“Sakura…”

“Yes, Sasuke-kun?”

“Shut. Up.”

Sakura looked at the ground dejectedly. Even after months of being in the same team, Sasuke wasn’t interested in talking to her. Worse, now that she was no longer in the Academy, she had no one to discuss her crush with. Actually, scratch that, she had no friends period. Pining after Sasuke-kun was a lot less fun now, what with him reminding her every day that her feelings are unwanted and without the pressure of competition from the rest of the girls in class.

So here she was, alone with Sasuke-kun, something that should by all rights be a dream-come-true, wishing for Naruto and Kakashi to show up already so they could get this mission over with. How did it come to this?

She glanced up towards their client, a drunkard bridge-builder that they were supposed to be escorting to the Land of the Waves. The old drunk was mumbling something to himself, and Sakura had a feeling it was something rude towards her and the rest of her team. What was his problem, anyway? Yeah, they were still fresh from the academy, but it wasn’t like this mission was dangerous or anything. Who would want to attack a bum like him? A bridge-builder, for Kami’s sake!

“Hey, Sakura-chan!”

Sakura snapped out of her thoughts and looked at Naruto beside her. Once again the blonde managed to arrive without her ever noticing his presence before he announced it. She greeted him politely, but otherwise said nothing. She still didn’t know what to think of Naruto after his ‘big reveal’. She didn’t really take the whole Kyuubi thing against the blonde, but… well, she wasn’t stupid. She knew that despite Naruto’s cheery disposition towards her, he had little respect for her… or for Kakashi and Sasuke, for that matter.

So why did the blonde tell them all these highly personal details? What kind of secrets was the blonde guarding that he had to go so far to provide a plausible smokescreen? Sakura was tempted to try to get it out of him in private, but she heard from reliable sources that Naruto could even outmaneuver Ino when it comes to verbal exchanges, and Sakura could never match Ino in that area without dragging the discussion down to the level of insults and name-calling. More worryingly, Naruto seemed to get pretty vicious when feeling threatened… she had a small but non-trivial fear that if she stuck her nose where it doesn’t belong she would have one of those ‘unfortunate accidents’ or disappear without a trace.

She frowned. Something was in particular was bothering her about Naruto today, but she couldn’t quite point her finger on it. Suddenly it dawned on her.

“Naruto, you idiot,” she chided. “You forgot to bring any supplies. We’ll be out in the wilderness for at least a week. Hurry up and get your backpack before Kakashi shows up.”

He shook his head and pointed at his belt, which contained a dozen or so neatly tucked in scrolls. “Storage scrolls,” he said.

“Oh.”

Well she felt rather stupid now. And he even told them he can make those, too.

“I can make one for you when we get back.”

“No, you don’t-“

“I’m not hitting on you,” he said with a sigh.

“I know you’re not. I… you know, just forget it. The point is, I don’t need a storage scroll.”

“All right. Your loss.”

Sakura sighed. Every time she tries to act nicer to the blonde it comes out wrong. She glanced towards Sasuke, but the Uchiha just pretended his two teammates don’t exist. It actually made Sakura a bit angry – would it kill him to at least stand closer to them so they could act as a real team from once?

Back when Naruto told them about the Kyuubi and his ‘secret skills’, Sasuke was actually somewhat talkative, and it almost seemed like the whole things had brought them further together, but it soon became obvious that Sasuke still saw his team as a nuisance… only now he saw Naruto as a threat, rather than a dead-weight dragging him down.

The latter designation was now exclusively reserved to Sakura.

Sakura huffed and kicked a nearby rock down the path. And she was so happy when she heard who she was placed with, too! It sucked. Totally sucked.

“Yo!” said Kakashi, appearing on the scene right next to Naruto, who instinctively jumped into battle stance at this disturbance. Sakura rolled her eyes in annoyance – their sensei seemed to love surprising Naruto lately, for some reason pleased that he can sneak up on a rookie genin.

Really, some people have too much time on their hands.

“Finally!” Tazuna said. “I want to be home as soon as possible.”

“I don’t see what you’re so upset about,” said Naruto. “Sensei’s actually on time for once and we’re right on schedule.”

“I’m annoyed that I have a bunch of kids as bodyguards,” grumbled Tazuna. “And that one of them is a scrawny runt like you. Are you sure you’re a ninja?”

“Do you expect to be attacked?” asked Naruto with a frown.

Color drained from Tazuna’s face. “N-No, of course not.”

“Then there will be no problems,” yawned Naruto, waving his hand dismissively. .

“Alright, we can continue talking while we walk,” said Kakashi. “Move out everyone.”

With a sigh and a glance back at the village, Sakura trudged off after her team.

Since this was the first time she was out of the village, the feeling of elation soon washed away her foul mood, and she soaked up the sounds and sights of the forest surrounding them. Despite the emotionally significant experience, Sakura did her best to act with dignity. Naruto had no such compunctions - he was jumping around from one side of the path to another, checking up on anything remotely interesting and even taking brief foray into the surrounding wilderness after he got permission from Kakashi to ‘scout the area’. He only calmed down 2 hours later, whereupon he took it upon himself to annoy Sasuke in various ways during the journey.

Normally Sakura would have reacted to this behavior by now, but today she had other business to take care of and besides… she was feeling a bit vindictive about Sasuke giving her the cold shoulder earlier, so she decided he could deal with Naruto himself for today. Once she was sure both Sasuke and Naruto were well in the front and out of earshot, she dropped her speed to match with Kakashi at the back.

“Something wrong, Sakura?” Kakashi asked.

“Kakashi-sensei…” began Sakura, “Am I useless?”

Kakashi raised an eyebrow over his one visible eye. “Why would you think that?”

“Sasuke is an Uchiha and Naruto has massive chakra reserves thanks to the Kyuubi,” said Sakura. “How can I be useful to people like that? I’m supposed to be their teammate, but I… I’m just going to be a burden to them, aren’t I?”

