A month had passed since the two girls date. Hinata had taken to reading through all of the ancient texts, pouring over anything that matches the description of either the demon or the woman it stems from. So far she's been largely unsuccessful, but she had yet to attempt the indecipherable ones (she figured there had to be a secret to those), along with well over half of the ones that are readable.
The team had kept up their training. Hinata had quickly found that her skill in poison had gone up immensely, and much to her chagrin her resistance to poison had as well (there was only so many times she could be poisoned before it got annoying). She had also found out she had an affinity for both Katon and Raiton. She had been practicing Raiton as Sasuke was already proficient in Katon and it could potentially synergize with the Jyuken. That would require some experimentation. She, like everyone else on the team, had been taught Genjutsu, now knowing the jutsu her girlfriend was so fond of, Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu. While she had an affinity for the art thanks to her impressive chakra control she had found she didn't enjoy it much. But it was useful so she learned it.
For Sasuke, he had found he spent the better part of his ninjutsu practice actually doing chakra control exercises. By the end of the month he had mastered both the tree walking exercise, and the water walking exercise. Once both of those were done he had been giving an exercise that saw him burning leaves over and over and over for the remainder of the month. He had just completed it by burning a leaf until it was ash. He saw the benefit when he found that his flames were much hotter than before. He had also learned Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu as Kurenai had made him aware of the fact that he could cast Genjutsu through the Sharingan. His appreciation for the art went up when he learned that. He had also found that by unlocking his Sharingan his ability to train properly in the Nagareken, or the flow fist, had gone up considerably. It was a style focused primarily on counters and speed, that used the Sharingan as a tool to predict and react to the opponents moves. He found once he started getting proper practice in Hinata was a little less difficult to face.
Haruka had a weird month. She had learned two more Genjutsu the first being the Magen: Kowaku no Kangen which was a genjutsu that was cast orally, it was more or less hypnosis as it made the victim more susceptible to the users will. The second genjutsu was Magen: Kokoni Arazu no Jutsu which placed a Genjutsu on the surroundings to create a false image. Not only that but she had progressed in her Kaa-chan's Taijutsu style as well. She only had the first two forms of each sub-style complete, and no where near mastered, but it was at least better than she had before. She still felt like she was wading through mud all the time thanks to the resistance seals, but she at least wasn't completely debilitated by it anymore.
The weird part came from how Kurenai-sensei had been acting. It was like she suddenly took a really keen interest in her personal life and it was kind of weirding her out. The older woman was usually so strict during training but then when they were alone she was a massive softy and the young girl didn't know what to think. She had also apparently felt the need to give her a bunch of money for no reason. Like she's talking hundreds of thousands of ryo just out of nowhere one day. For a girl that had lived in poverty most of her life it was a strange change to suddenly have more money than she knew what to do with. Apparently she had broken up with her boyfriend of ten years as well. She didn't really get why the woman was happy about that. Haruka would be losing her mind if she broke up with Hina-chan.
The weirdness aside she had also mastered the Suiton exercise she'd been given. She had only just finished it however and hadn't gotten a chance to learn any jutsu for it yet. Oh and she finally started learning Fuinjutsu. Kurenai was only high chunin in the art but it was enough for her to learn how to make her own sealing and explosive tags. Kurenai-sensei had told her it would likely take a while for her to learn but she seemed to just have an instinctive understanding of the art.
Kurenai had a busy month. Gai had done as asked and found the culprit. Much to her dismay it had turned out to be Asuma. The man had secretly been pocketing the vast majority of her money. She had gone through many emotions at that. First she felt angry, how could he do that to her?! Then she felt dirty, she had given him so many of her firsts. Then she felt stupid, she had been too blindly in love to think about how he treated Haruka when the girl was young, she was 16 and far more naive back then. And by the time she would have been old enough to notice those days were far behind her. She had sorted out her feelings and then went to the Hokage with Gai as a witness. He had seemed genuinely surprised by the information. But he knew Gai was nothing if not honest with him. He still had to check this of course. It was easy to have his Anbu break into Haruka's apartment and find the records of how much she'd been getting. He knew first hand the amount the woman had been giving and as it turned much of the money had been skimped. His son would have been better off if he had just left the original documentation rather than forging new ones for the girl.
He may not have wanted to punish his son, but this case could quickly escalate into a case about ninja rights and that would be to much of a headache to deal with. So he ordered his son to pay back the woman in full along with interest as if he'd taken out a loan every week from the Bank of Konoha for the past several years. Suffice to say his son lost a lot of money very quickly.
Kurenai had of course broken up with the man and she had wanted to see him punished further. But he was an elite jonin and had been given the privilege of not being sent to prison for his crimes (because they did not directly betray Konoha in any meaningful way). If he was any rank lower, then that would be the case. In some ways it would be argued that his punishment went beyond the payment. Word had spread quickly and by the end of the day every high ranking ninja in the village knew of what he had done. While they may not all like Haruka, stealing from another elite was unacceptable. For all intents he had been forced into isolation. Reputation was everything in a ninja village, odd given that secrecy was the name of their game, and his had gone as low as it would go without him defecting outright.
When it was all said and done Kurenai had actually felt pretty good. It was like a weight was off her shoulders for the first time in years. Maybe she'd even accept Anko and Hana's offer for that threesome. Probably not because she wasn't gay or even bi but she didn't have a boyfriend chaining her down and the freedom felt kind of nice.
Her male genin was currently complaining, surprisingly loudly, about the cat struggling in his arms. His face had several angry red marks across it from scratches delivered by the creature. The other two looked on amused. Well actually Hinata did, Haruka was being forced to stand about ten yards away from them so the cat wouldn't have a panic attack.
They delivered the cat to the mission desk and were surprised to find both the Hokage and Iruka there. He rarely visits the desk himself, usually just having his secretary bring him documents. Well he was right there so she'd just report to him.
"The Tora mission has been completed, Hokage-sama." He doesn't even have to say anything as an overweight noble, who had been waiting patiently for her cat, runs up to them and grabs it. She practically squeezes the poor thing to death.
"Oh Tora I'm so happy to see you're alright!" She nuzzles her face into the cat as she walks out of the building.
The Hokage speaks. "Excellent work Kurenai, don't suppose you'd like another mission? We have a bit too many D-ranks today." Hinata speaks up. Not wanting to even be offered the cat mission again as she could already hear the noble crying about it running off once more.
"Kurenai-sensei, Hokage-sama, would it be alright for us to take on a C-rank?" Iruka looks like he wants to tell them not to but Kurenai speaks.
"Finally one of you asked."
"What?" Sasuke asks dumbly, he thought they had to wait, that's what they learned in the academy.
"A genin team is not given a C-rank until a member of the team requests it. It's because as a ninja while you will be assigned missions, you will also be expected to actively try and take on missions. It's another reason we give frustrating D-ranks, to encourage you to seek higher level and better paying missions." The trio nods, well that made sense, even if it did make them feel stupid.
"Well, if Kurenai is alright with it then I have a mission you three can take. Please send Tazuna-san in."