Naruto : A Fool's Errand.

"Did they go back home?" Tachibana spoke casually until a sharp vision played in his mind.

A hand dropped on his neck to knock him out?

Tachibana reacted instantly, elbowing behind himself as he ducked under to move out of range of the person standing behind him.

Except he couldn't to his surprise, someone caught his collar and pulled him back while simultaneously grabbing his elbow.

"Oh? It's you Yamato-sensei." Tachibana casually commented as he was turned around.

"Be careful of where you aim your elbow next time…you are small…"

Tachibana was confused for a second until he looked down.

'Pfftttt….'

"Sorry sensei…didn't mean it."

"Yeah, fine, everyone's waiting for you."

"Oh? I thought they had gone home. Isn't it our day off today? Why do we have to gather again!?"

"Life is full of surprises…and today happens to be a surprise mission day."

Tachibana deadpanned but hung from his collar like a cat he could do nothing as he was taken away by Yamato who rushed around the village before arriving at what looked like a studio.

"Where are we?"

"An acting studio, our clients are waiting here. We have a boat to catch soon and you're late."

"What about mission supplies?"

"I'll give you time to pack them in a few minutes, right now we need to hear them out."

"Sure…"

Yamato placed me down and Tachibana followed behind him enthusiastically, the set was currently taking a break, and the actors and the director were all sipping on tea, but the film crew was still buzzing around the set, fixing what needed fixing and replacing what needed to be replaced for the next scene.

Arriving by team seven's side, Tachibana asked Sakura to scoot over before sitting by her side as he joined them all in looking at the set.

That was when Yamato spoke to the director.

"Are we going to the Land of Snow for shooting the next scene?"

"Yes Yamato-san, there is a special glacier there that is called the Spring Valley. It is said to host a special rainbow in a week that will only be visible for four to five hours. We aim to shoot in the Spring Valley, a special scene for the sequel of the movie Princess Gale."

"I understand." Yamato nodded but Tachibana had a question.

"Why did Fujikaze-san run away then?"

"Ah!" The director stayed silent as he looked at another person standing beside him to take over.

"Greetings *ahem* I'm Sandayū Asama. I'm Fujikaze-san's agent. She's always been like this…a little difficult to get along with. But I promise there will be no trouble while she's on camera. She loves being an actress you see."

Tachibana nodded but felt that something was missing, the other Genin felt so too but they didn't raise any questions seeing Yamato hadn't spoken anything to probe about it.

The director took over after that, "I don't mind her personal problems, everyone's got those, as long as she gives her all behind the camera, there's not much for me to be dissatisfied with. That girl…she's a born actress."

All the other actors seemed to agree with the director and they all nodded until the director's assistant spoke up.

"We're leaving soon, so if you could find her, it'd help a lot."

"Want me to go and fetch her?" Tachibana proposed since he'd been the last to see her.

Yamato quickly nodded and spoke softly, "Lead the team to her last known location, then you guys can bring her back to the village exit. Carts are waiting there for us to leave."

"Alright." Tachibana nodded and left the studio along with Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura.

"The heck…do you think I can get an autograph from her?" Naruto asked with a dreamy expression.

The four of them quickly reached the pond where Tachibana had left her off and to no one's surprise Yukie Fujikaze wasn't there.

The team split off to find leads on where she'd gone since her horse was still there, meaning someone must have seen her walk elsewhere, and Sakura pulled through after asking a couple of kids who seemed to be disappointed they didn't get her autograph.

"I guess no autographs for you Naruto.", Tachibana said once Sakura shared the information with them.

They followed several other eyewitnesses and ended up at a bar where they saw Fujikaze drinking away her troubles.

"Erm…excuse me Fujikaze-san, but would you like to leave?" Tachibana asked politely as the rest of team seven looked around lazily.

"No! I don't want to go to that damn country ever again!" Fujikaze shouted, clearly drunk, grabbing the attention of everyone in the bar.

The remaining trio tried to do their best to apologise to the other customers for the disturbance but Fujikaze didn't seem to want to shut up.

"That country will be the end of me!"

"No one's going to go there until the princess says so!"

"I'm the princess and I say we aren't-"

Tachibana thought for a moment about what he could do to placate this drunk woman and complete their mission when he had a simple idea.

"Sure Fujikaze-san, you don't need to go. But only if you win a bet with me. Is that alright?"

"Oh? It's you!" Fujikaze said looking at Tachibanaa bit surprised.

"Yes. It's me. But how about the bet? Do you agree to come with me if you lose the bet?"

"Hmm…sure. What is it though? I'll only come with you if it's fairrrrr…."

"It's a simple coin toss. But the only condition is I guess first."

"Oh? That simpleeee? Why nooooot."

Tachibana divined the outcome out of Fujikaze's view and then tossed a simple coin that he asked Fujikaze to give for the fairness of the bet and called out a result-

"I say it'll be tails."

Fujikaze casually said, "Fine. Heads for me then."

The coin tumbled onto the table and Fujikaze trapped it between her palm.

"Wanna check out the result Fujikaze-san?"

"Okay…oooookay…"

Fujikaze tried peering under her palm while it rested on the table since she was drunk, but Tachibana slowly lifted her hand to help her see.

"Damn it! It's tails!!!!"

"You'll have to follow me now Fujikaze-san."

"Argghhhhh!!! But I don't want to goo!!!!"

"A promise is a promise isn't it?"

Fujikaze was dragged to the village entrance by the end of the day after several more coin tosses through the way.

Tachibana noticed each time he pulled out his topaz pendulum for divination the rest of Team Seven would flinch but they hid it well, trying not to show them how much the thing had worried them.

Once at the entrance, Sandayu took Fujikaze to her cart and Yamato gave them an hour to prepare supplies and come back to the entrance so that they could set off.

Tachibana prepared light, and after an overnight journey where Team Seven kept watch while rotating their shifts to protect the caravan with Yamato.

They reached the dock early in the morning and the sleeping Fujikaze was transferred to the ship effortlessly by Yamato.

As they sailed, Tachibana was terribly bored.

He couldn't read on sealing since he didn't want to expose his capabilities, and since everyone else had packed light, no one thought to pack a board game or two to chase time away.

So after letting an intrusive thought win, Tachibana walked over to Naruto and whispered something to him.

"Hey Naruto, wanna know who Sakura likes?"

"Oh!? Yes!" Naruto almost shouted but caught his tongue at the last minute.

"Alright. I'll ask her to look at who she likes and you'll know."

"Ok." Naruto quickly nodded.

Tachibana walked over to Sakura and whispered to her, "Sakura, who do you like more? Sasuke or Nar-"

"Sasuke…" Sakura said before the question even finished as she blushed while looking at Sasuke.

'Hehehe~ That was surprisingly easy. Now I just have to pull off the trick.'

Tachibana then under the shocked gazes of both Sakura and Naruto walked up to Sasuke and whispered something to him.

"Sasuke, who do you hate surpassing you more, Sakura or Narut-"

"Naruto!" Sasuke said almost glaring at Naruto.

Tachibana nodded with a smile walking away at the absolute confusion he'd created between Team Seven.

Both Sakura and Naruto had the same thoughts in their minds.

'Sasuke likes Naruto/me?'

Yamato who saw and heard everything that Tachibana did just smiled and shook his head.

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A/N : Sorry for the slow chapters, things will speed up from tomorrow. Just building a little bit of a relation between all the characters so that it seems more realistic...?