Walking with a Ghost

by latitat

Naruto is born a girl, and things change—or not—for everyone. A fem!Naruto story. Eventual Sasuke/Naruto.

2. Chapter 2

Trigger warnings: mentions of child abuse/neglect and genocide.

Chapter 2

Honestly, I'm overwhelmed by the response to this fic :) 53 subscribers, you guys are amazing. Also, I'm really too shy to answer all your reviews, but I want to address some of your questions: while this story is rated M, there won't be any sexual content in the near future. They're twelve. Let them grow. Eventually, there will be some smexy action, but not for a long time.

Enjoy this second chapter (22k words, holy crap).

Walking With a Ghost

Chapter 2.

Sakura fiddled with her forehead protector once more. Ever since graduation, she had taken to wearing in her hair the way she wore her ribbons. She wasn't used to the weight of the metal on her scalp, though, or to the way it had to be tied in order not to fall off. She couldn't risk losing it, after all. Maybe she should start wearing it correctly, like Naruto and Sasuke did, she reflected. Next to her, Ino cursed as the box the was holding fell from her grip and spilled its content all over the floor.

The mission they were doing today required two teams. They were helping an "old people house", as Naruto called it, move its location farther away from the center of the village. Apparently, the bar its residents had been neighboring for years was well-liked of adult shinobi, and had suffered an increase in popularity among young graduates. The noise prevented them from sleeping, and they had requested the village's help in moving into a cosy little building not far from the gates.

Unfortunately, while the residents were pretty much all adorable old ladies and men, they couldn't help themselves. Which meant that, since Hatake and Asuma-sensei apparently shared the habit of being utterly useless, the six genin were left moving everything around, furniture and smaller possessions alike.

And there were a lot of possessions.

"How did they manage to gather so many trinkets in the same place?" Ino muttered unhappily, crouching to retrieve everything.

"They probably don't have many better things to do," Sakura replied. The box had been full of board games, little figures, framed photographs. Thankfully none of it had broken in the fall. She put her own box aside and sat down to help.

The others were busy moving the tables, chairs, wardrobes and beds. Or, well, Naruto was. With some help from Sasuke. Shikamaru and Chouji were laying down, face up, apparently napping. This didn't seem to bother the other two very much, seeing as they were the strongest of the lot physically, and Naruto had created a few clones to speed up the process.

"You really landed on the laziest team ever," Sakura commented, looking briefly and the two

napping boys. Their teacher, Asuma, was sitting next to them, smoking contentedly. Hatake-sensei had said he had 'things to do' more than an hour ago, and hadn't showed up again.

"Yeah, they're completely useless. Sensei isn't even trying to get them to improve. I feel like I'm the only one making any progress." Ino let out a long-suffering sigh, before wiping dust from her tunic and getting up. She frowned in the direction of her teammates. "Look at these idiots.

Honestly, how am I supposed to go anywhere with this lot?"

Sakura giggled. The others had been asleep for a while, and Ino had taken advantage of this to rant about them—and at some point, at them—in total impunity. Asuma-sensei had seemed fine with this, even laughed a few times before going back to looking at nothing, smoke curling away from his face.

Not at nothing, she realized suddenly. His eyes were moving around, following Naruto and hervarious copies. That was strange. Did they know each other? His expression was impassible as ever, but she felt cold, suddenly. Like metal in her chest and the back of her throat. She shivered.

"So, how is it, being on Sasuke-kun's team?" Ino asked, ripping her out of her reverie. "I hope you don't think you'll be able to get him to fall for you just because you spend more time with him. Everyone knows I'm the good-looking one."

Sakura snorted. "You can have him, Piglet," she replied, walking away without looking back, a final touch to the grand revelation.

Certainly, Ino didn't stay shocked into silence for too long. "What?" she shrieked, and almost dropped her box again.

Sakura resisted the urge to laugh. Ino was so predictable. She refused to look sideways, even if she was dying to see her friend's face, and kept walking towards the exit.

"Are you joking? What happened to you? What have you done to Sakura? I don't see you for a month and suddenly you don't want to date Sasuke anymore? We've been fighting about this for years!"

"Well, I don't want to fight with you anymore," Sakura replied loftily. It was the truth. She and Ino had been friends once, the best of friends, and she couldn't believe that she'd let a boy come before that friendship. But it wasn't the only reason why she'd had to reevaluate her infatuation with the Uchiha heir.

Sasuke, she had reluctantly come to understand, was very mean.

He had absolutely no qualms about insulting his teammates or his teacher. And, granted, Hatake-sensei had his flaws, and she wasn't especially glad to have someone like him instructing her, but still. He was a jounin, and a good one if her research was reliable, which it always was, so he deserved their respect. But, she had been forced to admit, respect wasn't one of Sasuke's priorities.

He insulted them. He belittled them, mocked them for how much stronger than them he was. No matter that Sakura had had better grades than him in some subjects, or that her chakra control was exemplary, the boy simply felt that his status as a genius made him better than them in every way. He took everything from granted, be it Hatake-sensei's blatant favoritism or the frankly unwarranted respect the villagers gave him. He was horrible to Naruto, and barely acknowledged Sakura's presence on the team.

She frowned. Team seven wasn't anything like she had expected. When Iruka-sensei had announced that she would be with Sasuke and Naruto, well. She had thought that Sasuke would be a good teammate. That he would open up some and try to help them get to his level. That he would show talent in making a team work, just as he showed talent in everything else. And, yes, that eventually he would have recognized how much of a catch she was. She had thought that Naruto would be dead weight. Always pulling pranks like she did at the Academy, retaking every test thrice before getting it, never showing the will to improve. Boasting about becoming Hokage, of all things.

And while some of this was still true—the other girl was loud, and unapologetic, and had trouble understand the simplest things sometimes—she was just now realizing how badly she had misjudged the classmates she had known for years.

Naruto might not be the best kunoichi, but she was never mean to anyone. She bantered, she shoved and pushed and annoyed, but she never insulted, not the way Sasuke did, targeting weak spots and pounding them until they bled. Naruto took every mission seriously, even when she spent the whole time moaning about wasting her talent. She answered Hatake-sensei's ice-cold behavior towards her with smiles, and she never talked badly to Sakura. In fact, her friendliness and the tentative companionship they had formed over the course of the month was the best thing about team seven.

She was without a doubt the most surprising person Sakura had ever met. Naruto was simply so eager to be her friend, and Sakura had never met anyone who wanted to get close to her like that. She could remember the other girls mocking her hair and her face. Only Ino's intervention had finally earned her some popularity, as nobody wanted to be at odds with one of the clan brats. She couldn't remember Naruto being part of these people, though. Naruto had always hung out with the boys, skipping "girl lessons" to go bother the chuunin in the training field behind the Academy or to have mud fights with Kiba and Chouji. Sakura couldn't recall ever seeing Naruto in the flower arrangement and seduction lectures. In fact, she had barely ever talked to the girl before becoming her teammate.

She felt badly about that. She had been so hung up on chasing Sasuke's interest that she had completely ignored the little girl in orange clothes who always greeted her every morning.

"Are you okay, Sakura?" Ino asked suddenly, making her jump. They had reached the cart waiting at the end of the street, already full of various pieces of furniture and cardboard boxes filled with belongings.

"Ah, yes." She chuckled, and smiled warmly at Ino, who was looking at her like she had suddenly grown a third eye. "Don't worry about me. But, yes, I'm over Sasuke. Definitely." Probably. The boy was too pretty for his own good.

"This is so weird," Ino declared. Sakura nodded, thoughtful.

"I meant what I said, you know. I don't want to fight with you anymore. Do you think we could be friends again? Real friends, I mean."

Ino didn't answer immediately. She strapped her box to the others, and then sighed, wiping her brow. The sun was hot, baking the pavement and the top of their heads. This was the hottest day of october, and probably the last truly warm day of the year. It was a shame to spend it working. She envied Shikamaru and Chouji, as useless as they were. At least their sensei was lax enough that he didn't mind seeing them slack on the job. If Hatake-sensei ever saw her, or Naruto and Sasuke, take a nap in the middle of a mission, he'd take it out on their hide.

"I'm still a better kunoichi than you," Ino said. Her smile was terse, but genuine. "But I guess we could have a movie night some time soon. If you want."

"I guess it doesn't hurt to have dreams," Sakura drawled, avoiding the other girl's punch with a smile.

Naruto chose this moment to appear before them, having apparently jumped from the nearest roof. Ino made a surprised sound, but Sakura was used to it by now. Naruto could never just walk.

"Me and Sasuke are done with the beds, and the clones are helping him with the last of the desks and tables," she informed them primly, counting on her fingers. "Old man Takeru says thanks, the lady with all the statuettes says we don't need to wrap those up because she'll ask a professional, and, huh… oh, yeah! Could we take a break for lunch soon? We've been at it all morning, and you know how grumpy the bastard gets when his stomach is empty."

A popping nose and puff of smoke interrupted her. Hatake-sensei was standing on a trash bin, looking as bored as ever.

"You have got to teach me that technique," Naruto muttered, eyes shining.

Hatake ignored her. "Good job," he told them shortly. "How much longer do you think it'll take you to move everything?"

Sakura frowned at him, crossing her arms. "Well, if someone decided to help us, maybe it'd go faster. Also, where have you been all morning? You can't just leave during a mission, Hatake-sensei!"

"I figured you didn't need my help with something so simple. Asuma's team isn't complaining. Are you already tired? I thought I'd trained you better than that."

The jab was obviously meant for Naruto. The girl fell for it instantly, creating a clone to help throw herself onto a balcony. "Not even close! You just watch and see how fast we'll finish this, sensei!" she roared, before running off the way she'd come.

Hatake threw a look in her direction, but didn't say anything. He smiled briefly at Sakura and Ino —she couldn't explain how she knew he was smiling, since most of his face was hidden, but it

felt like he was smiling—before taking off as well, probably to read his porn.

"You call your sensei by his last name?" Ino enquired in a curious voice. Sakura nodded. "That's weird. Anyway, at least my team doesn't have Naruto in it. She has to be a real nightmare. How do you cope?"

Sakura flushed angrily and suddenly, before saying in a clipped tone, "Naruto isn't that bad. She's not the sharpest kunai in the pouch, but you shouldn't talk about her like that."

"Okay, calm down," her friend replied, startled at her coldness. "I didn't mean to make you mad. But if I remember correctly, we used to make fun of her a lot, and you were perfectly fine with it at the time. What changed?"

Sakura hesitated. "I just… I guess I didn't really know her then." She didn't like being reminded of how awful she had been to her teammate, even without said teammate's knowledge. She knew what it felt like to be the object of petty insults and bullying, how terrible and lonely it was. The more she thought about her days at the Academy, the less she understood how she could have been so stupid.

Naruto was her partner. They would have to rely on each other in the future, maybe even save each other's life. If she ever discovered what Sakura, Ino and the other girls in their year had said about her, she would be terribly hurt. Hinata had once tried to stand up in her defense, but the Hyuuga heir's overwhelming shyness had won over. After that she'd stayed silent when the subject of their tomboy classmate arose, even if she always looked very unhappy. But she had been the only one. Sakura felt a deep sense of shame that she had ever partaken in such casual cruelty, especially since she was sure Naruto had never done the same to her or any of her peers.

It was strange, the way they had all disliked Naruto so much. Now that she really thought about it, she couldn't even find a good reason why. It was true that the girl had spent a lot of time with the boys, and that some of the girls in the class could have felt jealous about that. But Naruto didn't hang out with them the way these girls wanted to. She dressed like them, acted and talked like them, but she never tried to get this kind of attention from them. Moreover, most of the girls had been obsessed with Sasuke at the time. The other boys seemed too immature and loud and stupid next to the Uchiha genius, his good genes and quiet presence.

They all just seemed to agree that Uzumaki Naruto was bad news. Sakura also knew that her parents disliked the girl, for whatever reason, and had told her to stay away from the 'troublemaker'. They had paled, and looked helplessly at each other, upon learning that Naruto was on her team.

She had been wondering about that a lot lately. Even Hatake-sensei seemed to have some deep-rooted dislike of Naruto that he had trouble hiding. He was cold to all of them, yes, joking around without meaning any of it, harsh in his criticism, refusing to use their names. But his relationship with Naruto was even more strained. He never talked to her directly if he could avoid it, and when he did, his voice was thin and controlled, as if he was having to restrain himself from yelling.

"Hey, Ino," she asked, forcing herself out of her musings, "Why do you dislike Naruto so much? Besides the fact that she's in Sasuke's team and you're not."

Ino hummed. She was standing up with her hands behind her neck, massaging her tense muscles slowly, as reluctant as Sakura to go back to the house and get more heavy boxes to carry around. "Probably because of all the pranks she pulls? Some of them are a real pain. She used to disrupt class a lot."

"Yeah, but she hasn't done anything since graduation." Or at least nothing on as big a scale as the things they had come to expect from her. "And she wasn't always a troublemaker. She didn't start bothering people until our last two years, remember?"