“Ah,” said Kakashi. “You’re looking at this the wrong way. All ninja have some kind of inborn advantage. True, some of them are more potent than others, but all of them require work to be useful. Sensitive hearing can be just an interesting personal quirk, or a powerful advantage that allows you to shrug off the genjutsu your pink-haired teammate is repeatedly trying to put on you. It all depends on how hard you work on it.”

Sakura’s eyes bulged. “That… that’s how he does it!? That’s why none of my genjutsu work on him!?”

“I know!” said Kakashi, smiling. “It’s so simple it took me a while to figure it out!”

“All this time I thought I was just hopeless with genjutsu,” said Sakura crankily. “That asshole! He could have told me instead of letting me feel like shit! I’m going to-”

“You realize he can hear every word we say?” asked Kakashi with amusement.

Sakura stared at him wild-eyed before looking at Naruto. The blonde was walking as if nothing was wrong. Technically he shouldn’t be able to make out what they were saying at this distance but if he really has that good hearing…

“Wait…” said Sakura. “If he can understand us from there, that means that every time I was saying something out of his earshot he…”

“Heard everything,” finished Kakashi.

“Everything?” Sakura said in a panicky voice. She used to say pretty embarrassing things under her breath back in the classroom. If he heard all that stuff, then…

Naruto chose that moment to turn his head enough to give Sakura a toothy grin and silently mouthed ‘everything’.

Sakura shut her eyes in defeat, fighting off embarrassment and the urge to go over to Naruto and pummel him into submission. Since the blonde kept it a secret all this time, he clearly already had some consideration for her privacy, and abusing or threatening him might just set him off. Naruto seemed to enjoy annoying people, and if he knew how much this bothered her he might spread the rumors around just for the reaction.

Of all the people to know her innermost thoughts…

“Anyway, back to out discussion,” said Kakashi. “Even bloodline limits like the Sharingan and Byakugan derive most of their power from specialized techniques and taijutsu styles that accentuate the clan’s unique abilities, not from the raw abilities granted by the bloodline. And you will notice that Naruto and Sasuke have worked hard to be as good as they are right now – it’s not just inborn advantage. After all, Sasuke still doesn’t have the sharingan, yet he’s the rookie of the year, and training to be a seal-master and a medic-nin at the same time is hard work, regardless of chakra reserves. If you want to keep up with them, all you need to do is work as hard as they do.”

“But work hard on what?” protested Sakura.

“Hm,” said Kakashi, rubbing his chin. “Tell you what… when we get back to Konoha we’ll find something that suits you. You’ll be catching up to them in no time.”

Sakura sighed. She doubted that, but it doesn’t hurt to give it a try.

It would be nice not to feel like a third wheel for once.

“Maaan, this is so boring,” complained Naruto. “Hey old geezer, aren’t you the one who said you want to be back home as soon as possible? Can’t you pick up the pace a little?”

“Now, now,” chided Kakashi, not talking his eyes of his perverted literature. “Patience is a crucial skill for a ninja, Naruto. We’re in no hurry.”

“Naruto…” said Sakura sweetly. “If you have so much pent-up energy, maybe you could carry my backpack for a while. What do you say?”

“Nah,” said Naruto with a smile. “You need the exercise if you really intend to catch up to me and Sasuke.”

After a second of nothing happening, Naruto glanced at Sakura from the corner of his eye. She seemed somewhat annoyed at him but otherwise calm. Strange. Usually she would have hit him by now, or at least sent a few choice curses his way.

Over all, he had to pronounce his confession maneuver hadn’t produced the results he was hoping for. He was expecting Sasuke and Sakura to either sympathize with his position or hate his guts even more. Either reaction would have suited his purposes. This sort of lukewarm response just messed up everything. Ah well… at least it got Kakashi off his back. Though it was very worrying that the man seemed to have devised a way around his hearing. If Kakashi decided to spy on him later on, how will Naruto detect it now? He had to find out how he does it. Was it some sort of special genjutsu?

“I told you not to worry about genjutsu,” rumbled Kyuubi crankily in the back of his mind. “There is no genjutsu that I cannot break you out of with ease. That man is just being careful not to make any noise. Listen carefully and he will not catch you unaware in the future.”

Naruto merely grunted in response. It wasn’t that he was doubting Kyuubi’s capabilities, as much as its intentions. If the fox ever decided it was in it’s best interest not to help Naruto, it wouldn’t. It was unwise to rely on it’s power. This whole ‘partnership’ was merely one of convenience.

Unbidden, the voice of Sasori came to him and told him that all alliances in the ninja world are like that.

Even in the sanctity of his own mind, he could not escape Sasori’s cynical views.

Just as he was contemplating the merits of starting a fight with Sasuke just to pass the time, something caught his attention.

“Wait up, wait up,” he said loudly, suddenly stopping. Combination of the gesture and the fact that he was at the front caused everyone to stop and stare at him. “What do you two think you’re doing?”

Sasuke and Sakura looked at each other curiously. Sasuke shrugged.

“Naruto, what do you-” began Sakura.

“Not you two, the people in front of us. Yes, you two. I don’t have to see you to know you’re there. You’ve got so much metal on you I could hear the clinking from a mile away.”

Nearby puddle of water melted away, revealing two strangely dressed men. Naruto quickly scanned them. Their attire and the slashed hitai-ates identified them as former mist ninja. They were armed to the teeth and didn’t look all that friendly.

Great. He just knew there was something rotten about this mission. After all, why would a simple bridge-builder hire ninja bodyguards for a routine journey back home? And, of course, the man was curiously stressed-out. Naruto suspected that had Tazuna not got so sloshed, his body-language would have betrayed his deception with crystal clarity.

“My, my, my…” said Kakashi to the mist ninja, his eyes still on his precious literature. “Bested by a rookie genin. You must feel pretty foolish now.”

“Gozu… what should we do?” one of the mist ninja spoke to the other in a hushed voice.

The other ninja glanced over Naruto and his group, giving Tazuna a particularly hard stare before shaking his head.

“We can’t win here,” Gozu said.

And they fled. Just like that.

