Time to dig in!"

Hinata and Shino did not intend to be polite either. Yuun had already said that this was what they had earned through a full day of hard work. If they did not eat plenty, would that not be letting down their hard-working selves?

"This..." Just as Yuun was about to go after a large shrimp he had his eye on, Hinata suddenly placed a huge piece of crab meat into his bowl. "...It's delicious..."

Yuun smiled at the sight and placed that shrimp into Hinata's bowl. Hinata, already somewhat shy, turned red all the way to her ears. Luckily, Kiba and Shino did not notice, or she might have fainted on the spot.

After a day of missions, the next day was time for training.

Since Hinata and the other two all came from clans, elders had taught them training such as tree climbing and water walking before they graduated. Yuun did not need to repeat those lessons. Furthermore, each of them had their own established system of abilities, so he did not need to worry about that either. Still, he could offer them plenty of advice during training, since he had some familiarity with all three of their techniques.

Kiba did not have much of a problem. He had grown up with Akamaru since childhood, and their mutual understanding was no worse than that of veteran soldiers who had fought side by side for over a decade. On top of that, he had considerable talent for practicing his clan's techniques. What he needed was simply time—to turn the rapport between himself and Akamaru into combat power.

Shino's situation was similar to Kiba's. Most clan ninja developed smoothly. After all, those before them had already paved a path, and following it was not only fast but allowed them to go farther than most people. The two only needed time and sufficient real combat experience. With the knowledge they had accumulated over the past few years beginning to bear fruit, becoming Chunin in a few years was practically inevitable.

Hinata, however, was somewhat troublesome. Her talent was not poor, or she would not have been able to develop Guardian Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms and Twin Lion Step on her own later. But at present, she was too introverted and weak-willed, and her thoughts were too cluttered. When practicing the Gentle Fist, she put in twice the effort for half the result, and even when she struck, she could only bring out seventy percent of her full strength. If these issues did not change, the best she could achieve in her life would be Chunin—and a relatively weak one at that.

After spending several days getting a clear grasp of the three's situations, Yuun began thinking of solutions. Kiba and Shino basically had no problems. As long as they were allowed to develop without going down the wrong path, they would be fine. As for Hinata, he needed to help her improve rapidly while also helping her work through her issues. Otherwise, she would still only be a bystander during the Chunin Ninja Exams.

Although he wanted to solve the problem, Yuun did not have any particularly good methods in the short term. Hinata had lacked confidence and fighting spirit for a long time. It could not be fixed with just a few words unless one was a master of talk-no-jutsu like Naruto Uzumaki.

Time passed amid conflict and helplessness. In the blink of an eye, more than half a year had passed since Team 8 graduated. Under Yuun's leadership, the three had begun taking C-rank Missions. Their completion rate continued the tradition Yuun had established with Team 1: always one hundred percent.

Of course, this also had to do with Yuun selectively accepting missions. He directly avoided missions that were overly dangerous or unclear in nature. As a member of the Hyuga Clan and an Elite Jonin, he had that small privilege. Because they were now undertaking C-rank Missions with a certain degree of danger, the three's growth accelerated noticeably. Even Hinata gained far more confidence after performing outstandingly on several missions.