"I dunno," Ino shrugged. "I guess there's just something about her that annoys me. Daddy used to tell me that I shouldn't talk to her, so she probably did something really bad. He never said anything about the other kids."

This doesn't make any sense, Sakura thought. Had Naruto done something to warrantYamanaka-san's anger? Or her own parents'? A few weeks ago she would have believed it, but not anymore. This didn't fit the Naruto she had spent almost every day with for the past month. Naruto was a surprisingly shy person, once you got past the boasting and the overall brash demeanor. She talked very little about her private life, and didn't enjoy being asked personal questions—Sakura had learned this after seeing the girl shut down on herself when she'd asked her when her birthday was. She was loud, but respectful. Even her pranks had merely been bothersome, not dangerous or hurtful.

"Try to give her a chance, will you?" she mumbled, paying no heed to the surprised expression on Ino's face. She started walking towards the house again. With one last stretch and a disappointed sigh, Ino followed her. They still had a lot of things to move.

"Someone said something about food?" Chouji said when they arrived, opening his eyes sluggishly. Ino dumped her water on his face.

The following weeks went much the same way. She, Sasuke and Naruto took a lot of D-rank missions. They became somewhat expert at weeding huge gardens, catching lost pets and completing small building work. It wasn't very exciting, but it payed well enough for her. On Iruka-sensei's advice—she visited him sometimes, since he was still her favorite teacher—she opened a bank account under her own name, outside her parents' control, where she saved the money she earned. This didn't help her parents warm up to the idea of her becoming a shinobi, but it did prevent them from hindering her progress. Under Konoha's law, she was considered an adult. They needed to realize this.

In the morning, she met with Naruto for training. They had both accepted that Hatake-sensei didn't care much about really teaching them anything, so they decided to help each other stay in shape. The katas and sparring took them about two hours every day. They probably weren't any good at it, since no one was there to correct their moves and Sakura herself had performed rather poorly in all her taijutsu classes, but at least they wouldn't lose their stamina. And it gave them something to do, a schedule to keep up with, which in Sakura's experience was always a good thing. Especially since Naruto didn't seem to have anything else to do with

her time.

They talked, too, a lot. Or at least Sakura did. Naruto was a very good listener: she was attentive, she never tried to redirect the conversation to herself, and she never judged, although she reacted vividly. Sakura had been surprised by this, at first, and taken immediate advantage of it. She could still remember Naruto's attempt to make them all get along when the teams had been announced, and how she had spent the next few hours babbling about everything she liked and disliked. How Naruto had never tried to interrupt her or say anything on her own. How, even now, the other girl seemed to remember what she had said very well. It took a long time for Sakura to understand that their relationship was way too one-sided. This led to her asking Naruto about her birthday, and the very awkward hour that had ensued.

The violence of Naruto's reaction to such an innocent question had been startling, to say the least. But she was an orphan, after all. Maybe she didn't know when she was born? It was unlikely, but it could happen. Maybe she wasn't even born in Konoha, and was one of those babies abandoned at the gates of an orphanage, like in fairytales. Maybe her parents had died on the day of her birth. Anyway, it was obviously a sensitive topic, and she didn't pry.

Little by little, Naruto came out of her shell. She told Sakura her favorite color (orange), her favorite meal (miso ramen), her favorite animal (frogs, of all things). She didn't know any movies, besides the ones they had seen at the Academy, so Sakura promised to show her some. Sakura learned that Naruto liked sunny days the best, that rain made her moody, that her secondary goal in life was to beat Sasuke in combat. Naruto took her to her favorite food stand on one memorable occasion, and she made the acquaintance of Ichiraku Teuchi and his daughter Ayame, who were long-time friends of her team mate and seemed delighted to meet her. Apparently, Naruto had talked about their team a lot.

Things weren't perfect, far from it. Sakura was very disappointed with her team, Naruto excepted. Hatake-sensei never taught them anything, showed up late on every meeting, and treated them with the same amount of respect he would a fly in his soup. Only Sasuke was granted the honor of being called by his name and given some tips on the rare days when they all trained together. Sakura only got a dry and somewhat skeptical 'Haruno', and Naruto was never called anything.

Eventually, things came to a standpoint, and she 'exploded'.

It had happened before, so she wasn't too surprised. Sakura was painfully aware that the appearance she cultivated was very different from how she felt. Her language, for once. She was always polite, even when she was mad. That was just how she had been raised. Her innermost thoughts, however, resembled Naruto's swear glossary far more than they did her father's cultured tones. She always tried her best to be as inconspicuous as possible in that respect. She wasn't a boy, she didn't need to engage in vocal pissing contests to remind herself of her own worth. It was also good training as a shinobi, she reflected. Hiding your strength until the last possible moment was a fireproof plan. And the ability to verbally shit on an enemy until he or she lost their control was as good a tool as any.

She had had those 'explosions' since childhood. Since she had decided to become a kunoichi after reading the story of the great Sannin, actually. The life and accomplishments of Senju

Tsunade, inventor of a thousand antidotes, reformer of shinobi medicine, and overall grade A badass, had featured in many of her daydreams. She had very quickly decided that this was the kind of woman she wanted to become. Not a merchant's wife like her mother. Not a teacher or a store tenant. She wanted the recognition and the power, and she would get them.

Things didn't go quite as planned then. Her parents' opposition to her decision went to such heights that she had to request an audience with the Hokage. The old, kindly man had assured her that she was in her right and that no one could stop her from attending the Academy. It was free, so she wouldn't have to rely on anyone financially, should her family disown her. He had also made it clear to her mom and dad that as Konoha citizens, they were subjected to shinobi law. And shinobi law stated that while no one could be forced to become a shinobi, no one could be prevented from becoming one either, as long as they had the required skills and dedication.

Oh, how grown-up she had felt back then, hearing the Hokage agree with her. How wonderful to see her parents' stupidity brought to light in front the village head! She had barely contained her glee.

Then the Academy started, and her ambitions suffered greatly. She hadn't anticipated how hard it would be. She was an easy study, always somewhat of a bookworm, and achieved excellent grades in most of her classes, but the difficulty lay elsewhere. As the first weeks passed, slow and lonely, she came to realize that her dreams were shared by almost every student. Every girl wanted to grow up to be Senju Tsunade. Every boy looked in envy at the Fourth's face carved into the mountain, drooling at the idea of becoming the next hero, the next never-forgot tragedy.

The competition was rough. She got singled out at first, as one of the rare students coming from civilian families. The fight to become friends with the clan kids was violent. Small shinobi families were trying to get into the clans' good graces through their children, encouraging them to form the right friendships, to have the best entourage. The power-play at work in these classrooms was ridiculous, and Sakura started 'exploding'.

It never happened in front of the other kids or teachers, of course. She would never let it. But once she came home, little Sakura became a monster. She would scream, and swear, and drive her parents to the very end of their patience. She would stomp on the floor and slam the doors shut until they broke. She would make her mother cry and her father turn red as a tomato, and feel no regret for it. Thinking back, she knew that she had probably worried them a lot. They had spent a lot of time huddled together, trying to comfort themselves when she refused to eat and to sleep. Unable to do anything without taking the risk of becoming outlaws.

Slowly, painstakingly, she managed to reduce these excesses of violence. Ino's friendship helped her strengthen her resolve. She blocked out the extra noise and focused on her studies. So what if they all wanted the same thing, and she wasn't so special after all? She was still the best. She knew it, and she would make them see it. It was only a matter of time.

It was a wonder Sasuke managed to distract her at all during that time. If she was being completely honest with herself, her crush on the boy probably had more to do with the jealousy she had felt when he started getting all of Ino's attention. He was pretty, that was a given.

Talented, mysterious. His tragic life appealed to a lot of her classmates in a twisted way. But she wouldn't have found him nearly as attractive as she did then if 'getting Sasuke' hadn't become her only way to keep some sort of a bond with her best friend.

So the 'Sakura-explosions' dwindled, to her family's relief. She regained her stability before her first year at the Academy was over. But they never disappeared completely. And, although she now knew how to tell when one was coming and how to work it out of her system by throwing weapons at targets until her arms ached, she was certain that one day someone would be at the wrong end of one again.

She just never would have expected it to be her own teacher.

It began on a fairly ordinary day, almost two months into their time as a team. The weather had settled firmly into fall rains and chilly breezes. The trees had finished shedding their foliage a few days prior, so there was nothing to protect them from the washed out light of the day, blinding in its own right, even without the sun. She had met with Naruto earlier and trained, maybe throwing harsher punches than usual, but the other girl hadn't commented on it. Sakura then invited her for breakfast before they regrouped with the rest of their team.

Sasuke was already waiting for them at the bridge where they always met, sitting by himself and playing with a kunai. He didn't say anything when he saw them arrive, not that they had expected him to. Yet Sakura found herself hard-pressed not to call him on it. For God's sake, they had never done anything to deserve the silent treatment he gave them. If anything, they should be ignoring him.

She proceeded to do just that, turning to Naruto and chatting about nonsensical things—the girl loved to hear about her neighborhood's love and hate affairs, for some reason—while they waited for Hatake to show up. The man usually took more than an hour to make his presence known, but the three of them were always on time. He could be waiting for them to slip, after all, and nothing said he wasn't watching them every time he did this. Sakura thought it unlikely, though. It pained her to admit it, but Hatake-sensei was probably just that lazy.

"Hello, kids," the man said when he appeared an hour and a half later. He was disgustingly chipper for an asswipe, she decided, glaring a hole into his face. "Now whatever shall we do today?" He looked at the papers he was holding, sorting through them quickly. "Our dearest Tora-chan has escaped once more. The daimyo's wife has upped the price since it's the second time this week. Or you could help with the paint job on the new Academy building, but it's three-stories high, so I'm guessing you're all too lazy for that. There are fences to be built around the Hokage's kitchen garden-"

"Why can't we get something interesting for once?" Sasuke complained, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah," Naruto agreed, and this in itself was proof that she was really desperate for more action. "All we ever do is D-rank missions! And I get that they're useful and we all need to do our part, but one C-rank won't kill us, right?"

"Well, Sasuke," Hatake answered, "as much as I'd like to grant you all one day of freedom from these dreadfully boring assignments, I'm not sure everyone here is at your level."

Naruto's face reddened profusely. Sakura buried her nails into her palms, so mad was she at the display. Why was Hatake-sensei so horrible to them? Was it a gender thing? Ino often ranted about sexism, and how misogynistic the shinobi world as a whole was. She had been incensed all her life at the 'girl lessons' they were taught, the flower arrangements and seduction tips and behavior courses, even as she attended them all dutifully. And while Sakura agreed with her in a very abstract, this-doesn't-really-concern-me way, she had never thought she would be subjected to this kind of casual forgetfulness.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she demanded to know, voice shaking slightly.

Silence answered her. She hadn't noticed that Hatake was already explaining the day's mission to them, having apparently considered the discussion closed.

"Excuse me?" he said politely, yet she could hear the warning in his tone.

Well, if it was conflict he was looking for, he would find it.

"I said, what the hell is that supposed to mean?" she repeated confidently, hands on her hips, back straight, looking him in the eye. "I'm am so goddamn tired of your favoritism, Hatake-sensei. What is it that makes Sasuke inherently better than Naruto and I? What does he have that we don't?"

"Besides the obvious? He is a serious student," the man replied coldly. "Unlike you, he gives me something to work with, and he doesn't slack outside of missions. His training regimen-"

"So you have been training him," she cut him off, "while leaving us to fend for ourselves. Real nice, sensei. Tell me, were you actually sincere when you told us team work was the key to being a great shinobi, that those who abandoned their comrades were 'worse than trash', or was it all bullshit? Because I could swear I've been smelling the hypocrisy on you since fucking day one."

She heard a gasp. Naruto was watching her with wide eyes, and Sasuke was probably making a face worth a thousand pictures, but she refused to look away.

Hatake-sensei was very still. His bored expression hadn't changed, and it didn't even look like anything she had said had made an impact. But Sakura could feel cold sweat dripping down her back, making her shiver, and fright was at the edge of her mind, toying with her resolve. He was definitely disturbed by her words. This realization pushed her forward, made her open her mouth again.

"I've been training with Naruto every day since we became a team," she told him, lips trembling. He watched her, waiting for her to finish. "So maybe we're not Uchiha-level yet, maybe you… you think girls can't get anywhere or something, but we're not slackers, and you don't have the right to blame us for our subpar performance when you're the one who's always categorically refused to train us!"

"You never asked," Hatake said icily.

Sakura pointed at Naruto, who yelped. "Naruto asked you, oh, only about a hundred times. But since you seem to be deaf and blind when it comes to her, you never deigned giving her a proper answer."

"Sakura-" Naruto started.

"Don't try to find excuses for him," she spat out. "I don't know what's going on between the two of you, and frankly I'm not sure I want to know, but I thought being a shinobi meant being adult enough to set aside personal feelings. The very fact that you're doing your best to take the high road when he won't give you the time of the day tells me everything I need to know about how childish he is." She met Hatake's eye unflinchingly. "I know you're one of the best jounin of the village, so whatever it is that makes you such a terrible teacher must really be something. But that's no reason to treat us like that, and I expect at least an apology. Honestly, what is it gonna take for you to finally start taking us seriously?"