“Was it really alright to let them flee?” Naruto said. “I’m pretty sure they just tried to ambush us. Who’s to say they won’t try to do it again?”

Kakashi pocketed his book and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t think it’s wise to pursue them through the forest. Someone has to stay to guard Tazuna, and there could be more than two of them. Really, it’s a pity you exposed them like that.”

“Eh!?” Naruto protested.

“Yes,” Kakashi repeated. “I wanted to see how you handle an ambush situation.”

“Wait a minute here,” Sakura piped in. “Are you saying you knew they were there but didn’t say anything!? What if they had killed us?”

Sasuke snorted and rolled her eyes.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about with me around,” said Kakashi. “Besides, the point is moot – Naruto already shot that plan out of the water. I do wonder though… what exactly were they after?”

“What do you mean?” asked Sakura.

“Well, I don’t mean to brag but I have a pretty high bounty on my head,” said Kakashi. “But they seem a bit of a small fry to target me. It’s possible that they were after a… different target.”

Kakashi shot a long glance towards Tazuna.

“D-Don’t be ridiculous!” Tazuna protested. “What would ninja want to do with me!? I’m just a bridge builder!”

“If you say so,” said Kakashi calmly. “Well, I suppose we have no choice but to keep going and hope there won’t be more to come. Stick close and pay attention to your surroundings, kids.”

The atmosphere became a lot heavier from that point on.

“Kakashi-sensei…” began Naruto.

“He’s lying,” said Kakashi. “I know. What exactly would you have me do? Accusing your client based on a personal hunch is bad manners. Now if you had allowed those two ninja to attack and reveal their target, that would have been something…”

“Well fuck you too!” hissed Naruto. “If you wanted them to attack so badly, why didn’t you give me some sort of sign?”

“That’s no way to speak to your Jounin-sensei, Naruto,” Kakashi sighed. “But anyway, it doesn’t matter much. Even if you found out that the mission is more dangerous than you thought, would you really back down? Would Sasuke?”

Naruto frowned. Probably not.

“We’ll find out who’s after Tazuna soon enough,” said Kakashi.

Naruto looked around again. From the moment they stepped on the coast of the Land of the Water, the fog has been thickening, obscuring everything more than few meters in front of them.

“The fog isn’t normal,” said Naruto. “It dampens the sounds.”

Kakashi nodded. “It is to be expected. Those two were to weak to survive as missing-nin on their own. Now that they know they’ll have to go through me to reach their target, they’ll get serious. Go to your teammates and tell them to be on high alert.”

Naruto took only two steps when he heard footsteps. He spun in an instant and launched a kunai behind him, causing everyone to shift into battle positions. However, rushing towards the spot, all he found was a skewered rabbit.

“False alarm,” said Naruto, displaying the animal carcass.

“What the hell Naruto?! You just killed that poor rabbit!” Sakura yelled.

“Eh, whatever. At least now we have some dinner later,” Naruto said dismissively.

“Get down!” shouted Kakashi, pulling down Tazuna, Sasuke and Sakura.

Naruto was too far away for that, but even through the sound-dampening mist, he could hear the sound of something big flying through the air, so he was already dropping when Kakashi spoke. Which was good, because whomever threw that seemed to be targeting Naruto in particular. If his reaction was a fraction of a second slower he would have been hit.

Scrambling to his feet, he could see a giant blade embedded into a nearby tree, and a very strange man with a slashed mist hitai-ate standing atop it.

“You’ve got good ears to hear me coming through this mist, boy, I’ll give you that,” the man said in a raspy voice distorted by the bandages covering the lower half of his face. “But you’re way out of your league here. Why don’t you get back while adults do the talking.”

“Momochi Zabuza – demon of the bloody mist,” said Kakashi, lifting his hitai-ate to reveal his sharingan.

“Ah, so you know me?” said Zabuza with amusement. “I’m honored, thousand Kakashi.”

“What do you want?” said Kakashi.

“Nothing much, just the head of the bridge-builder you’re escorting,” Zabuza said calmly. “Hand him over and you and your genin can go home alive and in one piece.”

Kakashi frowned. “I’m afraid the answer is no. Everyone, form protective formation around the client.”

“Heh. Hidden mist technique.”

If the mist was bad before, this technique Zabuza did made it 10 times worse. Naruto could hardly see things right in front of him, and even his hearing was crippled. The only sound that wasn’t impeded was Zabuza’s voice, echoing all around them, enumerating the various spots that were lethal if hit. He actually missed a few, but considering they were hard to hit in battle Naruto wasn’t surprised a non-medic like Zabuza knew nothing about them. In any case, the echoing nature of the voice made it impossible for Naruto to pinpoint Zabuza’s location.

Naruto exhaled in a low hiss. It was bad. He really couldn’t stand up to this Zabuza in any way – he couldn’t see or hear the man coming, couldn’t block the attacks from that giant sword of his, and he couldn’t move away from Tazuna to use the terrain to his advantage and set up some traps.

When he heard the soft sound of someone landing beside his team and Tazuna, he knew he was dead.

Instead, Zabuza’s swing was stopped by a Kakashi’s kunai sticking out of his chest.

Naruto stared wide-eyed at the scene. One moment nothing was happening, and the other –this. That… was unlike anything he ever witnessed. Truly Zabuza was right at the start – Naruto was way out of his league!

But them a doubt invaded his mind. Something was wrong. The kunai went through Zabuza’s torso far too easily. In fact, the wound was oozing water!

Zabuza’s form shuddered and collapsed into liquid.

The battle ranged around them, and from brief glimpses Naruto could witness, it was clear that both opponents were making a judicious use of clones.

Finally, Naruto snapped out of the daze induced by the combined killed intent of two elite ninja and the sheer disorienting nature of his situation. That was Kakashi’s battle – Naruto had his own.

“Sasuke, Sakura, we’ve got two opponents coming here fast. I think it’s those two from earlier.”

“R-right,” said Sakura, holding her kunai in front of her like a good-luck charm.

“I can’t see anything!” hissed Sasuke.

