I was still irritated with the fact that Uncle Minato kept pushing these D-ranked missions onto us. I don't even get the point of these. How is babysitting misbehaving children supposed to help us track down an enemy?

Not only am I irritated with that, but I'm also irritated because now Obito and I are starting to become extremely distant because of Rin.

He doesn't hang out with me anymore and hardly ever talks to me outside of missions.

It's like I've become invisible to him or something.

Uncle Minato mentioned that we would be having a meeting, so I got up early and got ready. Both Minato and Kushina were gone, so I was home alone this morning. Once I finished getting ready, I started making my way to the training ground where the meeting was going to be at.

Rin was already there with Obito by her side. Kakashi was just sitting on the tree stump further away from them, looking lost in his thoughts. I glanced over at Obito and Rin, then walked over to the tree stump Kakashi was sitting at.

I avoided Obito's gaze and sat down next to Kakashi without a word.

"Where's Sensei? He's running late," Kakashi asked me.

I shrugged. "I didn't see him this morning, I was home alone,"

Kakashi just sighed in response.

Rin and Obito were talking the entire time we waited on Uncle Minato to get here. Kakashi was quiet for the most part, making some snarky comments to Obito here and there.

"Sorry I'm late guys," Uncle Minato said.

We all looked up at him and saw that Aunt Kushina was here too with a picnic basket in her hand.

"Remember when I told you guys I have a wife? Well, this is my wife," He introduced to the others.

She gave them a warm smile.

"My name's Kushina Uzumaki! I'm glad I finally get to meet you guys, you're all so cute!" She gushed.

She introduced herself to the three and gushed over Rin, causing me to roll my eyes at that.

"Are we going on a mission today?" Obito asked.

Minato shook his head. "No, I have something else planned today. Since you four have been working hard on completing your missions, we're going to have a picnic today as a break. I thought this would be a good way for you guys to get acquainted with her since you'll be seeing her around,"

She set the picnic basket down on the ground and I could already smell the food from here. My mouth watered at the thought of what she could've made. I was blessed to have an aunt who can cook.

She handed me a bowl of ramen and smirked when she saw my expression. "I made this for my favorite niece too, along with anmitsu,"

Kakashi sweat dropped at how I immediately started wolfing the ramen down.

Don't get me wrong. I love Ichiraku's ramen, but Kushina's homemade ramen was always the best. I'm going to have to ask her for the recipe one of these days.

Everyone was eating and talking together. I kept my distance from Rin and Obito, mainly talking to Kakashi.

"I'm surprised you're not talking to Obito," Kakashi said as he ate a riceball. "I thought you two were close,"

I glanced over at Rin and Obito, noticing that they were laughing together. Obito and I accidentally made eye contact and I looked back at Kakashi.

"Well I thought so too, I guess I'm just invisible to him now," I sighed.

I looked down at the ramen, lost in my thoughts.

Kushina was picking on Obito for the most part. She never actually met him, but she knew of him since he was my best friend back then. She seems to really like him so far.

Rin walked over to Kakashi and I. She sat down next to me and started up a conversation.

"Does your aunt always cook this good?" She asked.

I nodded in response.

"That was the best anmitsu I've had," She continued. "Better than that dessert shop,"

I finished my ramen and then stood up to put the bowl back inside the picnic basket. I also didn't want to be around Rin either. I really didn't like her.

As I put the bowl in the picnic basket, I grabbed the Tupperware dish that had anmitsu inside of it. I noticed that Rin was still sitting with Kakashi and talking to him. I wasn't going to go back over there.

I saw Obito was lost in his thoughts too, but I wasn't going to sit next to him either. I was too angry at him right now for leaving me behind. It's not like he bothers to talk to me when we're not on missions anyway.

I decided to go sit with Uncle Minato and Aunt Kushina instead.

Kushina looked over at me as I sat with them. "Is Obito the one you were close with in the academy?"

"Yeah, he was one of my best friends," I replied.

"I'm surprised I've never met him. I think I've only met the other two, Kurenai and Anko," She replied. "Why aren't you sitting with him?"

I maintained my expression. I didn't want to show that I was feeling this way.

"I just thought I'd sit with you guys," I shrugged.

She rose an eyebrow at me. "Are you guys fighting?"

I shook my head quickly. "No, everything's fine,"

Both she and Minato looked like they didn't believe me. She was going to say something, but Uncle Minato changed the subject before she could.

"Oh, I almost forgot," He said. "There was one thing Kushina and I needed to talk to you about,"

"What is it?" I rose an eyebrow.

"We're planning to move to a different house," He said. "We haven't found anything yet, but we've been looking,"

I had mixed feelings about this. I loved our house.

"Any reason why?" I ask. "What's wrong with our house right now?"

They exchanged glances and turned back to me. "We just need a bigger house. Our house is small and we need more room. It'll be alright, Hana. You can even come with us to view new houses," Kushina answered.

A hawk suddenly flew over us, signaling that the Hokage was summoning us.