Her heart was beating very fast. A part of her somewhere was growing more and more horrified at the realization that she had basically insulted her own teacher and told him he was incompetent. Why did I say that? it was crying mournfully. Why did I overstep my boundaries like that? He's my teacher, for fuck's sake! I just got mad that he said I was a bad student and I exploded like a child! But Naruto was looking at her with gratitude greater than she had everknown, her marked cheeks dimpling as she smiled, and she knew without a doubt that she had done the right thing, at least for her friend.

Hatake-sensei turned his head upwards. Sakura wondered fleetingly if she was going to be taken out of the team. She didn't think anyone had the right to outright forbid her to be a shinobi, unless she committed a serious crime, but Hatake certainly had enough relations to make life extremely difficult for her.

Well. What would happen would happen. Regretting her words now would be pointless.

"You want me to take you seriously," he said, and his voice wasn't anything like his usual fake playful tones. "Alright. Come here."

"I- what?"

"I'm giving you ten minutes," he continued, eyeing her darkly. "You and I will spar. Hand-to-hand only, no ninjutsu or genjutsu allowed for either of us. If you manage to touch me even once during that time, I'll start training you personally. I'll teach you everything I know, including my clan secrets. How does that sound?"

This isn't real, she thought. No clan ever volunteered its secret so lightly. Clan members died toprotect them, spent their lives inventing techniques to make their own bodies destroy themselves so that no one could steal them from their corpses. She had read all about this before. Hatake-sensei didn't have any family left. He would never risk his inheritance unless he was a hundred percent sure he could beat her.

He's playing with me, she gathered, fury building up inside her chest and hot blood flooding hercheeks. He doesn't think I can do it!

"Fine," she muttered, and took a step towards him. "I just need to touch you, right? Not hit you or take anything from you. Easy peasy."

She could see Naruto moving, ready to interfere, but she held up a hand and shook her head. This was her fight. She had waited two months for the chance to make her mark, and now that she was handled an opportunity on a silver platter, she intended to seize it. Naruto faltered in her steps, a helpless look on her face.

Sakura turned towards Hatake. He hadn't taken his eye off her, or started reading his blasted book, but he didn't seem too concerned about her either. He was simply standing a few meters away from from, hands in his pockets, head slightly tilted. She smiled.

I'm gonna kick you in the balls, she thought savagely. And then she charged, fist extended.

He avoided her easily, taking a step to the side, but she had predicted it. She reacted as quickly as she could, remembering her sessions with Naruto and trying to be at least twice as good as she was then.

She rarely won against Naruto. The other girl was simply speaking a monster of energy: her stamina was insane, and oftentimes when they stopped to drink water and catch a breath, she was barely even sweating. But Sakura was better at controlling her own body, and she was intimately familiar with her strengths and weaknesses. She knew her limits.

This was the only way for her to get anywhere with her small chakra reserves. She couldn't use a lot of ninjutsu, and she didn't—yet—have the physical training and endurance to be any good at taijutsu. But she had control, and knowledge, and she could make do with both. She would hit Hatake if it was the last thing she did.

With half her mind busy forming a quick plan, she leaped, and fell, and kicked, trying her best to at least brush him. She failed time and time again, falling harshly on grass and stone, her hands and feet finding only air where the man had been only a second ago. It was like he could read her mind and see where she would land before she was conscious of it.

She didn't let herself despair. She had ten minutes, and she intended to use every single one them to try and tire him out. He was part of Konoha's elite, she reminded herself, thinking back to the research she had done on him after the bell test. It was only natural that he would be proficient in taijutsu. She would have expected him to be a little more awkward in hand-to-hand; it must be hard for him to measure distances with one eye missing. But if this had ever been a weakness of his, he had obviously trained himself out of it. His moves, simples as they were since he was only avoiding her and not trying to counter anything, were flawless.

Five minutes into the spar, she had him cornered against a rock, well away from where the fight had begun. He seemed to realize this at the same time.

Gotcha, she thought triumphantly. In a deliberately clumsy move, she jumped in his direction. Asshe expected, he stepped to the side, same as he had when she'd first ran at him. Only this time, Sakura fell forward hands-first. Immediately, she channelled chakra into her palms to make them stick to the ground, and she used her own momentum to make her right foot spin in

his direction, focusing as much chakra into its sole as she could while still maintaining herself upright. Smiling wickedly when she saw his eyes widen in shock, she threw everything she had into the kick.

She felt her leg hit something solid, and heard the sound of stone cracking and rocks tumbling down. Dust flew into her face, making her cough and lose her balance. She fell on her back, rasping onto the grass and trying to catch her breath before she choked. She turned her head to look at the place of the impact.

The rock she had pushed Hatake towards was cracked in the middle. An indentation at least two inches deep in the shape of her foot had deformed the stone. Hatake was standing on top of it. His eyes, fixed on her, held no trace of the surprise and fear she had glimpsed in them during her last assault.

"Time out," he declared.

"What…?" she mumbled, dazed. Then his words connected. "No!" she yelled, trying to get up, but her legs were too weak to support her. "I still have at least four minutes left!"

She couldn't have used all her time. She couldn't, she was sure of it. Or had she? She had never been this focused on a fight before. Could she have lost track of the clock?

Her teacher landed swiftly next to her head, and looked down at her. "Big mouth, heh?" he said flatly, before turning his back on her and walking away.

Sakura lied on the ground for several minutes, shocked into silence. She barely registered Naruto's presence at her side, or Sasuke sitting down next to them, fidgeting uneasily. She could only glare at the sky, the stupid grey-white sky, and wallow in her shame.

I couldn't even touch him, she thought. Tears were gathering in her eyes, blurring the world,eventually overflowing onto her temples and hair. She sniffed miserably, trying to hold back the sobs fighting to escape her. When she finally let go, it was with an unattractive snort and a yell. She pushed face head into the dirt to smother as much of the outburst as she could, trying to preserve the last of her dignity, as fat tears rolled over her face and dripped onto the grass.

"Hatake-sensei is not training me," Sasuke said suddenly, and Naruto let out a small, "yeah, right," at his face, scowling. He flushed. "It's true!" he protested, tearing his eyes away fromNaruto and towards where Sakura still lay, defeated, drowning in her shame. "He asked how I was training, but he never oversaw any of it. He just let me take care of it on my own, just like you two."

Sakura snarled. "Why are you only saying this now?"

"I didn't know you thought he was training me exclusively!" he retorted, frowning at her.

"Jerk," she hiccuped. Her tears weren't stopping yet, but at least she wasn't sobbing anymore.

"Anyway, Sakura-chan…" Naruto said hesitantly. She was playing with a blade of grass, avoiding her eyes and slouching slightly. "Thanks. For what you said earlier," she finished, red-

faced. "It means a lot to me."

This only made her cry harder. "You two are so fucking useless," she complained loudly, making them chuckle awkwardly.

"I think I like you better when you're like that," Naruto said teasingly. Sasuke snorted in laughter, and Sakura suggested they both went and fucked themselves.

"That fight was actually pretty impressive," Sasuke said after a while. "That last kick… that was a very nice move. How did you break the rock?"

It was the first time they had been like that. It was nice, she decided. To be able to sit down and spend time with two other people without it being uncomfortable. Or without Sasuke trying to antagonize them. In the light of his explanation that Hatake hadn't been favoring him, or at least not when they weren't there to see him, she found herself revising her judgement of the boy once again.

He was rude, certainly, in that I-am-so-much-better-you, off-handed way of his. He targeted their insecurities, calling Naruto 'dead last' or 'buffoon' and ignoring Sakura as much as he could, knowing how much she had tried to get his attention for years. He never talked to them, never offered advice when he knew they had trouble understanding or doing something he was good at. But Sakura couldn't honestly say that she had been nice to him either. She had taken his calling her and Naruto 'hindrances' during the bell test very much to heart, and never really forgiven him. She had tried engaging him in conversation during their first week as a team, but quickly given up, and reverted to talking to Naruto exclusively.

Yet here Sasuke was, apparently trying to comfort her in his own, clumsy way. And Sakura was forced to recognize the fact that, out of them all, she was the least socially awkward. Sasuke was shy, and trying to cover it by being as offensive as he could. The thought made her laugh, and laugh, and laugh, until the other two were left staring helplessly at each other.

What a team they made.

x

Sasuke woke up to someone pounding loudly at his door, calling his name. Groaning, he dug his arm out of his blankets and threw it in the direction of his nightstand, knocking something off on the way. The sound of breaking class finished tearing him out of his slumber, and he grabbed his clock. It was almost eleven o'clock.

Shit, he thought. He tried to jump to his feet, but his head started aching and dizzinessovercame him, making him nauseous. Grabbing the nearest chair, he leaned over, trying to calm his beating and put his stomach back where it belonged. There were glass shards all over the carpet, from the empty bottle he had just broken, and yeah, he wasn't thinking about how much of a pain cleaning it up would be. He dragged his feet to the bathroom and splashed water on his face. A look in the mirror made him cringe. His eyes were bloodshot, his face a sickly yellow-white.

He threw his clothes on haphazardly. They were creased all over, but since he hadn't trained the day before, they were still relatively fresh. They would do.

"Sa-su-keeee-"

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door, and almost received Naruto's fist in his face. It wouldn't be the first time, but he wasn't sure he was ready for that kind of violence at the moment.

The girl stumbled for a second, then scowled at him. "What the fuck are you doing? We were supposed to meet at the bridge like two hours ago. Sakura-chan's worried the end of the world's coming."

"Shut up," he answered feebly, massaging his temples. He shivered as cold wind hit his bare legs and feet, and put his shoes on carefully, trying not to move too suddenly.

"Are you…" Naruto was peering at his face. Then her lips spread into a wide grin, and Sasuke resisted the urge to groan. "Holy shit," she laughed. "Are you hungover?"

Thankfully, Sasuke was too ill to blush or truly feel embarrassed. He pushed past her with a grunt and closed his door behind him, gritting his teeth at the sharp sound it made. Naruto was still laughing, holding her ribs and obviously not inclined to stop or lower her voice, so he resolved to ignore her for the day.

The trip to the bridge was relatively quiet, despite Naruto's mocking snorts every time something made him flinch, be it a burst of wind or the sound of a child's high-pitched voice. He chose to walk rather than jump from roof to roof, not willing to risk puking on his teammate. As satisfying as the idea sounded, he didn't relish the thought of suffering Sakura's wrath.

Sakura was waiting for them with a book open and a mostly eaten lunch spread out around her. She had a coat on. Konoha was going through a bout of very cold weather, despite the complete lack of snow. Frost-covered grass cracked under his feet. The ponds were frozen through, and even the river had dwindled into a small stream, due to the fact that much of its source water had changed into ice overnight.

"Finally." Sakura snapped her book shut before getting back on her feet. She smiled at them, but then noticed Naruto's unfaltering smirk and, probably, Sasuke's face. "What's wrong with you?" she asked immediately, worry tinting her voice.

"Dear Sasuke is suffering from a bad case of I shouldn't have drunk so much," Naruto answered immediately, taking her place atop the bridge barrier. Sasuke dearly hoped to see her fall, but then again her cries of outright might be too loud to be worth it.

"You've been drinking? Why?" Sakura asked. Her expression was a mix of disapproval and concern.

His mood darkened immediately. "None of your business," he mumbled, before sitting down on the side of the road. Fortunately, Sakura was a tad more tactful than Naruto, and she didn't try

to get more out of him.

Barely a minute later, Hatake appeared. It was so strange to see him arrive so soon after getting into place himself that Sasuke was almost persuaded the man standing in front of them was someone else using a henge. It took him almost thirty seconds to remember that he had been late as well.

"Sasuke's hungover!" Naruto called immediately, because she was annoying like that.

Predictably, Hatake didn't acknowledge her. Sasuke wondered why the girl even bothered trying to talk to him. He would have given up long ago, if someone treated him the same way. The man's only visible eye did take a quick glance at Sasuke's prone form and sickly pallor. However, he didn't seem to find it worth commenting on.

"Guess who escaped from the house again," he told them gleefully, waving a picture of Tora at them. Sakura and Naruto's moans of despair could probably be heard from the other side of the village.

The day wet on ordinarily. Sasuke felt bad for missing their collective training session in the morning—he had started joining the girls after what had become known as the Epic Sakura Breakdown Episode curtesy of Naruto—but his mind was plagued by much darker thoughts, and he couldn't find it in himself to bother apologizing. Not today.

He helped as much as could in catching the damn cat, but he was sluggish and tired, and the girls soon relegated him to minding the bait. Usually, Hatake would have nagged at him endlessly for slacking during a mission, even one as redundant and boring as this one, but the man left him in peace for once. He probably knew what today meant to him, Sasuke reflected.