“Don’t worry, those two are not anywhere near as silent as Zabuza. Just pay attention to me, and you’ll do fine,” said Naruto.

Naruto grinned – Zabuza may be one hell of an opponent, but these two coming after them were so loud that Naruto could hear them even through this damnable mist. As long as Kakashi takes care of Zabuza, they should be alright.

“Hey, Haku!” shouted Zabuza from somewhere. “The orange one is getting troublesome! Make sure he doesn’t interfere anymore!”

Naruto swallowed heavily. Another one?

He had a bad feeling about this.

Suppressing the yell of pain, Naruto ripped out the needles out of his left shoulder and quickly repaired the damage. His fingers twitched, fine coordination finally coming back to the arm connected to his wounded shoulder. If it weren’t for his medic-nin knowledge, he would have already been neutralized by now. At the very least he would have seriously injured himself by removing the needles inappropriately.

But Naruto didn’t fool himself – this ‘Haku’ that Zabuza ordered to keep Naruto busy had succeeded in his goal. Naruto was indeed busy, and quite far away from his teammates. He could only hope that Sasuke could handle those two attackers on his own, because Naruto had his hands full right now. Haku was fast, even faster than Sasuke, frighteningly accurate, and could pull needles out of thin air. Literally! He seemed to freeze the moisture of the mist into chakra-enhanced ice to use as weapons. During their lessons, Sasori had told Naruto that this bloodline limit was destroyed during the Mist bloodline purges, but apparently there were survivors.

He jumped away, narrowly avoiding a barrage of needles on his position. Not only was Haku dangerous in combat, but he was quite good at tracking down Naruto every time he managed to slip away. He saw through Naruto’s traps as easily as Naruto saw through Konohamaru’s handiwork, and he never, ever, overextended himself.

A true professional.

Haku was trying to maneuver him near water. Oh, the ice boy tried to be subtle about it, but Naruto was pretty well versed in reading the flow the battle. Whatever he was planning, Naruto would not be playing along. Fighting a mist ninja on in his own element would be extraordinarily foolish.

Once again Naruto threw one of his special kunai at Haku, but the ice mirror that sprung out of nowhere between the two of them deflected it. The ice mirrors Haku made seemed to be unbreakable, and explosions could not overpower them. Naruto hissed in frustration. He was running out of options – his teammates needed him!

“You should stop worry about your comrades and pay attention to your own fight,” said Haku softly before flashing through a series of one-handed seals.

It was bad. No, it was worse than bad, it was a disaster! Not paying enough attention, Naruto had ignored the thickening mist around him, and was now paying the price for his sloppiness. The fog around Naruto condensed into hundreds of needles, all ready to strike. With no other solution he could think off, Naruto grasped for the storage scroll holding Naga and unsealed it. The snake-like puppet wrapped itself protectively around Naruto just in time to protect Naruto from the ice needles.

Haku may have been a professional, but the sight of Naga made him pause in surprise. It was all that Naruto needed. In a sudden movement, Naga’s stinger-tipped tail lashed out against the ice boy with blinding speed, punching through the half-formed mirror as if it was nothing and causing Haku to sloppily try to sidestep the attack. The stinger slashed through Haku’s chest, not quite making the killing blow but definitely putting the boy out of the fight.

But Naruto wanted to be sure, so he instructed Naga to open its mouth and let loose a breath of fire at the still-dazed Haku. Somehow the boy managed to erect a protective cocoon of ice around himself, neutralizing the assault.

Naruto debated for a second whether to press on the attack, but now that he thought about it for a bit, the thought of killing someone made Naruto feel a little uneasy. And besides, it looked like erecting that cocoon took pretty much everything out of Haku – he looked ready to drop any moment now.

He needed to get back to Sasuke and Sakura. He quickly sealed Naga back into the scroll and ran back towards the spot he left his teammates, the mist finally starting to thin-out.

Apparently Haku was indeed hurt pretty bad, because Naruto heard no sounds of pursuit behind him.

In the last few minutes, Sasuke realized he hated Naruto. He hated the fact that Naruto could detect enemies that he could not, and that their enemy considered the blonde a bigger threat than Sasuke. He hated how the blonde remained so easy-going and cheerful, despite his own personal tragedies. But most of all, he hated the fact that Naruto remade himself from a total failure to a credible competitor with Sasuke in just little over a year, as if mocking Sasuke for sinking so many hours each day into getting better and achieving so little in return.

Naruto was fighting a battle against an elite enemy, and would no doubt come out victorious. And Sasuke? Sasuke was having trouble dealing with these two pawns, fighting for his very life. It was true that in normal conditions he could have mopped up these two clowns without breaking a sweat, but the mist tipped the odds into their favor. Sasuke simply wasn’t used to fighting in conditions of reduced visibility.

Relying on his trained responses, Sasuke ducked, letting the chain pass harmlessly over his head. He jumped back to avoid the kunai thrown at him and frantically tried to formulate a strategy in his head. If only he could pin down that damnable chain somehow…

His vision started blurring again, and he focused on banishing the groggy feeling. He really shouldn’t have soaked that one hit, but it looked to him as if the claw will only inflict superficial damage… how was he supposed to know it was poisoned?

At least he managed to keep the two chain crazies away from those two dead-weights, Sakura and Tazuna. It soothed his ego that even though he was no doing so good he at least hadn’t failed the mission yet.

He snorted angrily. Was he really going to wait for Naruto to save him? If he can’t even handle these two, what will he do when…

‘Run away, little brother…’

Things clicked inside Sasuke’s mind. Of course! He flipped through a series of hand-seals and sheathed himself in a minor genjutsu, before crouching down. If he did everything right, his opponents should perceive him to be still standing, as long as he stays still.

The chain suddenly wrapped itself around the image of Sasuke that stood calmly and defiantly in the face of its demise. As the chain tried tearing it up and simply passed through it, Sasuke sprung up from his position and pinned the chain down to the ground with two kunai. Before the surprise might wear down, he flipped through another series of hand-seals and breathed a fireball on one end of the chain disappearing into the mist. A satisfying scream of agony told him he hit his target.

