Naruto is going to befriend her anyways!

Also he is getting SO BORED.

The training is repetitive, and they're not doing anything really cool yet, not cool like Sasuke's spells (which Sasuke did try to teach him but there was too much memorization and math involved), and babysitting is the only non-terrible D-rank. He wants a real mission! Or a cool technique! Or to see something outside of Konoha!

"A real mission, huh? You three have been doing well in your training. I suppose we can go to the tower and see if they have any C-ranks."

"C-ranks!!!"

Sugira stares at the both of them, distinctly unimpressed. "How dangerous are they, usually?" He knows they involve leaving the village, and sometimes protecting merchants from bandits, but not much else.

"A C-rank mission is designated as a mission which involves at least two of either a moderate probability of combat or travel outside the village or an expected duration of at least one week, and the probability of encountering enemy shinobi is negligible."

He nods. He's not assuming nothing will go wrong... But he also knows he's unlikely to win this fight with Naruto, and needs to pick his battles.

"Fine, then."

Off to the tower! The mission they get from the desk is to escort a man named Tazuna back to his home in the Land of Waves. He's apparently an experienced bridge-builder and is unimpressed with the quality of the squad that will be taking his mission. He's also day-drinking.

Sugira is unimpressed with him, so it evens out.

He keeps Naruto entertained as they set out, and pays attention for anything out of the ordinary. He's also generally curious - he hasn't left this village before, after all.

The Land of Waves is located on an island off the coast of the land south of the Land of Fire. Their trip down is uneventful for the first week, sunlight trickling down through the great trees that make up the forest Konoha takes its name from. Tazuna is a surly traveling companion, mostly not participating in conversation. As they approach and pass Fire's border, he begins looking more nervous.

- Fucking great.

Sugira keeps his spell-scrolls so they're easily accessible, and pays attention to potential ambush or trap sites.

Around midday there's a puddle in the middle of the road. Kakashi casually steps around it.

- It hasn't rained in weeks. And it doesn't look like someone spilled water. No splatter. So much for "no enemy shinobi."

He has the traveling spells he wrote into his secondary spellbook. He'd figured Expeditious Retreat (a doubled movement), Blurred Movement (makes him hard to hit while moving), and Illusion of Calm would most useful for bandits, so that's all he has.

He passes the puddle. Very quietly and subtly casts Expeditious Retreat then Blurred Movement, then suppresses the effect.

Keeps walking. Waits.

Once the entire party has passed the puddle, two ninja shlorp out of it. They each wear a heavy metal gauntlet and a length of serrated chain connects them. While they still have the element of surprise, they wrap the chain around Kakashi with a few deft twists, then pull it tight. A pile of variously-severed extremities drops to the ground, and the pair laughs evilly.

Tazuna shrieks. Chihiro steps in front of him, pulling out a pair of knives.

Sugira is standing still, apparently frozen in shock - 

Except for how he's actually not.

(If the illusion was stable enough to last more than a third of a minute he might use it to lay an ambush. Unfortunately, he's left with 'cover for an attack.')

Original version of this spell covered thrown weapons, too, hopefully they won't be able to register the shuriken he throws at them until those hit - 

And then he's moving twice as fast as any genin has a right to, image blurring so it's not really clear exactly where he is, and the illusion that he's standing still will break when he gets too far from it but hopefully his sudden apparent re-positioning will take them by surprise enough he can get within a few feet - 

They curse as they lose track of him-

Curse again as Chihiro throws the knives to hit each of them in their gauntleted shoulder-

He draws his sword. It has shimmering runes along it, and he bound himself to it so he can use it to cast an extra spell a day -

And as soon as he's within three or so feet of them -

He teleports himself behind them. It doesn't have the range of a proper Dimension Door - only five feet - and he can only do it six times a day, but he can do this without spending spell slots.

And then he stabs the one to the right. Non-lethally, aiming to disable his legs. Sugira's not even using the sword to cast spells yet. (He's not confident he won't end up in another fight today.)

He goes down.

The other manages to disengage from the chain, turns, starts a swipe at Sugira with clawed fingers-

-and Kakashi swoops in and puts him down with a blow to the back of the neck.

He backs up, still. Tries to get his heart rate down a bit. Eyes the one he downed, then, to Kakashi, "Thanks."

He won't be getting back up. "Good job Sasuke, Chihiro."

How's Naruto doing?

Shaking and still frozen.

He goes over and pats Naruto on the shoulder.

"Doing okay there?"

Shaky breath. "Yeah - yeah. Not hurt. Just..." He glances away from Sasuke, suddenly annoyed at the other boy for being able to actually do stuff and take down an opponent and - 

Sugira has no idea how to handle this, doesn't think yelling at Tazuna for endangering a bunch of kids would be productive at the moment, so is sort of hovering uncertainly.