He had never tried dealing with his family's death by drinking before. The four precedent anniversaries had been spent choking on his tears and his rage, throwing kunai at trees or practicing his taijutsu until his hands bled. Then, he could imagine the targets he was punching into a bloody pulp was Itachi's face.

He had wanted to change tactics this year. Since he was legally an adult, he had the right to buy alcohol. Generally, bar tenants still refused serve alcohol to young shinobi, or at least those who looked like their bodies hadn't finished growing. But Sasuke had flashed the Uchiha emblem, and threatened to call the Hokage, and the man had relented. Perhaps he had looked how he felt then, like a dead body warmed over and ripped back to life, and that was why the barman hadn't made more of a fuss.

He had hoped the sake would numb him enough that he would stop caring, stop remembering that night. He had been wrong. All the alcohol did was slow him down and take away his restraint. He couldn't remember everything, but one thing was sure: the pit in his stomach was as full of pain and hatred as ever. The only difference was the nausea and the headache, and he promised himself he wouldn't make that mistake again.

He flinched violently when a shadow covered him. He jumped to his feet and was about to throw a shuriken, when he realized that it was Naruto standing before him, covered in fading

cuts and holding a disgruntled cat in her arms.

"You okay?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

He exhaled slowly. With a flick of the wrist, he put the shuriken back in his thigh pouch, and took a petty enjoyment out of seeing envy flicker over the girl's face.

"Growing soft on me, Uzumaki?" he drawled.

She growled, showing her teeth in a surprisingly animalistic way. She did that sometimes, landing on all fours or being ridiculously happy to just bask in the sun or generally acting like an over-spoiled house cat. With Tora in her arms, she was a vision. "See if I care!" she exclaimed, throwing the fur ball at him and walking away with her chin up. Strangely, the encounter left him feeling a little better than he had a minute ago.

Footsteps echoed behind him. "Are you okay?" Hatake asked. There was no concern in his voice. There never was. Sasuke had never met someone as difficult to pinpoint as his teacher, except Itachi, and that thought didn't help him warm up to the man.

"Why do you hate Naruto so much?" he replied, all traces of humor gone.

The man grunted and flicked out of view.

Good riddance, Sasuke thought. This little method for getting rid of their instructor had beenimplemented by Sakura. It was obvious, now that he was trying to mingle a little more with the girls he'd been teamed with, that something was up between Hatake and their blond-haired teammate. Neither of them knew what, and they weren't trying to pry, not really, but it was useful when you knew how uncomfortable with the topic the man was. All they had to do was ask 'why do you hate her?' and he took off. Of course, they never did it in Naruto's presence. Sasuke would have, but Sakura was monstrously protective of the girl's feelings, and had threatened to have his balls removed if he ever tried.

They had some weird relationships.

Once Tora had been delivered safely to the Hokage tower, Sasuke started walking home, intent on spending the rest of the day brooding in his bedroom and thinking of the past, but Hatake's voice stopped him.

"I need you all to pack for a three-week mission," he said. "We'll be going tomorrow."

There was a silence. Then—he covered his ears as fast as he could—Naruto screamed in joy, high-fiving Sakura and giving the other girl a hug, blushing profusely at the same time.

"Yeah, yeah," Hatake continued, clearly bored with the display. "It's only a C-rank, thought. No need to get so worked up. The only difference will be that we'll be in a different place and we'll have to sleep in tents."

"What are we going to do?" Sasuke asked tiredly, trying uselessly to block the noise Naruto was making. God, the girl could wake up a mountain with those lungs.

"We're accompanying a carpenter to the Land of Waves and seeing to his protection until he finishes building a bridge there. Then we'll come home. Normally the Hokage wouldn't waste anyone on this, but there's a been an increase in brigandry between here and Waves."

Sasuke nodded. Getting out of Konoha for a few weeks was probably a good idea, all things considered. He would never have a moment alone, but at least he wouldn't be tempted to go back to the Uchiha compound to relive his nightmares. The perspective of spending three weeks with Sakura and Naruto wasn't so terrible, as well.

They finally parted ways. Sakura had politely invited him to join her and Naruto for the afternoon

— despite the other girl muttering under her breath about 'damn lightweights'—but he had declined. He had had as much company as he could bear for the day. He needed some alone time before he had to live in close quarters with his team. Plus, he had some tombs to visit, and he doubted that they would appreciate being dragged into his personal hell.

The cemetery was deserted as always. Few people bothered coming here, apart from those who had recently lost someone they loved. Sasuke himself only came here once a year, on the anniversary of his clan's death (massacre, slaughter, execution, 'death' was too kind a word to describe what Itachi had done). He sat in front of his parents' graves and let the anger come tohim, swallow him, until he was sure again what his goal in life truly was.

He was an avenger. He was born to find his clan's murderer and exact God's justice upon him. As wrong as Itachi had been, as much as he had lied to him, he was right about that. His words, on that fateful night, had been nothing but the truth.

He could still visualize the scene if he closed his eyes. The smell of blood, the screams outside dying out one after the other. The thud that Fugaku and Mikoto's bodies had made when they hit the floor. The wheezing sound of Itachi's steel blade, reflecting his own horrified gaze, dripping with his family's blood. The Mangekyou Sharingan piercing him, gauging his worth and finding him lacking. A shudder ran through him. Tears, familiar and hot, ran down his cheeks.

He could never repress the tears.

Sasuke stayed in the graveyard for a very long time this year. Much longer than he usually did. Maybe it was an aftereffect of the alcohol, maybe it was because he just felt like this year was different from the others. Maybe because he was one step closer to catching up to Itachi, and the thought sent a terrifying mixture of adrenaline and fear through his body. Maybe… maybe because for the first time since he had become an orphan, there was something on his mind other than revenge.

It hadn't been easy, letting the girls get close to him. The fact that they were girls had very little to do with it. He had been disappointed at first when he had learned that he was going to be the only boy on the team, but only because he had expected his teammates to stop at nothing to get his attention, the way all the girls at the Academy did. He couldn't have been more wrong, though. In fact, Sakura and Naruto were much more engrossed in each other than they ever were in him. Even Sakura, who had sworn for a long time that she would make him fall for her, seemed to have completely dropped the air headed act in favor of becoming the best kunoichi she could, under the circumstances.

As for Naruto… she had never been of much interest to him, that was true. The vague memories he had of her during their time under Iruka's tutelage were those of a loudmouthed brat with no talent, who enjoyed being annoying and despised being ignored. She was still all of this, even if she had stopped pulling pranks. But she was hardworking, just as much as Sakura and himself, and she did her part of the job without fault. She also handled their teacher's dislike with good grace. Something that, for reasons he couldn't explain, made him more angry than anything.

He hadn't realized all of this at first. He was so busy trying to catch Hatake's attention, to make the man train him and help him become stronger, that he had largely ignored his teammates. They had been dead weight in his mind. Something he could afford to lose, as long as he kept improving. He hadn't thought anything of the way Hatake treated him, and how different it was from how he treated them. Not until the Sakura Breakdown. Not until a pink-haired genin girl had the guts to stand up and make him look.

He still wasn't completely at ease with them. He avoided Sakura's invitations and only responded to Naruto's banter. Their concern, their occasional smiles, the possibility they represented for friendship, were still too much for him at the moment. He was so used to loneliness, to the easy pain of it, that he was afraid of leaving it behind. This slow burning was better than the gut-wrenching pain of losing someone important.

Sasuke didn't want to lose anyone important ever again. Therefore, he didn't want to have anyone important ever again.

It was probably because he was thinking about her that he didn't immediately recognize Naruto, sitting on top of a memorial stone and looking at the purpling sky pensively.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her, perhaps more harshly than was necessary.

She jumped a little, and turned to look at him with a puzzled expression. "Bastard," she acknowledged, looking around her as if expecting someone to jump out of the shadows and yell 'surprise!'

No one appeared, and she let herself drop off the stone, landing on her feet and wiping imaginary dust from her pants.

"Well, what are you doing here, Sasuke?" She was still wearing that strangely guilty expression. As if she had been caught red-handed doing something she shouldn't.

"What do people in cemeteries do, moron?" he replied dryly. Her sudden embarrassed flush was highly rewarding.

"Oh." Her voice was small. "Were you, um, visiting someone?"

She winced immediately. Even for her, that was straight-forward. She must not have thought her words through. Seeing all of this and more on her face, Sasuke decided to take her out of her misery.

"I was visiting my parents," he said, surprising himself. He wasn't usually one to share stuff like that. Naruto's expression softened into something painfully similar to pity, and he averted his eyes. He blamed his hangover for his strange reactions. "What about you? Did you ditch Sakura?"

She let out a strained laugh. "I just like coming here. It's quiet. And no, I didn't abandon Sakura-chan. She had to come home early and pack, is all."

"The gates are closed at this hour," he pointed out. The sun had set a while ago. The sky was a deep purple, not yet black-blue, but already pinpricked with stars. Naruto avoided his gaze. "The gatekeeper knows me, so he leaves me alone when I come, but you don't have any family here, do you?"

He knew his words were cold. But he was miserable, and he missed his mom, and he was more relieved to see Naruto's idiotic face than he would ever admit. He didn't know what to do with all of this. Feelings had never been his forte, not since that night. Sometimes he wondered how a happy Sasuke would have grown, surrounded by his loving family, but his musings never went far. It was better to be bitter and cold than to try to be happy and be met with the sting of heartbreak and mourning day after day.

Naruto was biting her lips, crossing and uncrossing her fingers. "I just- it's stupid. You're going to make fun of me," she accused.

"Not unless you're planning to desecrate someone's grave," he replied.

She bristled, obviously offended by his accusations. "I wouldn't do something like that!"

"You did paint over the Hokage monument once."

"That was different," she huffed, looking at him like he'd lost his mind. "They're just very big rocks. I wouldn't- I wouldn't paint on someone's grave, or damage it, or whatever. That's not correct."

She sank into a sullen silence. Sasuke thought about her words, but found that he didn't doubt her. Naruto was not a bad person. She was annoying and extremely slow sometimes, but she wouldn't hurt someone deliberately.

"So what are you doing, then?" he asked again, peering at her curiously. "Or do you have family here?"

He didn't think so. There was no Uzumaki family that he knew of, and he was almost sure that the girl herself didn't know her parents. She didn't act like someone who knew where they belonged.

Still blushing, she walked up to the stone she'd been sitting on and pointed at one of the names etched onto its eroded surface. It was barely legible, but if he squinted, he could read 'Uzumaki Mito'. Time and weather had made the letters uneven, some almost completely faded into smooth stone. Sasuke looked up and at Naruto's embarrassed face.

"Is that your mom?" he said softly.

Naruto shook her head. "Look at the dates. She died way before I was born."

"Then who is it?"

His teammate kicked a piece of gravel away before sitting down. He followed her hesitantly, crossing his legs.

"I dunno," Naruto finally answered. "I found her back when I was still asking everyone who my parents were. Since no one knows, even the old man Hokage, I just started looking at all the tombstones here, and that's how I found her."

Sasuke nodded. He had never really thought about Naruto in that light before. But of course the girl would want to know about her family. He couldn't help thinking that despite the fact that they were both orphans, their situations couldn't have been more different.

"I come here sometimes. I don't bother anyone. This memorial stone must be very old, because no one visits it anymore." She embraced her knees and let her chip rest on top of them, looking at nothing. "Like I told you, it's stupid."

It's not, Sasuke thought. He was intimately familiar with the feeling visiting his family's gravesgave him. The emptiness and the regret, but also the vague, almost imperceptible feeling that he still had a connection with them. Their ashes were buried there, and their names carved into solid rock. Even if their lives had been taken away from them, they wouldn't be forgotten. Naruto must be experiencing something similar at the sight of the time-weary name.

"She was a shinobi, in any case," Sasuke offered. "These stones only celebrate the ninja who lost their lives in the line of duty. Looks like you were meant to be a kunoichi after all, against all evidence to the contrary."

Naruto smiled at him brightly, before catching on to his last words. "Hey! What the hell is that supposed to mean, 'all evidence to the contrary'?"

"Do you want to know what I meant, or do you just not understand what the words mean?"

He avoided her punch easily. They grappled for a while, kicking at each other without meaning it, trying to push the other to the ground and then make a run for it. They calmed down quickly, though. They were still in a graveyard, and this wasn't really appropriate behavior.

"Are you excited for tomorrow?" Naruto asked when they finally started walking towards the exit. It was very dark now, no longer the dusk twilight they had met in. The gatekeeper glared at Naruto when he saw them pass, but neither of them paid him any heed.

"Not really. It's just a C-rank mission. Like Hatake said, it's probably going to be just as boring as any D-rank."

"Yeah, but getting to spend time outside of Konoha, I mean."

Sasuke hummed thoughtfully. "I guess. I didn't really think about it. What's the land of Waves like, anyway?"

"Fuck if I know."

They went the rest of the way in silence. Eventually, Sasuke realized that Naruto had accompanied him all the way to his apartment and never said a word about it. Feeling suddenly awkward, he turned towards her, meeting her eyes.