“One down,” he spoke softly to himself.

It seems those silly little genjutsu his sensei was teaching him had some uses, after all. Still, if these two weren’t such easily fooled idiots, this would never have worked. Certainly he would never fall for such an obvious ploy.

“GOZU!!!” the other ninja screamed, before rushing madly at Sasuke.

Sasuke scoffed. To loose his composure so easily over a fallen comrade… truly, allies only made you weaker. Just like how Sasuke had grown too dependant on Naruto’s detection abilities and was now paying the price. If only he could awaken his sharingan…

Sasuke lazily deflected the man’s reckless strikes. Without his partner, the ninja was useless. His mind was clearly focused on wrapping the battle up as quickly as possible so he could check his partner. Sasuke flashed a kunai in front of him, slitting the man’s throat. The ninja grasped at the wound, hacked a bit, and then collapsed on the ground.

Sasuke breathed hard. He was tired, both from the battle and the poison slowly spreading over his body. He stared at the body in front of him, motionless and bleeding on the grass, and thought about the scream of the other mist ninja as the fireball hit him.

He had just killed two people. That was supposed to be big deal, wasn’t it? His first kill and all that. So why didn’t he feel anything? Was it the fatigue and the adrenaline, or was he just a monster?

“I’m an avenger,” he mumbled between breaths.

That’s right. An avenger. Emotions like regret were just a burden to someone like him. There was only his task, his ambition to kill his brother. These two were an obstacle on his quest, and it makes no sense to feel bad about their death. And he didn’t. He didn’t!

Sasuke sank to his knees, struggling to remain awake. He was tired. So tired.

Suddenly he realized that the mist is clearing. Was it over? Did Kakashi beat this ‘Zabuza’ guy?

No. Kakashi was trapped in a sphere of water.

Well crap. Kakashi was the last person that Sasuke expected to be a problem. After everything Naruto said about Kakashi, Sasuke was expecting something more impressive. Was this Zabuza guy really so great, or was Kakashi’s reputation simply overblown?

“Game’s over, brats,” said Zabuza. “Hand over… wait a minute, what are you doing here brat? Where is Haku? Don’t tell me you…”

Sasuke looked over to the side, only to see Naruto – a little banged up, but otherwise alright. Actually, he looked better than Sasuke himself did. Sasuke chuckled mirthlessly. He was getting complacent. Next time, he’ll be ready – Naruto wo’t make a fool out of him again.

“Stupid dope…” Sasuke croaked softly, aware that the blonde couldn’t possibly hear him. “I hope your medic-training thought you how to handle poisons…”

Naruto threw a kunai at Zabuza. A silly little kunai, as if something like that would mean anything to someone of Zabuza’s threat-level, and sure enough Zabuza casually used his giant sword as a shield.

And then the kunai exploded. The sword was big enough to absorb the brunt of the blast, but the force of the explosion threw Zabuza back.

Though Zabuza was still very much alive, and now very much angry in addition, Sasuke knew that the explosion achieved its purpose. Zabuza’s presence no longer maintaining it, the water prison trapping Kakashi collapsed.

An ice mirror materialized on the shore, and the same masked hunter-nin that separated Naruto from the team stepped through. Well, more like stumbled through – the ninja was sporting a heavily bleeding wound on the chest that made Sasuke glad he only got mildly poisoned by comparison. She seemed to have dropped her mask somewhere along the way, probably so she could breath more easily.

“Zabuza… sama…” wheezed Haku, staggering towards the bandaged man. “I’m sorry… it’s inexcusable but he… surprised me…”

“Brat…” growled Zabuza at Naruto, his eyes ablaze with fury, “I’m going to skin you alive!”

“I don’t think so,” said Kakashi angrily, water dripping off of him. “You’re not going to pull that trick on me that way again.”

“Zabuza-sama, we must…” began Haku, before running out of breath. Zabuza looked at Haku, looked at Kakashi, looked at Naruto, and then at Haku again. Finally, he seemed to have reached a decision.

“This isn’t over,” he said. “Far from over.”

With those words, Zabuza rushed to Haku’s side, picked her up and disappeared into the forest. Sasuke frowned. Why did Kakashi allow those two to escape like that? Wouldn’t it be better to…

Kakashi stepped onto the shore and collapsed face-first on the ground.

“Shit!” yelled Naruto. “Kakashi-sensei!?”

Sasuke exhaled heavily. He was so tired and the wound on his arm burned something fierce. Well, he supposed it only makes sense to follow sensei’s example.

Closing his eyes, Sasuke collapsed on the ground as well.

“Shut up, Tazuna. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

“Naruto-san, please…” tried Tazuna.

“Oh it’s ‘Naruto-san’ now, is it? What happened to ‘runt’, huh?”

“Look, what do you want me to say? I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t have the money for a B-rank mission and I was desperate. This bridge represents the hope of the entire island and I can’t get it finished soon-”

“Whatever!” screamed Naruto. “You could have just said that to the Hokage and asked for a delayed payment. He’d go along with it! Do you realize in what position you’ve just put me? My Jounin-sensei and the only other effective teammate are both out of commission for at least three days! What do you think is going to happen if we’re attacked right now?”

“Well…” began Tazuna.

“We’ll all get massacred, that’s what!” yelled Naruto. “You stupid, stupid idiot! What the hell am I supposed to do now? I’m a freaking rookie, fresh out of the village! My first mission was supposed to be a cake-walk, just something to give me a taste of things, not like this! What the hell am I supposed to do here!?”

“Slaughter everything,” rumbled Kyuubi helpfully in the back of his head. “Salt the ground afterwards.”

Naruto ignored it. Damn fox rarely had anything useful to say. Fortunately it rarely spoke to him at all.

“Naruto-san…” Naruto turned to Tazuna’s daughter. Tsunami, if he remembers correctly. “I apologize for the troubles we’ve caused you. I know you’re upset about your friends. If it means anything to you, I am eternally grateful to you for bringing my father back alive.”