"We'll talk about this later," Minato said and stood up.

Kushina stood up and we helped her clean up. It wasn't too bad of a mess, we just had to put plates and silverware back inside the picnic basket.

"See you guys at home."

She walked off from the training grounds and the five of us left for the Hokage's Tower.

Rin was by Kakashi's side the entire time to my annoyance. I just followed behind them without a word.

That made me wonder if she knew what she was doing, or if I was just overthinking.

"I hope this is a real mission or something,"

I turned my head, seeing Obito walking next to me. He had his hands resting on the back of his head and looked off to the side.

"Me too,"

"Do you think it'll be a fun one? I'm tired of these stupid D-ranked missions," He asked.

"I hope so. Let's pray that it's not going to be a babysitting mission," I replied.

So, he was finally talking to me without mentioning Rin this time. It wasn't the same, but it was nice.

We made our way inside the tower and Minato knocked on the door before entering Lord Third's office.

"Sorry to summon you guys," He apologized. "I know this was supposed to be a day off, but you guys are the only genin available right now,"

"It's alright," Minato replied. "I think they're all excited for a mission anyway,"

He wasn't wrong. I could feel that we were all thinking the same thing.

"This will be a C-ranked mission," He started.

A huge grin formed on my face at the sound of that.

"I need you guys to bring this scroll to the Blood Mist. It contains information about the upcoming Chunin Exams," He explained. "This is C ranked because there's more risks with this mission,"

He added some smaller details to the missions and dismissed us.

I remembered a story I heard in the academy about the Blood Mist. Apparently, you have to fight the person you're assigned to until one of you is dead to graduate and whether you were friends or not didn't matter to them.

I'm glad I don't live there and I'm surprised they allow that, but I guess it's called "Blood Mist" for a reason.

I bet the Mizukage is some old roughed-up-looking guy judging by the name.

We all stopped by our houses to gather our things. Kushina was in the middle of vacuuming the living room rug and stopped when she heard Minato and I walk through the door.

"So, what did he say?" She asked.

"We'll be on a mission. We're going to be gone for three days because we have to deliver a scroll to the Blood Mist," Minato told her.

She looked worried, but he reassured her. I went back to my room to gather my pouch and he was already ready. Both he and Kushina stood by the door talking.

"Are you ready?" He asked.

I nodded.

Kushina gave me a hug and pecked Uncle Minato's cheek.

"Be careful you two, okay?"

"I will," I smiled at her.

We left to go meet up with the others at the gate.

"So, about that new house," I said, looking over at Uncle Minato. "When are we going to start looking?"

"Hopefully after this mission," He replied. "Kushina's been looking through the newspaper for listings and she found a few that she likes. We'll talk more about it when we get back,"

Kakashi, Obito, and Rin were all at the gate already.

"Are we ready?" Uncle Minato asked.

We all nodded.

The gates opened and we exited the village. I was excited since this was our first C-ranked mission. Right now, you could practically feel the excitement radiating off of me in waves. I was too lost in my thoughts about how this mission would go.

"Sensei? How long will this mission take us exactly?" Obito asked, breaking the silence.

"About six days," Uncle Minato replied. "It takes about three days to get to the Blood Mist and then three days to get back to the village,"

Kakashi suddenly elbowed me, breaking me out of my thoughts.

"Did you even hear what Sensei said?" He asked.

I looked over at him, smiling sheepishly. He just sighed in response.

"He said that we're now leaving the border for the Land of Fire, so we have to keep our guards up now. The fog is starting to get thicker and an enemy can easily sneak an attack on us this way," He said.

"Oh, right!" I replied.

It was pretty hard trying to see into the fog. I almost couldn't see any of my teammates next to me anymore.

"Try to stay together guys!" Uncle called out to us.

As we walked further into the Land of Water, the fog was starting to grow even thicker. I couldn't see anything around me. I had to rely on sound to stay nearby.

"Are you guys still around?" I asked, trying to make sure I wasn't wandering too far.

But to my displeasure, there was no response.

"Kakashi?"

Nothing.

"Minato-Sensei?"

Still nothing.

"Rin? Obito?"

Oh no. The fog was so thick, I couldn't see anything around me and now I've lost them.

I stopped walking so I could figure out how to find them, but suddenly felt a pinch on my shoulder. I moved my hand so I could feel it, but felt a senbon or some type of needle. Blood dripped down my hand as I pulled the senbon out and threw it on the ground.

Luckily it was just a senbon, so there wasn't a lot of blood or pain.

"Okay, whoever did that, you better come out and show yourself!" I exclaimed.

I looked around, squinting, trying to see if there was any sort of shadow around me.

An unfamiliar and feminine voice snickered.

I felt a breeze behind me and immediately grabbed a kunai from my pouch and turned around. My kunai had hit the attacker's weapon.

"I gotta hand it to you, your reflexes are a lot sharper than I thought they'd be,"

The attacker sounded like she was around my age.

"Who the hell are you? What do you want?" I demanded.

"I don't think I'm obligated to tell you that."