"Er…" He didn't know what to say. Thanks? Let's never do that again? "See you tomorrow?"

She smiled wickedly. "Don't make me wake you up again, bastard."

"I'm not going to drink again, moron," he replied, annoyed, but she was already walking away, not listening anymore. What a drag, he thought without heat. He toed off his shoes, not bothering with tidying them up. His coat ended up carelessly thrown onto the couch, while Sasuke put the kettle on and sagged into a kitchen chair.

By the time his tea was ready, he was so deep into his thought that he almost forgot it. He started packing for three weeks, taking only what was necessary. He was done long before his usual sleeping time. Realizing he had spent five minutes standing up in the middle of his living-room, doing absolutely nothing, he snorted and sat down.

He was at a loss. Usually by this time he would be boiling with hatred, seeing Itachi's face everywhere, forcing himself not to run out of the village and try to find him now. He knew he wasn't strong enough yet. But he was feeling none of this at the moment.

He was curiously at peace with himself. His encounter with Naruto had been very strange and awkward, but also indubitably nice. He liked the other girl, he realized. He should hate her. He didn't want friends, and especially not one whose incompetence could get herself and others killed anytime. But Naruto was so much more than just the sum of her flaws. She was weird, she could go from being entirely pathetic during practice to pulling off moves even he couldn't see coming. She was clumsy and slow, but she packed quite a punch. She wasted chakra like air and yet she never seemed to lose her stamina. And then there was the issue of Hatake's dislike of her. A dislike that had never seemed to surprise or even hurt her. She simply shrugged it off and kept trying.

She greeted the man every day without fault. She answered his questions and gave her reports, no matter that he never talked to her. She listened when he talked. There was an air of 'well, what can you do about it' around her that baffled both Sasuke and Sakura. It was obvious to them that she knew the reason behind that dislike. Sasuke never would have pegged Naruto as someone who knew how to keep secrets, but obviously, she could. And this didn't look like one she was willing to share.

Seeing her today had been upsetting. Talking to her, discovering that part of her—the longing for a family, for something to explain her being born—had put his mind at ease. Yes, they were different. No, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing

He didn't know what to make of all this. He didn't know how to act around her in the future. He wasn't embarrassed, exactly; he hadn't done anything wrong, and she hadn't looked like she wanted to mock him for what little he had admitted. If anything, her reasons for visiting the Konoha cemetery were far more laughable than his. But he felt uneasy. Vulnerable. He had exposed something of himself that he hadn't been ready to, and now he couldn't take it back.

His thoughts plagued him all night. He trashed and turned between his sheet, kicking his blankets away and then dragging them back over his body, shivering. He was still thinking about it when he ate, and when he left home, and on the way to the village gates.

Until the others arrived, and Sakura started making an inventory of everything they had chosen to bring.

"You are so stupid," he groaned at Naruto, watching her face twitch in irritation.

"Shut up, Sasuke," Sakura replied, even as she started scolding their teammate herself. He wanted to point out her hypocrisy, but the argument that would ensue wasn't worth the effort. Sakura loved mothering Naruto, and didn't appreciate his butting into the conversation. It made the both of them look like divorced parents arguing about who got to keep the child.

As they should have foreseen, the youngest member of their team—he didn't actually know if she was younger than them, as he had no idea when she'd been born, but it was just how she appeared—hadn't packed anything useful. Only instant noodles and her sleeping accommodations, as well as some extra shuriken.

"How do you expect to live off those?" Sakura was saying, one hand rubbing her forehead. "We don't even have anything to cook those with."

Naruto looked at Sasuke expectantly. He narrowed his eyes at her and snapped, "I'm not sharing my food with you."

"Figured you'd be a selfish asshole about food too," she mumbled, flipping him off.

Hatake chose this moment to appear. "Good morning, oh bright and hopeful youth of Konoha," he greeted them, before gesturing to the man standing beside him. "This is Tazuna. He's the one we'll be protecting during this mission. Kids, say hello."

Sasuke looked at the man critically, noticing his uneven gait and the faint smell of alcohol surrounding him. He didn't say anything, and neither did Sakura.

Naruto, however, was not so subtle. "I thought you'd be more impressive," she commented, churning her nose at the smell. "Ugh, sake."

The man, Tazuna, turned to Hatake. "I requested shinobi," he said, pointing vaguely in their direction. "Not kids."

"You payed for a C-rank mission," Hatake replied evenly, "these kids are perfectly capable of handling it."

Naruto, who had been about to yell something rude, paused visibly. Sasuke himself had to refrain from gaping at the man. Did he just praise us?

"Whatever," Tazuna said, taking out a bottle of clear liquid and drinking directly from it. His cheeks reddened immediately. A pungent smell filled the area, giving Sasuke violent flashbacks of the previous morning's hangover. In the background, Naruto made a disgusted moan.

Hatake frowned, but didn't comment. "That's enough chit-chat for the moment," he told them. "The Land of Waves is two days away from Konoha. We can be there by tomorrow night if we walk fast enough. Tazuna-san, we'll take turns helping you with the cart. That'll leave far enough time for gossip-sharing."

Even though they didn't expect any trouble on the road—the Konoha headbands should be enough to deter any thief from trying to take them on—Hatake put them up on a rotation. They would travel by day only, and the genin would switch every three hours to pull the cart full of wood that Tazuna was taking back to his city. Naruto protested that Hatake was leaving them all the work again. Sakura interjected as well. Hatake told them to stuff it and deal, just not in so many words.

"Let's go, then," he finished, and the three genin took their first steps outside the village gates.

All in all, it was very dull. Having grown in the Hidden Leaf village, Sasuke was already sick of trees, and that was all there was to see. Trees, and the occasional rabbit jumping out of their path. He was the first to pull the carriage, which was surprisingly light despite the wooden planks piled up on it. Tazuna was walking in tense silence, taking sips out of whatever was in that damn bottle when he thought he was too sober. Sakura was chatting amiably with Naruto, and Hatake had taken the rear. The jounin was reading his book as usual, not showing any signs that he was watching his steps. He didn't have the decency to stumble even once, as he was avoiding every wayward root flawlessly. Sasuke resolved to observe him very closely once his turn with the cart was up. He was certain that there was some kind of chakra trick involved.

Despite the relatively easy pace, Sasuke was tired by the time Sakura was to relieve him. Naruto promptly proposed to have one of her clones do the job for her, and Sakura accepted good-naturedly.

"Why didn't you have one of those replace me?" Sasuke demanded, affronted.

"Well, you have to be useful for something, don't you," the girl retorted. He wanted to wipe the smugness right off her damned face, but he felt sweaty and gross and not in the mood, so he grunted at her instead. She seemed to find this absolutely hilarious. Next to him, Tazuna paled until he looked like a ghost.

Sasuke got his revenge six hours later when they settled for the night and Naruto finally dispersed her clone. She immediately dropped the pike she had been holding and fell to her knees.

"Yeah, that's backlash for you," Hatake said, closing his book.

Sakura, who was all over Naruto in a heartbeat, was the first to get it. "Why did you never tell me you get your clones' memories when they disappear?" she asked with worry in her voice.

"Huh." Naruto blinked. "I never noticed."

Sasuke wanted to punch her in the face. Behind him, he could swear he heard Hatake groan loudly, but when he turned around, the man was seemingly engrossed in his task.

They took turns watching over the camp, too. Since Naruto exhausted herself out of sheer stupidity, Sakura took first watch. Sasuke slept badly. He was sharing his tent with Hatake, and although the jounin was a very still sleeper, he still felt like something oppressive was holding him down and slowly choking him. He was relieved when Sakura came to shake him by the foot, telling him it was his turn.

It was chilly outside. The weather had turned colder and colder the farther they went from Konoha. They were traveling south towards the sea, and east of the land of Rivers. From what he had gleamed out of Tazuna's babbling, the land of Waves was a collection of small islands only reachable by boat. The man was building a bridge to remedy this problem and allow his town a better access for commerce. They would reach it by nightfall the following day.

He sat in silence, appreciating the reprieve from the stifling tent. Snow began falling after an hour. He wrapped his blanket tighter around himself and watched as the ground slowly turned white and small rodents ran away from their holes and into larger ones, huddling for warmth. There was nothing here to remind him of Konoha. No one to nag at him or watch him with sympathy. Even the trees were different, tall pines everywhere instead of knobby oaks. He felt a weight lift off his chest.

When it was time for Naruto's watch, Sasuke discovered a new reason to be annoyed with her. She was hard to wake up, and far too energetic once he gave up the nice way and started kicking her. Thankfully they didn't disturb Sakura's sleep, but Sasuke barely avoided being kneed in the crotch. His sour mood only darkened when Naruto started cackling at him, suddenly wide awake, not looking at all like someone who ought to be suffering from severe sore limbs.

The next day started quietly. All of them were nursing various aches from sleeping on hard ground, except Hatake who was used to it and Naruto who apparently didn't know what physical pain felt like. Tazuna offered to pull the cart for the first part of the day. They folded the tents and took off, eager to reach their destination and settle down for the remnant of the mission.

It was barely noon—Naruto's stomach hadn't started complaining—when they were attacked.

Sakura was pulling the cart. Since she was the least physically strong of them, Naruto was helping her by pushing it from behind with one hand. The woods had started getting really quiet, until the only sounds they could hear were the ones they made. After a few minutes, Hatake spoke.

"Stop."

Sasuke tensed immediately. Tazuna took a few seconds to notice anything had been said, drunk as he was, but thankfully Naruto grabbed his arm and prevented him from wandering on his own.

"What's going on?" the man asked, looking at them with a puzzled expression.

Hatake didn't answer. They stood in silence for what felt like a small eternity, but was probably no more than a minute, until they were all looking around anxiously.

"Show yourselves," Hatake demanded. For a moment, it looked like nothing was going to happen, but then two men emerged from the trees, one on each side of the path they were on. Their faces were hidden underneath ugly muzzle-like gas masks, and they were wearing Mist forehead protectors.

This wasn't part of the plan, Sasuke's mind said helpfully.

"Not bad," one of the two ninja said. "We were concealing our presences rather carefully."

"Obviously not carefully enough," Hatake answered. "Kids, you protect Tazuna-san. I'll take care of these two quickly. Then we need to have a little chat," he added, eyeing Tazuna darkly. The bridge-builder seemed to shrink at the words, but didn't reply.

"Sakura," Sasuke murmured without looking away from the second man, the one at their rear. "You stay next to Tazuna-san at all times. Grab his arm and don't let go. Naruto, you protect his back."

"You got it," Sakura answered immediately, holding onto Tazuna's wrist.

"Who died and made you the boss?" Naruto said, but Sakura looked at her angrily, and she complied.

"Cute," the second ninja, the one with spiky hair, commented. "But none of you will be able to prevent us from killing the old man. You should give him up and run."

Tazuna made a small, frightened sound.

"Fuck you," Naruto roared stupidly, and this was apparently all the incentive they needed to start attacking.

Sasuke, half-frozen with fear, wanted to watch Hatake and wait for his orders. But his sensei was busy with the one wearing the long dark cape, and the one with spiky hair was already targeting them, faster and stronger than anyone he had faced before.

The man went for Naruto first. Sasuke watched her thin face express the terror he felt, saw the way her body refused to move like his did. His heart was beating in the back of his mouth, filling it with a metallic taste, and for a second he was thrown back five years into the past, back to that night with the noise and the smell and his brother's eyes looking like all the world's pain had taken refuge in them.

It was enough to trigger reflexes acquired from years of training and weeks of daily sparring. He ran, as fast as he could, and threw his leg at the enemy. The Kiri nin avoided him easily, but at least he was thrown off-course and forced to jump away. Naruto was safe.

The girl hadn't moved at all. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, her hands trembling. Sasuke felt something sharp tug at his heart at the sight, but he refused to lose his focus. He crossed the two steps between them and slapped the girl in the back of the head.

She blinked owlishly at him. "Are you awake now?" he snarled, before turning back to the unknown shinobi. "Snap out of it. We have to protect Tazuna."

"But I've never- he's so strong-"

"Look at me," he ordered, waiting for her to lift her head. He couldn't turn his head away from his target to check on her, but he was satisfied that she was reacting nonetheless. "We're on a mission. Hatake-sensei gave us orders. We protect Tazuna. Don't think about anything else."

As far as pep talks went, it was pretty lame. But Naruto finally straightened out of her strange stillness. She shook her head violently and stepped back to Tazuna's position.

Hatake appeared next to Sasuke. He didn't jump, but he did look briefly to see how his teacher was faring. He seemed uninjured, if a little worried, which was good.

"These two are chuunin, I think," he said in a low voice. Sasuke nodded, understanding the man's message. Out of your league.

"We'll keep the one in brown busy," he said. "Looks like he's weaker than the one with the cape anyway."

Hatake hummed, before forming a few hand seals. "You do that. I'll be right back." Then he took a deep breath, and used a fire jutsu at the enemies.