Naruto sighed. He was too emotional right now. Being angry at Tazuna won’t accomplish anything now, and his daughter at least didn’t do anything wrong.

“You’re all going to die, you know?” a little boy said, before shutting up when a kunai impacted the wall right next to his face.

“Brat…” growled Naruto. “If you tell me that crap one more time, I’ll fucking skin you alive, you hear me!?”

“Naruto-san!” protested Tsunami, pushing her son behind her.

“I’m sorry Tsunami-san,” said Naruto. “I’m just under a lot of stress right now. Can you tell me where Sakura is?”

“Upstairs, with your friends,” answered Tsunami.

Of course. God forbid she actually makes herself useful for a change and helps him deal with the situation. No, she’ll rather sit beside Sasuke and stare at his unconscious body as if that is going to anything to make the Uchiha wake up sooner.

“Yeah. Thanks. Listen Tazuna, you’ll have to stay here for the next couple of days.”

“What!?” protested Tazuna. “But I have a bridge to build!”

“When Kakashi wakes up,” said Naruto before turning and walking off towards the stairs. “No discussion.”

As long as Tazuna stays close to Sasuke and Kakashi, Sakura can guard everyone, leaving Naruto free to roam around the island to gather information of the situation they had found themselves in. He didn’t feel confident without knowing more about enemy’s distribution of forces and how many ninja he has on his disposal.

As soon as he came into the room Sakura was immediately upon him, demanding that he check up on Sasuke. He did check him out, both him and Kakashi. He did a pretty fine job or stabilizing them both in his opinion.

“They’re fine,” he said. “They’ll be on their feet in about 3 days. Just care for them till then.”

“Eh!? But you’re the medic-nin!”

“I’m going to scout around for a bit.”

“No! I don’t think you should-”

“I’m doing it anyway. When Kakashi wakes up he can punish me if he thinks I was out of line. I can’t relax until I know what we’re dealing with here. Since this is something I can do and you can’t, you care for Sasuke and Kakashi and guard Tazuna’s household. Place some traps around the parameter, that’s at least within your scope of ability.”

Sakura flinched at his implication that she was generally useless, but Naruto wasn’t inclined to care at this point.

“Besides,” continued Naruto, “you wouldn’t leave Sasuke’s side until he’s better one way or another.”

He turned to leave.

“I really was completely useless in that fight, wasn’t I?” Sakura asked quietly.

Naruto sighed. This whole situation had left him angry, and now he was lashing out at people. Never a good course of action. He turned around and motioned to Sakura to sit down, before proceeding to do so himself.

“Listen, don’t beat yourself over it. You’d have to be absurdly powerful to have made a difference in that fight,” said Naruto. “Everyone is alive so things aren’t that bad. Now, I need to assess the situation to make sure Gato won’t send anyone else to attack us while we’re recovering, and you need to protect Sasuke and Kakashi while I’m gone. You’re a very meticulous ninja and have a lot more patience than me, so it falls to you to set up a defensive parameter around Tazuna’s house. Okay?”

“Y-Yes,” said Sakura, relaxing somewhat.

“Good,” said Naruto, getting up. “I’ll be back soon.”

It took less than a day for Naruto to understand what compelled Tazuna to try to cheap a ninja village out of their money. Land of the Waves really was a crappy place, and Gato didn’t even try to hide his involvement as the prime cause of island’s misfortune. While Naruto still thought that there were better ways of handling the situation than lying to Konoha, he supposed a bridge-builder from a small island couldn’t have known about them.

In any case, gathering information was tricky. Spies were everywhere, making people jumpy and paranoid. The local economy had essentially collapsed, with people demanding food and hard merchandise instead of money whenever Naruto tried bribing them for information. On top of that, Gato’s thugs patrolled the streets, ostensibly as law enforcement but generally causing pain and disorder instead of warding against it. It took all of Naruto’s self-control not to go on a killing spree when he witnessed their belligerence the second time in one day.

But as tempting as it was to bash some heads, Naruto knew it was a bad idea. That would cause a major commotion and no doubt attract Zabuza and any other ninja Gato had under his employ. He had to find out exactly what he’s dealing with before he rushes in.

He doubted his information gathering could be kept secret for long, so he had be done by tonight – with so many spies walking around, by tomorrow morning the news would surely reach Gato one way or another – so he decided to be more bold. He found a group of thugs, dropped his transformation, and beat the crap out of them. Then he hid and observed them from shadows. Sure enough, they ran into one of the houses, probably one of the ‘hidden’ bases.

He walked up to the house, bashed the door in and knocked everyone inside unconscious with nerve strikes until he found a couple of thugs that looked moderately important. After tying them down, he woke up the important-looking ones so he could question them.

“W-What the hell do you…” began one of the thugs. “Who are you?”

“My identity is not important,” said Naruto tapping on his hitai-ate. “Now let’s get on to business. Tell me everything you know about Gato, the thugs under his payroll, ninja he’s got, secret bases, everything.”

The tied-up men leered at him.

“You think we’d tell you something like that?” asked the first thug again, scoffing.

Naruto took a paper tag out of his pocket and stuck it on the man’s forehead.

“Yes, I do think that,” Naruto said, flashing through hand seals. The man screamed as the tag glowed and then he suddenly became silent, his eyes unfocused. The rest of the thugs looked at the scene, silent and mortified.

“Tell me everything,” said Naruto.

Compelled by the mind-control seal, the man told him everything.

“Well Naruto,” said Kakashi, “I heard you’ve had a little adventure without us. Wouldn’t it have been better if you, I don’t know, waited for your sensei to wake up, hm?”

Sasuke glared at Naruto as if the blonde murdered his dog or something. Kakashi didn’t have to wonder what was eating him – the fact that Naruto got out of the battle unscathed and then gathered information of Gato’s forces all by himself while Sasuke got poisoned and spent three days bed-ridden was a heavy blow to his ego.

Sakura just seemed subdued, concerned about Sasuke’s foul mood but unable to do anything about it.

“I apologize, Kakashi-sensei,” said Naruto. “I didn’t intend to go that far, originally. I got carried away.”