Sasuke barely had time to be surprised at the familiar sight—this was an Uchiha technique, how the hell had Hatake managed to get his hands on it—before the spiky-haired nin came rushing back at him, engaging him fully.

He lucked out this time. The man was well-trained, but the heavy metal gauntlet he was wearing—and which Sasuke was doing his best to avoid—made him slow. Sasuke was fast, faster than anyone else in his class and on his team. He managed to land a few hit to the man's ribs and kidneys, making him swear loudly and jump away from him.

The man laughed. Sasuke took a step back and tensed. This couldn't mean anything good.

"You're rather good, for a brat," the Kiri nin declared. He raised his gauntlet, and a long thick chain fell out of it, covered in sharp steel spikes. "Unfortunately, you're not good enough."

He took off towards where his ally was battling Kakashi with a similar chain. Then he yelled something, and the chains connected, forming one long blade between them that surrounded Hatake's body and sliced.

There were no words that could describe the sound of steel tearing flesh. Sasuke's stomach rose to his mouth, but he made himself swallow the puke back and stand on trembling limbs.

They were alone now, he realized shakily. With no jounin to protect them, they were going to die.

Sakura screamed and Tazuna fell on his knees, but barely any of this registered in his mind. The man in brown clothes dropped his now-useless chain, not taking the time to admire his handiwork. Instead he ran at them, knocking Sasuke over with one arm. He took a kunai out of his thigh holster and brandished it at where Sakura stood with her hand still holding onto Tazuna.

He barely saw Naruto move. The girl threw herself between the enemy and Sakura, raising her arm to protect her face. The kunai buried itself to the hilt into her palm, but she didn't flinch. Using the Mist shinobi's second of hesitation, she formed the seal for shadow clones. Three appeared around her and started attacking, yelling all the while, until the man was forced to retreat, overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught.

And then Hatake was there, not sign of a wound on him, and took him out in one swift punch.

It took a long while for Sasuke to come to his senses after that. He was gaping at his teacher, he knew, but he couldn't care less. "But I," he babbled, trying to disperse the fog clouding his mind, "you… How are you…?"

"Replacement technique," Hatake answered simply. His hand fell on Sasuke's shoulder and made him sit down at the root of a large tree. A sudden bout of panic made him look around for the other Mist nin; he found him lying face-down at the place where he'd failed to kill Hatake. He wasn't moving anymore, and Sasuke wondered if he was dead. He found he didn't care.

Hatake made all of them sit down, even Tazuna. He crouched to take Naruto's injured hand into his own and rip the kunai out of it. Naruto made a brief, strangled noise, and Sasuke felt his stomach roll again at the sight of his teammate's mangled palm. There was a hole in it that he could see through. Hatake examined the wound for a long minute, turning Naruto's hand carefully in his own, the other holding her wrist tightly to stop the bleeding. He asked Sakura to help him bandage it up, and the other girl obeyed with steady hands, although she was white as a sheet and biting her own lips until she bled. Catching Sasuke's gaze, Naruto smirked and mouthed 'I'm so much cooler than you', waving her injury at him. The snort that escaped him was too close to a sob for his liking. He gave her the finger.

Once Hatake was finished tying up their assailants against the trunk of a tree, he slapped the spiky-haired one awake. The other one was bleeding from his side and didn't look like he was going to be able to talk anytime soon.

The Mist shinobi took in the scene and his own state. He struggled in vain, then, realizing that he wasn't going to be able to escape, laughed loudly at them. "The little girl is going to die," he announced, his dark eyes fixed on Naruto. "That kunai was poisoned."

They all turned to observe Naruto, even Hatake. The girl grinned impishly at them, shaking her

head. "I'm fine," she said. "I don't feel sick at all. No poison in sight."

She certainly looked fine. A little pale and wide-eyed, but there was no visible symptom for poisoning. Sasuke huffed, kicking himself mentally for falling for the enemy's bluff.

Said enemy was looking at Naruto like she'd grown a second head. "That's impossible," he muttered. "You shouldn't be able to move or talk by now."

"If you're quite finished," Hatake said airily, "I'd like to know why you attacked us."

The man shut down immediately. He nudged at his ally, trying to assess his condition, but the other man didn't budge. A curse fell from his lips.

"I'm being kind here," Hatake continued. "You could confess now, and watch me send a good word to Konoha. Or I can leave the two of you here and in the capable hands of whichever nation finds you first. If you're lucky, you could end up in Konoha's Torture and Interrogation department. Although I know first-hand that Morino Ibiki has been perfecting his techniques." The man blanched. Hatake didn't seem to care. "Or it could be Kirigakure, who would no doubt be overjoyed to get its hands back on two of its missing nin."

So they're deserters, Sasuke thought. Shinobi who fled their village and their responsibilities,betraying all their oaths and comrades to become mercenaries at the hands of whoever could buy their services. He had heard of them. So very few ninja ever betrayed Konoha that the ones who did became instantly famous, like Orochimaru of the Sannin. Like Itachi.

"You two are known as the Demon Brothers in the latest bingo book," Hatake was saying, as if talking about the weather. "I remember now. You're chuunin who defected from Kiri a few months ago. The bounty on your head isn't too big, so I'm guessing the Mizukage doesn't care whether you come back dead or alive."

"You know nothing," the man snarled. Kakashi nodded patiently.

"You're right, I don't. And I don't care. However, you attacked my client, and therefore you're my problem. Now, will you tell me who hired you and why, or do I have to put this mission on hold to send a hawk to the Land of Water?"

The silence lasted a while longer this time. Then the man chuckled and lifted his head, looking at Tazuna menacingly.

"Gato sent me." This meant nothing to Sasuke, and a quick glance at Sakura and Naruto told him that they were as lost as he was. "He'll know we failed, and he'll send others, stronger ones. You know he has the money. You should kill yourself now, it'll be less painful than what the next crazy guy he sends does to you and your kids."

Tazuna looked sick now, sicker than he had even when he was too drunk to speak. All color had left his face, and his hands were opening and closing spasmodically. He looked on the verge of an attack of some kind.

"Thank you," Hatake said, before knocking the guy out cleanly. He checked the ropes one last

time, set a few seals on them, and then told his team to get up and start walking. Still dazed, Sasuke obeyed, taking care of the cart since Sakura had been pulling it for a while and Naruto was injured. They walked in complete silence for the better part of an hour. When they reached a clearing with a little stream running through it, Hatake ordered a stop. Then he turned to Tazuna.

"Now that we're a safe distance away from unwanted ears, would you mind explaining yourself, Tazuna-san?"

x

Naruto hissed when Sakura removed the wrapping from her hand, expecting pain, but she felt only the slightest tingle. Her friend threw the blood-stained gauze into a plastic bag that she tucked carefully at the bottom of her backpack, before leaning in closer to examine the wound. Naruto held back her blush with little trouble. She was getting better at controlling her reactions around her teammate.

"This is weird," Sakura declared, peering at her hand. "It doesn't look like a fresh injury… See the back? I could swear there was a hole half an inch wide through your hand when I wrapped it up, but now it just looks like two nasty cuts on either side that you received a week ago."

Naruto laughed nervously in answer. She had an idea what was happening, but it wasn't something she could share with her friends. Even if she could—and old man Hokage had been very clear about the fact that she couldn't—she wouldn't want to. Her little secret would only scare Sakura away, and this was something she absolutely wanted to avoid.

"Is this some kind of bloodline thing?" Sakura asked.

"Maybe? I've always healed fast, I think." Naruto scratched at her chin. It was true that bruises had never stayed on her for more than a few hours, and that cuts tended to disappear at an abnormal rate. As a child she had never payed much attention to it, but now that she knew about the Kyuubi, it seemed logical that this was some sort of side effect of having the beast sealed inside her.

And then there was the burning sensation she had felt when the former Mist nin had stabbed her earlier. It had gone up her arm and spread through her chest, suffocating her for a second before vanishing entirely. She had never been poisoned before, but she was almost sure that the man hadn't been joking when he said she shouldn't have been standing up. Somehow, she had been stabbed with a blade covered in deadly poison, and she had survived with barely a scratch.

Yeah, definitely the Kyuubi. All in all, this was a rather useful ability. She'd probably be pushingdaisies by now if not for it. Having that thing inside her did come with some perks after all.

Sakura told her to put her hand in the water, so she did. It was a little awkward, since the stream had dug its bed low in the ground, so she had to lean over the side to reach its surface. She was almost sure Sasuke was laughing at her from behind. She resolved to take her revenge, but didn't dare move while Sakura was watching her.

Hatake-sensei was still talking with old man Tazuna. She couldn't hear what they were saying from where she was, but Sasuke was standing beside them, listening intently, and she was sure he would tell them what he knew. Or at least tell Sakura. She frowned at the thought. Sometimes it was as though the bastard forgot that she had the ability to think for herself.

Well, not that she would have understood much anyway. Hatake-sensei had acted like the Demon Brother's words earlier had been some kind of grand revelation, and hadn't even pretended to be bored since then. He was just serious. All business-like. It was strange. The enemy's words had sounded like gibberish to her—although to be perfectly honest that was maybe the post-fight high speaking—but obviously there was something serious going on here.

Once Sakura deemed the cuts sufficiently cleaned, she dried them and rewrapped them with one simple turn of gauze around her palm, instead of the full hand binding she'd used earlier. Naruto concealed her relieved sigh. She was starting to regain feeling in her extremities and all she wanted to do was wiggle her fingers until she was a hundred percent sure nothing was wrong.

They stood in up time to see Hatake-sensei gesture at them to come closer. Sasuke glanced at Naruto's hand when they arrived, but didn't say anything. She scowled at him anyway.

"We're giving up this mission," their teacher announced.

"What? Why?" Naruto asked indignantly. She didn't like Tazuna a lot, and the attack earlier had been scary, but this was her first C-rank mission. She didn't want to come home empty-handed.

Hatake-sensei waved a hand in Sasuke's direction. The boy shot him a resentful look and started explaining the situation in a clipped tone. "Apparently Tazuna lied about the difficulty of the mission because he didn't have the money for more than a C-rank. There's a man named Gato who took over all the shipments in Waves and bankrupted the people. Tazuna's bridge is supposed to overthrow him, but Gato's using gangs and missing nin for hire to prevent him from building it."

The jounin nodded. "And since apparently this Gato wants Tazuna-san dead enough to send a pair of high-level chuunin to kill him," he added, "he's probably willing to do even more. We don't have the manpower to take on jounin-level mercenaries. We're going home."

"This is the worst mission ever," Naruto moaned. "Now the Hokage won't ever let us have another C-rank. This sucks so much."

"Shut up, idiot," Sasuke replied, because he was an asshole.

"You're just scared because of how useless you were when these Demon Brother dudes attacked earlier."

"You're the one who got stabbed in the hand because you don't know a single useful taijutsu move! All you have is these stupid clones!"

"Well at least I don't keel over half-dead when I try to make one-"

"That's enough," Hatake-sensei called. Sasuke turned away from her promptly, looking infuriatingly superior, and she resisted the urge to call him 'daddy's good little boy', but only because that would have been extremely mean of her, considering their strangely respectful meeting in the cemetery two days ago. She still didn't know what to make of that one. But she didn't want to insult his family.

Instead, she spat at his feet.

This almost started another fight, but Sakura was restraining her and Hatake-sensei had a firm hand on Sasuke's shoulder by the time they were ready to jump at each other's throat, so the aggression died quickly.

"Control her, would you," Hatake-sensei murmured at Sakura, who nodded.

It hurt to see her friend agree with him, but Naruto shoved the uncomfortable feeling away with ease. She was used to the man's disregard by now, even if she didn't like it. At least he was just ignoring her, not preying on her. She liked his sort better.

I wonder who the Kyuubi took from him, she thought, not for the first time.

Hatake-sensei didn't want them to leave immediately. They were all tired and recovering from the Demon Brothers' attack. Naruto felt fine—her hand wasn't even hurting anymore, and she could almost close it into a fist. But Sakura was still a little wobbly around the knees, and even Sasuke looked too solemn.

They took a break in the clearing, not exactly setting up camp, but not prepping up to leave either. Sakura shared a ration bar with Naruto. They munched in silence for a while. Tazuna was sitting away from their group, his back against a tree. He had taken out his smelly bottle again and was sipping at it every five minutes, mumbling incoherently. Naruto shuddered.

She wasn't the first to notice the mist. Sasuke had sighed unhappily when it started covering them, and Sakura had mumbled something about spoiled food before packing everything back into her bag. However, Naruto was the only one to find something wrong with it.

It didn't feel like mist. She couldn't explain it, even to herself. It was wet, and cold, and so thick she couldn't see beyond a five-meter radius. It certainly looked like regular fog. But there was something about it, an unfamiliar heaviness, that felt unnatural to her. It stuck to her skin like sweat.

At one point, Hatake-sensei raised his head in alarm. "To me," he ordered. With an unsettling feeling deep in her gut, Naruto complied. For a few more minutes, it didn't look like anything was going to happen. The mist thickened again, until it had blinded them completely. None of them really appreciated sticking their back to one of the others', but Hatake-sensei insisted on it. Tazuna looked like he was sincerely regretting ever relying on their help. Serves him right, Naruto thought ruefully. It wasn't their fault the man had lied and put them all in danger.

"Duck!" Hatake-sensei cried suddenly. His arms pushed them all to the ground, his right hand resting into Naruto's hair. Not a second later, something huge flew over their head with a sharp

sound. Despite everything—and everyone—yelling at her that it was a Very Bad Idea, Naruto raised herself to her feet to peer at the giant sword deeply buried into the nearest tree.

A man landed on top of the handle. He was very tall, with tan skin and the lower half of his face covered in bandages. He met her eyes and chuckled darkly.

One second later, Naruto was roughly pulled back by the collar of her jacket. Hatake-sensei didn't meet her eyes after he released her into Sakura's arms, but she could still feel his anger. A very foreign feeling rose up in her, akin to shame.

"Hand over the old man," the man on the sword said. "Kubikiribouchou won't miss next time around."

"This is the name of one of Mist's most famous swords. The ones wielded by the seven shinobi-gatana. You must be Momochi Zabuza, then," Hatake-sensei answered.

Naruto couldn't stop watching her teacher's face. She had never seen him like this. Although he had been more serious and attentive since the Demon Brothers had attacked them, he had never looked like this. Now he was as still as a statue, and the air around him seemed to simmer with his intent. She didn't think an insect flying by could have gone unnoticed by him. All of this, much more than his words, told her that they were in a very bad situation.

"Ooh," Zabuza said in a quietly amused tone. "You know my name. Then you must know it's useless to try and go against me. You have," his gaze swept over their group, stopping on each of their faces, "three kids to protect, not counting my target. I hear Konoha is very protective of its genin. Surely you don't want to sacrifice them so early."

And with that, he ripped the great sword out of the tree and swung it in Naruto's direction. Hatake-sensei reacted instantly. He wrapped his arm around her and pushed her to the ground. The blade brushed the metallic plate of her headband with a chilling sound. With her back flat on the snow-covered ground and her body battling shock, it took her a moment to realize her bangs were in her eyes, and the sword had taken her protector entirely off her head.

She made a small, terrified sound in the back of her throat. Hatake-sensei released her, his eye bloodshot with anger, and turned back to Zabuza.

"You're faster than I thought," the man commented. He shrugged, completely oblivious of the fact that he had almost cut Naruto's head off, before speaking again. "Come now, don't be thick. You can't beat me. Give me Tazuna, and I'll consider letting you and your kids go."

"You'll consider." The jounin's voice was calm, but it sent a chill down Naruto's spine. "Not nearly enough insurance for me. No, I don't think you're going to let any of us go."

Zabuza roared in laughter. "You're a clever one, aren't you? No, I don't intend to let you out of here alive. I know your kind, Konoha pets, running around to whisper little trade secrets to your Hokage. I don't want my job here compromised. Sorry, nothing personal about it."

"Very well," Hatake-sensei answered. He exhaled, and then took a kunai out of his thigh pouch,

twirling it expertly until he was sure of his grip. "Sasuke, girls. I need you to stay together no matter what. Stay with Tazuna, protect your own back. This isn't an opponent you can beat. I'mgoing to need all my concentration here, and I can't focus if I'm not sure that none of you is trying to be a hero."

Zabuza was watching them talk without attacking, apparently waiting for Hatake-sensei. He simply walked around them and took back his sword, carelessly discarding Naruto's headband which was still stuck at its end. With nausea rolling down her stomach, Naruto realized that this was his sick way of allowing them to have their last goodbyes.

There was something there, something far away in her mind calling for her attention, but she shut it out.

"Remember," their instructor murmured. He lifted his free hand to his face and raised his forehead protector high on his head, showing his right eye for the very first time. "Don't try to be a hero. As soon as you see an opening, take it and run. Tazuna is no longer your responsibility. Just don't die."

Naruto had just enough time to observe the thin scar running through the left side of his face, cutting right in the middle of his closed eyelid, before he disappeared.

She watched him battle Zabuza with her heart beating in her mouth. They were fast. All she could see were blurs of movements, what could have been Hatake-sensei's arm or his knee or the glint of his kunai. Zabuza was keeping up effortlessly despite the heavy sword in his hands and the time it took for him to wave it around.

"Naruto," Sakura was calling her name, pulling on her sleeve, trying to get her closer to them. Her face was pale. A look at Sasuke and Tazuna informed her that they weren't faring much better, even if Sasuke at least seemed steady on his legs.

"We need a plan," the boy said immediately, his eyes never leaving the fight. "We can't leave him alone."

"Damn right," Naruto nodded.

Sakura, however, was looking at them like as if she had never seen them before. "Are you crazy?" she yelled. "We can't beat someone like that! We couldn't even beat those chuuninearlier, and this guy has to be at least jounin-level!"

"Would you rather we let sensei fight him alone then?" Naruto growled.

"Yes." Her voice was absolute. Her green eyes bore into Naruto with determination, anger and fear. "I'm not letting you go out there. I'll knock you out if I have to. I'm not losing you." Her grip on Naruto's sleeve had moved to her wrist and was tightening by the second.

"Why?" Naruto asked, slightly light-headed. "Why do you care?"

"Is this really the moment?" Sasuke replied. He was looking at her strangely, but whatever he was thinking apparently wasn't worth sharing. "What's the first lesson Hatake taught us? The

only lesson, really? You don't abandon your comrades."

"Yeah, and see how well that turned out," Sakura cried, her tone was turning high-pitched with terror. "He doesn't care about us, he wishes he never had to take care of us in the first place. He'd probably leave us here to die if his own life wasn't at stake! And why do you care," she added, pointing wildly at Naruto, "he fucking hates you."

It hurt, more than anything. At this instant Sakura looked so much like the rare people who had come directly at her in the past, the adults with wide bleeding holes in their hearts and eyes like a cemetery. The ones who whispered the worst insults and delivered the worst blows, the ones who disappeared quickly and left scars in her soul. But Sakura wasn't like them. She was trying to hurt her to protect her.

"Besides," and her voice was shaking, her hand around Naruto's wrist was shaking, her whole body was wrecked with tremors, "he gave us orders. This isn't a classroom. This is a battlefield. We're supposed to obey orders, aren't we? That's what shinobi do, and we're shinobi."

Naruto and Sasuke exchanged a look. Naruto's bandaged hand came to rest on Sakura's, pressing down gently until her grip softened and she could free herself. "Sakura-chan," she said slowly. "I'm sorry, but I would rather die than abandon my own teacher to save my skin."

"Naruto-"

She cried out and fell forward. Naruto caught her just in time to avoid having her head hit the ground. She lowered her now unconscious friend carefully and looked up at Sasuke, baring her teeth at him.

"You didn't have to knock her out, you asshole!"

"We don't have time for this," Sasuke replied angrily, jerking her to her feet. "You know she wasn't gonna change her mind. We need to concentrate, she can deal once we're all safely away from here."

"You're all crazy," Tazuna said suddenly.

Naruto blinked in surprised and turned to look at him. He was barely able to sit up, one arm thrown haphazardly behind him and holding on to muddy roots. His eyes were jumping erratically from Sakura's still body to Sasuke to Naruto and backwards. Hi breath was coming out in short, panicked pants, and his face was turning green.

"You saw what this guy was capable of, and you want to run straight at him? You're children," he added, eyes wide in realization. "Oh, God, you're children. You're going to die."

"We're shinobi," Naruto corrected. After everything, the Academy and the life in Konoha and the Hokage's trust and the missions with her team, she could finally say it with a sure voice. "That's what we do. And just to be clear, we're not doing it for you, we're doing to protect a fellow team member. Suck it up and deal, old man."

Once the man was suitably cowed by her menacing expression, Naruto turned back to Sasuke.

"So, what do we do?" She hated having to rely on him like that, but even she could admit that planning wasn't her forte. She could come up with nice tricks on the spot, but she never knew or remembered how her brain worked in these situations. She just saw the openings and took them. It made her unpredictable, but it also made her useless when it came to long-term stuff or complex team work. She couldn't think for the others after all.

"First we need to get closer to them," Sasuke murmured. "I need to watch them and see if there's any weakness in Zabuza that Hatake can't exploit, but we can. Create one clone to keep an eye on things here, just in case. You'll know anyway if it disappears, right?"

"Yeah," she said simply. This was still new to her, as she had always used her clones to try and overpower her adversaries or to train with them herself. She gave and received so many blows during those trainings that she honestly never noticed the difference between her own memories and the clones'. It still stung that Sakura had noticed before she did, though, even with Hatake-sensei's help.

She took a second to look at her friend with sadness. She hoped it wasn't the last time they talked. She didn't want her last memory of Sakura to be the surprise on her face as her own teammates struck her in the back. Shaking her thoughts off, she created the clone and left with Sasuke.

They quietly ran under the cover of the trees, trying to approach the fight without attracting Zabuza's attention. Hatake-sensei looked rather worse for wear, Naruto noticed with worry. There was a long, if shallow, cut in his back. He was panting, but so was Zabuza, whose left arm hung limply at his side. It didn't look like he could move it.

Then Naruto lifted her eyes to her sensei's face and saw his scarred eye open and staring straight ahead, its iris a vibrant red. At her side, Sasuke let out a gasp.

"What's wrong?" she whispered, frowning. He looked like he had seen a ghost.

"That's-" He paused. "That's the Sharingan." His voice was thick with emotion, almost reverent. For some reason, it left a bad taste in the back of her mouth.

Naruto looked back at the fight taking place in front of them. "What, you mean Hatake-sensei's weird eye? What is it?"

"It's one of the famous eye techniques of Konoha. It's the Uchiha clan's bloodline limit."

"Really?" She narrowed her eyes, and managed to make out the little black commas that surrounded her teacher's pupil. "Then how does he have it? I thought the Uchiha were all-" She stopped talking, barely resisting the urge to smack herself in the face. But it was too late: Sasuke was hunching in on himself, his face somber.

"It doesn't matter right now," he said. "We need to find a way to get closer."

"And do what?" a voice enquired politely.

Naruto didn't have to turn around in surprise. Sasuke was already grabbing her by the arm and dragging her out of the way. Just in time, too, because a nasty-looking water jutsu was engulfing their hiding spot. Zabuza emerged from the trees after them, chuckling lightly.

A clone? Naruto wondered, sweeping a look to where Hatake-sensei was still engaging the realZabuza. But the one before her had used ninjutsu. A shadow clone, then. Or something else.

"He must have created it before he even showed himself to us," Sasuke muttered. "Look. His arm isn't injured."

Indeed it was not, and the Zabuza-clone showed it by clapping his hands slowly. "You're a bunch of smart little guys, aren't you? It's just too bad that you have to die so soon."

The strange apprehension was back in Naruto, buzzing through her head. "If you're a shadow clone, then we just have to hit you once and you'll be gone," she said, forcing herself to focus.

"That's if you manage to land a hit on me," he replied.

These words took her back a few weeks, to Sakura's anger and her teacher's calm avoidance. Sakura had failed then, but she had almost succeeded, when she used that powerful kick that half-destroyed a rock. And Naruto couldn't afford to fail this time.

"You're not the only one who knows how to make clones!" she yelled, forming the hand seals for her shadow clone technique. Twelve copies appeared around her and immediately ran forward.

Naruto stayed behind herself. Every time one of her clones popped out of existence, she received its memories. It was obvious now that she was paying attention to it; she could feel the onslaught of sounds and pictures and the fatigue that spread through her muscles even though she hadn't moved. She had hoped that one of them might hit Zabuza, but he side-stepped them all and hit them with his sword, and they vanished in clouds of smoke.

"I don't see any opening," she told Sasuke, who was watching attentively as well, "but I'm not very good, so I'm not sure."

Sasuke nodded. "I think I can take him. I'm faster than you."

"Well, don't rub it in, asshole."

She had said it half-heartedly, and he didn't answer. In front of them, the clone laughed again.

"You're hilarious," he declared, leaning on his sword. "Such confidence! I shouldn't have expected any less from Hatake Kakashi's student. He truly is a remarkable opponent. I probably couldn't have taken him if you hadn't provided me with a perfect opportunity. Thank you for that," he added, surprisingly sincere.

Naruto didn't have time to wonder at his words, because she was suddenly neck-deep in water, and she had to use all her strength to take a deep breath before it reached her mouth and

nose.

She couldn't escape it. No matter how much she squirmed, how much she kicked or tried to swim out of it, the water followed her everywhere. Panic and exhaustion overtook her. She was sure she was crying. A fuzzy shape with a mop of dark hair was trashing next to her, and she understood vaguely that Sasuke had been caught as well. There was no air and only little light. Her throat burned, as well as her lungs, screaming for her to open her mouth and inhale. She resisted as long as she could.