Kakashi sighed.

“Well, at least now we know Zabuza and Haku are the only ninja in Gato’s employ. Assuming Naruto’s information is correct and Haku won’t be up for 3 more days, we should use this reprieve to get some exercise.”

“What kind of exercise?” asked Sakura timidly.

“Intense kind,” said Kakashi. “Tazuna can work in peace for now, but make no mistake – we’ll have to fight those two once again before this mission is over. Now, Naruto said the other ninja, Haku, is a fast opponent – faster than Sasuke - that uses ice techniques…”

“Ice techniques?” asked Sakura. “That’s wrong. I’ve never heard-”

“If he’s faster than me,” interjected Sasuke, anger in his voice, “how did Naruto defeat him?”

“I surprised him,” said Naruto. “I have a few tricks in my sleeves.”

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. “You mean you held back against me?”

“Not exactly. These tricks aren’t something suitable for spars,” said Naruto.

“Then let’s fight now,” hissed Sasuke. “You and me, right now, no holding back.”

“No,” said Kakashi quickly.

“Why?” Sasuke asked angrily.

“Because you still haven’t completely recovered and you aren’t in sound emotional state. Calm down.”

Sasuke snorted and folded his arms over his chest.

Kakashi sighed. “Anyway, the first thing I want to teach you is water-walking…”

“No!” exploded Sasuke. “Screw water-walking! Stupid little tricks, that’s all you’ve ever taught us! Camping, tree climbing, ninja etiquette, perception training, water walking… none of that is going to make me stronger! It’s been months and I still haven’t even activated my sharingan! You’re just wasting my time!”

“Sasuke-” began Kakashi.

“Kakashi-sensei,” interjected Naruto, “I think I can help Sasuke activate his precious sharingan.”

Everyone looked at Naruto direction.

“How?” asked Sasuke angrily, still huffing from his outburst.

“Well… you said you wanted to fight, didn’t you? A real fight.”

“Naruto…” said Kakashi.

“One day, Kakashi-sensei…” said Naruto. “Give me one day. If I can’t do it till tomorrow, I won’t insist on it any longer.”

Sasuke glared at the blonde grimly, clenching and unclenching his fists. Kakashi sighed.

“One day. Just one day.”

“One day is all I need,” said Naruto quietly.

An explosion erupted from his left and Sasuke stumbled and fell. He rolled to his right, barely avoiding the hail of kunai. The cuts he receive earlier pulsed painfully, reminding him of why he can’t afford to be hit by Naruto’s kunai, not even a little bit – each one was poisoned. He ground his teeth in anger. Curse all poison-users to hell! He dodged quickly, evading two successive explosions that shook the place he was standing on just a few seconds ago.

When he sought to fight Naruto all out, he didn’t expect this sort of thing. Naruto refused to face him head on, opting to hit and run, wearing him down with explosive notes and poisoned weapons, both of which he seemed to have in inexhaustible quantities. And he never, ever gave Sasuke a reprieve to catch his breath and gather his thought – the blonde kept him under constant pressure. Chasing after Naruto was dangerous since he seemed able to set up traps behind him in seconds, and had by now turned the surrounding forest into a giant death-trap.

Sasuke was tired, in pain, and his ego was screaming in anguish – he was going to be defeated without having landed a single strike on Naruto. And then Naruto landed on the ground some distance away from Sasuke.

Sasuke smiled.

In fact he even cackled softly under his breath. Perfect! After all this time of trying to catch the blonde the idiot just came to him instead. Even tired and poisoned, he was still better than this dunce in direct combat.

Naruto made a seal for the clone and Sasuke frowned. Naruto’s clone jutsu was too versatile to be taken lightly.

“Clone superimposition,” announced Naruto.

Nothing happened.

And then Naruto charged at Sasuke, only instead of a single Naruto, five sprung from the place Naruto was standing on. They weaved right through one another like incorporeal wraiths, merging and splitting randomly, confusing Sasuke’s eyes and making it impossible to respond properly. When one of the fused Narutos attacked their limbs split in multiple instances, and if Sasuke chose the wrong one he merely dispelled the clone while the real limb landed a hit on him. Naruto would periodically repeat the technique, which seemed effortless to him, making it impossible for Sasuke to simply dispel the clones.

Sasuke ground his teeth in anger, desperately trying to find a way to distinguish the real Naruto from the clones. There has to be a pattern! There has to be! But there was too many of them and their splitting impossible to predict.

And then Naruto and the clones suddenly jumped back and fused into one.

“Sasuke…” Naruto began. “For a rookie of the year, you really suck at this. Is taijutsu the only thing you can do?”

Sasuke flipped through the seals and breathed a fireball at Naruto n rage, only for Naruto to throw a kunai at the incoming ball of fire. Before Sasuke could understand what the blonde was planning to do, the fire suddenly swirled around the kunai and disappeared. He narrowly dodged the incoming piece of metal, which embedded into the tree beside him. Sasuke stared dumbfounded at the strange characters that covered the surface of the kunai, their glow steadily fading from view.

“What the hell?” he blurted out.

“They’re my absorbing kunai,” said Naruto. “Isn’t sealing just awesome?”

Sasuke gritted his teeth, banishing his confusion and shifting into his taijutsu stance.

“No matter what tricks you pull out, you will still fail,” said Sasuke. “We both know you are no match for me, either in taijutsu or ninjutsu.”

Naruto chuckled. Sasuke’s determination faltered a little – this wasn’t the reaction he was trying to evoke.

“Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke…” said Naruto, wearing a confident smile that made Sasuke’s blood freeze in his veins. “Do you really think I intend to do this fight on your terms? I called this fight because I’m thoroughly sick of your attitude and intend to do something about it. Tell me Sasuke… do you think anyone would really miss you if you failed to come back after this?”

“W-What…?” said Sasuke, before Naruto’s killing intent hit him like a tidal wave.