And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the water fell away from her, leaving her panting on her back, freezing in her wet clothes. Sasuke was on his knees, breathing in long sobs. Naruto took in her surroundings and rose up, trembling, just in time to see the Zabuza-clone changing into water and flowing to the ground as well, with Hatake-sensei's hands buried in its chest.

For a precious second, she wanted to leap in joy. Then she remembered that the real Zabuza was still here, running toward her sensei with a crazy glint in his eyes, forming hand seals so fast that his hands were only a blur to her.

I thought he couldn't move his arm, she wanted to cry out. Hatake was too late to avoid thesame technique that had taken her and Sasuke. He was enveloped in a sphere of water, forced to roll around in vain to try and catch a wisp of air.

"Sasuke," she sobbed.

The boy was silent. He too was watching the spectacle, still kneeling on the cold ground. His whole body was sagging in defeat.

"We need to help him." She walked to his side and tugged weakly at his shirt, trying to make him rise to his feet, trying to do something. "Sasuke, please, he's going to die!"

He didn't move, didn't look at her, didn't even acknowledge her presence. Naruto released him and put a shaking hand in her shuriken pouch, throwing a handful of them at Zabuza. The man snorted and avoided them easily. She created twenty clones. This time around, he didn't bother trying to avoid them all. He simply brandished the great sword and swung it around, and they all disappeared, either when it cut them or when they hit the ground trying to dodge it.

"You should run, girlie," Zabuza told her. He was still turned toward where her teacher was slowly drowning, but his black eyes were watching her. "I'll be busy here for a while, taking care of your sensei and the other kid, not to mention securing Tazuna. You won't get another opportunity like this. Take the boy with you if you want."

Once again, although she couldn't explain it, she was sure that he was being sincere. The buzzing was back, loud in her hears and her mouth. It made her want to vomit.

Taking a deep breath, she started shaking Sasuke as violently as she could. "Get up, bastard."

Zabuza snorted at her antics. "He won't get up," he said. "I know his type. Wimpy, coddled all their life. They think they're geniuses, and once they start fighting for good they're the first to

die."

"Shut the fuck up," she growled at him. Then, turning back to Sasuke, "You better get your ass up and soon. I need your help, and Sakura-chan needs your help, and so does Hatake-sensei." She took his arm and threw it around her shoulders, supporting his weight until his feet were under him and she felt him regain some balance. "We're going to die if you don't," she said, despair clogging her throat. "I thought you had a dream! You have someone you need to find, don't you? You can't die here!"

This seemed to get a reaction out of him. Fucking finally, she thought. Sasuke took his arm off her and rubbed his face. When he straightened up, he seemed a little lost and pale, but at least he wasn't so empty anymore. His hair still hung in his eyes, damp from the water technique. He flattened it back and took a critical look around. Naruto almost heaved in relief.

"I think we should just go all out at him and try to break his hold on sensei," she said with the barest hint of a smile.

He nodded and started to form hand seals. Recognizing the great fireball technique he had used countless times during training, Naruto jumped behind him.

Zabuza seemed taken aback by the turn of events, but it didn't slow him down. Although the fireball forced him to step away from the water bubble holding Hatake-sensei prisoner —killing him, she tried not to think, he's drowning and he's already been in there so long oh God we need to free him quickly—his arm was still firmly holding the water in place.

"Naruto, can you try and knock that sword of his away?" Sasuke asked in a rough voice. The fireball technique always left him with a sore throat, she knew. "If you do that I can try to go at him hand-to-hand, try to make him lose hold."

"You got it." She pushed herself, looking deep inside her for all she chakra she could muster without draining herself out. She created fifty clones this time around.

They crashed into Zabuza in waves, trying to get a hold of the sword, kicking at its blade, shrieking and biting and distracting him as much as they could until finally his fingers loosened their grip on the handle. Three clones kicked the weapon away. It flew into the stream.

As soon as it landed in the running water with a wet sound, Sasuke jumped into the battle. Naruto watched him with her heart in her mouth, praying for a punch to land, for a kick to hit, for anything as long as it broke the mercenary's focus. She refused to look at Hatake-sensei to see if he was still alive.

Her foot bumped into something. Her heart missed a beat, and she looked down, ready to see another Zabuza-clone appear and attack her, but it was only her backpack, abandoned here earlier. She blinked. And then a brilliant idea came at her.

"Sasuke!" she yelled. She did the hand seal, creating the clone she needed and watching it transform into a shuriken. She took the real one she had taken with her, the one they had all mocked her for, she remembered hysterically, and threw them both at her teammate. He

caught them with a puzzled expression.

Their eyes met. For half a second, he seemed to think that she was crazy. But something came between them, like a burst of wind in her thoughts, and she knew that he had understood. She exhaled slowly and turned her attention back to Zabuza.

He was eyeing them disdainfully, all traced of humor lost by now. He wasn't playing anymore.

Sasuke took his position. He deployed the shuriken slowly, making sure the second one—her clone—wasn't visible from Zabuza's position. His face hardened in concentration. Finally, after the longest ten seconds of Naruto's life, he planted his left foot in the ground and leant forward, throwing them both at the enemy.

Zabuza avoided the top one with little trouble. His eyes widened when they noticed the one hiding in its shadow, but he sidestepped it as well, however closely. He huffed, annoyed, and looked back up at them, ready to taunt them with their failure.

Until he let out a cry and hunched forward, his hand slipping out of the water, as Naruto's clone buried a kunai in his back.

He snapped out of his surprise remarkably quickly, kicking the clone out of existence and remaking the seals for his technique. But Hatake-sensei was already gone. Naruto had come to fetch him as soon as her clone had cancelled the transformation, and was now helping the man cough water out of his lungs.

Soon enough, their sensei was standing on his own, dropping his hand from Naruto's shoulder with one last squeeze.

"I'm finishing this now," he said to Zabuza in a raspy voice. His hands were forming seals faster than she could see them.

A strident noise filled the clearing. It came from his hand and filled her ears until she couldn't hear anything else, making her head ache and her skin crawl with goosebumps. She could see blue light surround his arm, currents of chakra in the shape of lightning bolts running around his palm and fingers.

"Step back," he said to her softly. She could only comply, covering her ears with her hands and watching him wordlessly.

Once the frightening technique he was using seemed stable enough, he started running. She had no idea how he did it, considering he had been drowning less than a minute ago. He should be stuck to the floor, unable to move. She had expected that Sasuke and her would have to find a way to finish or at least incapacitate Zabuza on their own. Her relief that he was well enough to fight was almost palpable, but she still watched him like a hawk, waiting for him to fall down.

Sasuke apparently had a similar mindset. He must have been proud of his throw earlier—using long-distance weapons like fuuma shuriken was difficult and required a lot of training and skill— but he wasn't boasting. He just watched, not daring to breathe.

Hatake-sensei was only a few meters away from Zabuza now. The swordsman was in a better shape, but he was also tired and still had a kunai planted in his back. Naruto's clone had chosen to stab him in a place he would have a hard time reaching on his own. He knew, as she did, that pulling it out the wrong way could possibly damage his spinal cord.

Something moved in her peripheral vision. Someone dressed in strange clothes and wearing a mask was perched on a tree branch and about to throw a pair of long needles in the general direction of Hatake-sensei's assault. Naruto wanted to scream at him to watch out, but she was too late. The person threw their senbon without a sound.

Time slowed down. Hatake-sensei was almost at Zabuza's level now. He had started extending his arm forward instead of trailing it behind him and destroying the ground in his wake. Blue-lit fingers were almost touching his chest.

But Zabuza fell down before he could hit him. The senbon were had buried themselves into his throat, and he now lay completely still, the whites of his upturned eyes completely bloodshot. Hatake-sensei's arm burst through the bark of the tree the swordsman had been leaning on.

He tore his hand out as soon as the piercing noise was gone. Then he crouched next to Zabuza's body—he had to be dead, his chest wasn't moving—and touched the senbon.

The stranger fell down next to him and grabbed his wrist, stopping him before he could pull them out.

"You're a hunter-nin from Kiri," Hatake-sensei said. His voice was weaker than Naruto had ever heard it.

"Yes," the stranger replied. Their voice was sweet, almost melodious. It sounded like a woman's voice, but Naruto couldn't be sure. "I thank you for weakening him. It allowed me to take him out swiftly. Now, if you don't mind, I would like to take his body elsewhere and dispose of it."

"You're very young," he observed.

The hunter-nin just bowed his head, before hoisting Zabuza's arm on his should and disappearing in a puff.

And then, without so much as a warning, Hatake-sensei fell down as well.

"Sensei!" Naruto cried in alarm. She tried to move, but Sasuke grabbed her jacket.

"Don't," he said. "He's fine, he's not injured. It's probably just chakra exhaustion. I'll check him over. Go find Tazuna and Sakura and bring them back here. We need to decide what to do now."

She hesitated. Her mind was still very much in fighting mode, her feet ready to jump at the slightest noise. She hated the thought of leaving Sasuke alone while they didn't know who else could come and attack them. Then she realized that she was a ninja, and she could do both. She created a clone and ignored Sasuke's mumbling of "do you ever get tired" while heading to

Tazuna's location.

The man was still here. As well as the clone she'd left there earlier. Apparently he had chosen not to flee, probably thinking that someone would eventually find him and that he had better chances of living if he surrounded himself with shinobi. Sakura, Naruto was sad to note, was still out cold. Sasuke must have hit her pretty hard.

"It is over?" Tazuna whispered, his face white as snow.

"Yeah."

She crouched next to Sakura's prone form. There was a bump on the back of her head, but it didn't look that bad.

"Follow me, old man," she ordered, as her clone pulled Sakura up and settled her on her back. Then it dispersed with a light popping sound, giving her half an hour's memories of anxious waiting. She shook it off.

Sasuke was fine when she came back, Tazuna in tow. He had laid Hatake-sensei on his belly, to avoid aggravating the cut in his back. He was currently trying to ignore the Naruto-clone's nervous babbling. Tazuna emitted a soft gasp when he saw the blood on her teacher's jacket.

"We can't stay here," Sasuke said immediately. He didn't even let her sit down. "If what those Demon Brothers guys said is true, then Gato will know that Zabuza failed his mission soon enough. We can't be here when that happens, we're two men down."

"More like, we don't have sensei to win our fights for us anymore," Naruto muttered. "And if we couldn't hold our own against Zabuza, imagine the next guy."

Sasuke frowned. "Right."

There was a short pause in the conversation. The silence was only filled by the sound of the running stream and the crunch of their feet in the snow.

"We can't go back to Konoha," Sasuke said quietly. "The road is too long and there's no telling when Hatake will wake up. We can't carry him. We could set up camp somewhere near but then we'd still be out in the open, and you and I are tired. In any case," he gestured to Tazuna, "you have to go. You're a walking target, you can't stay with us."

Naruto's shoulders sagged. Now that the elation of having survived was fading, the complexity of their situation was making itself very clear, and she couldn't help agreeing with Sasuke's words. Tazuna couldn't stay with them. No matter how much she despised herself for thinking it, she would rather the man be killed and her team be safe. Fuck C-rank missions, she thought helplessly. When we come home I'm never complaining about a D-rank ever again.

"I think I might actually be able to help you here," Tazuna replied.

The man pointed to his cart, abandoned on the other side of the clearing but intact. The battle had stayed far away from it.

"I could put Hatake-san on the cart and pull him along. My town is only an hour away from here. You four could stay until he is recovered enough to take the journey to Konoha."

Naruto didn't try to hide her surprise. "That's actually a great id-"

"No," Sasuke interrupted. "Are you stupid? We'd still be with him." His eyes flashed Tazuna a disgusted look. "We'd just get even closer to the enemy."

"But the guy-girl-whatever who took Zabuza's body was from Kiri, right?" she asked. "So maybe Gato won't find out that he failed his mission so soon. Maybe we have time to recover and head back to Konoha."

The boy took a minute to think about it, and she let him. She knew he would end up agreeing anyway. Naruto wasn't a very good tactician—too much sitting around, not enough doing things. She'd rather leave this to Sasuke, or even better, to Sakura. After that was what teams were for, right? To compensate for each member's defaults. Sasuke and Sakura had the brains, so Naruto would have the brute strength. She was perfectly fine with the fact.

"All right," Sasuke finally admitted. "We're going to Tazuna's. We're screwed either way."

Tazuna let out a relieved sigh.

The three of them lifted Sakura and Hatake onto the cart. They started walking, following the man's directions, but before they left the clearing Sasuke stopped.

"Hold on," he said. He walked a few steps away and picked something off the ground. When he came back, he handed it to Naruto without looking at her.

It was her Konoha headband. It was wet from the snow, half-covered in mud, and there was a crack on one side of the metal plate from where Zabuza's sword had knocked it off her head. But it was still Iruka's present and her most treasured possession, and she couldn't believe she had almost forgotten it.

"Thank you." Her voice was rough with emotion. Smiling at the flush on his cheeks and the way he resolutely avoided her eyes, she tied it back on her forehead, mindless of the mud that covered it.