Drawing a kunai, Naruto charged at Sasuke with an utterly crazed expression that chilled Sasuke to the bone. He’s not going to- he couldn’t possibly mean to-

Naruto plunged the kunai at Sasuke, and his hand split into 6. And Sasuke knew he was going to die. The blonde really was trying to kill him. The chances that he would choose the right arm were miniscule, and even if he succeeds Naruto would just try again and again, until Sasuke was no more.

But he couldn’t die now! Not yet, before he even had a chance to face his brother again! He can’t! He won’t!

Time slowed down and the world became clearer and sharper. Sasuke found himself staring at the kunai in front of his face, stopped by his own hand holding Naruto’s wrist. Clones became obvious as such, and their strange movements somehow easier to understand.

Gazing into his reflection in the blade, Sasuke could see two red eyes staring back at him.

His attacker grinned brightly at his, bloodlust suddenly gone.

“Congratulations, Sasuke. Told ya’ I could awaken your sharingan.”

Sasuke suddenly saw red.

“Dope…” Sasuke hissed. “I’m going to KILL YOU!”

“You have to catch me first!” said Naruto, effortlessly breaking contact and disappearing into the trees. Furious, Sasuke followed after him.

“What do you mean ‘no’!” roared Gato.

“It’s not my problem,” said Zabuza gruffly.

“But these ninja are destroying my operations!” screeched Gato. “They already killed most of my men and destroyed all the safe-houses. What am I paying you for if not to prevent exactly these kind of things!?”

“You’re paying us to kill the bridge-builder,” said Zabuza crankily. “It’s not my problem if a few thugs get killed by a couple of passing missing-nins. If you want me to care, you’ll have to pay me extra.”

Gato looked ready to explode. “Why you greedy-”

Zabuza laughed throatily. “Someone like you calling me greedy? Get a grip. You said yourself that everything carries a price. Now if you’ll excuse me-”

“20 thousand ryo,” said Gato.

“Please. 45 thousand or I refuse to even talk about it.”

“30 thousand.”

“50 thousand, and half of the money upfront. Don’t test my patience Gato.”

Gato growled. “Fine. But there better not be any repeats of things like today.”

“Don’t worry,” said Zabuza. “There won’t be. Once bought, I stay bought.”

“Good,” said Gato. “Now about these ninja… this morning two men dressed in black cloaks with red clouds walked into this land and began-”

The door exploded, sending splinters everywhere. Gato screamed and dropped to the ground, while Zabuza merely unsheathed his sword in a practiced movement and shielded his face with it. Two men in black cloaks stepped into view.

“Hey, Kakuzu,” said the one with a giant three-blade scythe on his back. Zabuza wondered how good he is with that thing – it’s been a while since he fought with a true weapon-user. “Is this the man we’re looking for?”

He was pointing at Gato, who immediately paled and crawled behind Zabuza for protection.

“Yes,” the covered one said.

“So, these were the missing-nin you were talking about?” said Zabuza to Gato trembling behind him., who nodded vigorously.

“Zabuza-sama!” shouted Haku, barging into the room from the other side. “What’s happening!? I heard-”

Zabuza frowned. Haku’s chest was still covered in bandages, as he still needed a day or so of rest, but here he is, disobeying Zabuza’s orders to check up on his master. As if Zabuza needs his worry. He’s not the one who ended up bedridden after all.

In these past few days Zabuza became aware just how attached he is to the kid. You don’t know what you have until you’re about to lose it, they say, and Zabuza discovered that he’d really not have Haku die on him. Was he really getting so soft?

“Hey Kakuzu, who are these two?” the scythe-wielder asked. “We can kill them, right?”

“Yes,” said Kakuzu. “The one with the mask over his face is Zabuza of the bloody mist. He has quite the large bounty on his head. I was going to claim his bounty one of these days anyway.”

“I wouldn’t be so confident about that,” said Zabuza gruffly, placing his sword over his shoulder. “But since I was just hired to take you out, I guess this just makes things easier for me – I kill a couple of bounty-hunters after me and get paid for it to boot.”

Haku appeared by his side and Zabuza couldn’t help but grin – these two were going down before and now, with Haku by his side, they had no chance at all.

This was going to be a piece of cake.

“So that’s how Naruto succeeded,” said Kakashi. “And you say all it took was convincing you that he was really out to kill you? Really, I should have thought of that myself.”

Sasuke glared at Kakashi, who was chuckling softly at his own attempts at humor. The really infuriating thing was that Sasuke never managed to catch the blonde after activating the sharingan, and ended up simply collapsing from exhaustion and spending the next day bedridden from poisoning.

“Where is that dope, anyway?” asked Sasuke.

“At the bridge, with Sakura,” said Kakashi. “They already mastered water walking yesterday so I made them guard Tazuna while he works on the bridge. They did it in under an hour too, you know.”

Sasuke frowned. It has been three hours and he couldn’t keep at the surface for even a moment. He was really sick of being the person with the worst chakra control in the team. Unfortunately his sharingan couldn’t help him in learning this, as water-walking involved no hand seals. Seal-less techniques were a matter of chakra control, and thus had to be learned the hard way. Hell, he couldn’t even copy Naruto’s techniques because they all had the same hand seals as academy ones and the extra effects were pure chakra control.

The gushing descriptions of sharingan’s powers in his family scrolls didn’t mention this deficiency.

“He could have killed me,” said Sasuke.

“Eh, I’m sure he knew what he was doing,” said Kakashi. “He would have stopped if-”

“That’s not what I mean,” said Sasuke. “He has no combat techniques and he’s no match for me at taijutsu, but he could have killed me there if he wanted to. He could have killed me without me ever laying a finger on him.”

“Well,” said Kakashi carefully. “Maybe now you’ll pay attention to all those ‘useless’ things I’m trying to teach you that have no apparent combat application. Direct combat is not all there is to being a ninja, and Naruto is not the only ninja that prefers indirect methods of dealing with opponents. Your fight with those mist ninja should have clued you in to that fact.”

Sasuke remained silent. There may very well be some truth in that, but…

“Kakashi-sensei!” shouted Sakura, bursting into the scene. “You have to come quick! Naruto is being attacked!”