CHAPTER THREE – Present, human world, Village of Konohagakure

"Is everyone ready?"

The question posed by Kakashi resulted in a collective, droning, "Yeah," from both genin as well as Naruto. Tazuna, for protection purposes, walked behind, flanked on each side by the shinobi hired to ensure his survival. Another mission began as the large gates of the Village Hidden in the Leaf creaked then slammed shut behind as they headed for the Land of the Waves. Sasuke and Sakura had their eyes out for any minor threats that were posed to the bridge builder because some dangers always seemed posed to travelers by the forest. Naruto, however, kept eyes out for the larger threats, such as bandits or ninja.

Tazuna looked at the protection he'd been given. These…children…are supposed to keep me safe? He wondered about the quality of his assigned ninja escorts; only their leader had any sort of imposing appearance. The rest looked like they'd barely come out of the academy. The blonde haired one had a vest on like the jounin of the group, so he had to be a slightly higher ranked ninja than the other two, but even that did not help the state of mind of the man. No, he believed, I'll probably have to make a run for it. He did not trust their skills.

Out of sheer curiosity, Naruto looked up at the sky for a moment, thinking of the clouds. Immediately though, he concentrated once more on the mission. Out of habit he looked to the ground to ensure that there were no ground traps, and he saw near a gathering of small puddles that a rabbit dashed across their path. Neither genin paid it much attention, but the blonde shinobi looked at it and then at Kakashi. With a nod the jounin told him that he too noticed an irregularity. "Naruto!" Sakura cried, embarrassed at the seemingly useless waste of concentration. "It's just a rabbit!" He'd tried, through clenched teeth, to silently mouth "shut up!" but she'd been too far in the statement.

Exasperated at her lack of stealth, he whispered, "The rabbit is irrelevant, but its fur isn't."

Sasuke blinked in confusion. "Fur?" he whispered to himself. It struck him a moment later. "Ah, I get it," he mouthed.

Even in human form, the blonde chunin had heightened senses. He could distinctly smell the stink of man-sweat and feel the air move near Kakashi. It never was a habit of him to waste a moment, and this point could not afford to be an exception. He propelled a kunai with such haste that it caught an enemy shinobi on the way up directly in the forehead. Immediately the man fell dead; no pain could be experienced. The remaining enemy nin found it much more difficult to ensnare Kakashi in the planned trap involving the jagged chain, so he had to change his plan and attempted to slash the copy nin in half with his ninja-to. If Kakashi had not made use of a replacement jutsu he very well may have been caught. The copy nin seemed merely a distraction as he at once turned and charged for his real target. The old man.

Sasuke, possessing absolutely no desire to be upstaged by Naruto, attempted to intercept the opposing shinobi. Unfortunately, he parried the sword slash but forgot to notice the claws laced with poison that wrapped around the enemy's other fist. He whipped himself into a backwards leaning position as quickly as he could but got caught in the right shoulder. Not a moment after the liquid began entering his blood he froze in place to prevent spreading. He awaited death, but the enemy did not kill him, instead passing him by. Which only further solidified in Naruto's mind the true mission assigned.

He had been paid to kill the old man.

Naruto held confidence in few things quite like his speed, as it had been the defining characteristic that enabled him to pass the chunin exam years before most candidates. So, despite the enemy getting a head start and being very close to Tazuna, the gap between them closed in the space of a tenth of an eye blink. The bridge builder threw up his arms in preparation for a death strike from the opposing shinobi, but a second later would find such action pointless.

A footstep told Tazuna that an enemy shinobi stood an inch from him. Seemingly at the same instant as that footstep, Naruto popped in front of him and drove his kunai straight into the enemy's heart. Kakashi appeared a moment later. "Thank you, Naruto," he complimented. "Mr. Tazuna." His tone became distinctively more peeved as he craned his head in the bridge builder's direction. "You lied to our village elders. Now, regardless of your true reasons for doing so, we aren't properly staffed for this type of mission."

Tazuna spoke out in self defense. "How does this change the mission?"

Kakashi blinked in a mixture of exasperation and disbelief. "Well, for one, any team of genin can provide sufficient protection from bandits, but if a ninja attack is suspected, we staff using elite jounin and charge for the extra manpower. Second, what we have here are chunin from the Village Hidden in the Mist." He turned to Naruto and nodded, silently granting him permission to drag off the dead and feast on their flesh. "Now, while we have one chunin of our own, we were lucky. Extremely lucky, because next time we won't be. Expect an expert jounin next time." He analyzed Sasuke. "And, we'd best get back for medical attention for Sasuke." Before leaving with the bodies, Naruto took a kunai and sliced open his right hand.

"I'll take care of him," he informed his team leader. Ripping a small segment of the Uchiha's shirt exposed a deep gash in three places with purple-colored poison dripping from bleeding wounds. Naruto took a bit of his own blood using the blade and applied it very gently to Sasuke's wound in all the open places. To keep him from biting through his tongue he stuck a piece of wood in the genin's mouth. "This will hurt quite a bit, but it'll de-poison you." He held his hand over the wound and concentrated some of his chakra into each slash. The damaged flesh grew shut as Sasuke dug his teeth into the stick in lieu of screaming of pain. It felt something akin to being burned alive. However, it quickly healed and Naruto could grab the dead and continue on. "I'd appreciate it if neither of you followed me." An afterthought struck him and he turned to Tazuna. "Oh, don't worry; I'll help you out." He had a damn good reason to decide so; this had just become an A mission. The A mission he needed.

"Where is Naruto going with those two?" Sakura inquired.

"Uh, he's been given instruction on how to dispose of dead shinobi," Kakashi lied. To himself he laughed at his own words. Oh, he'll be "disposing" of them alright. There just won't be anything left but bones to dispose of. Personally he found the fox demons' eating of dead humans to be extremely disgusting. "Naruto will be joining us shortly. Let's go." Without further a word, the two genin trailed off after their sensei.

It was much later in the evening, as they sat around a campfire waiting for sleep that Kakashi stared up at the stars. The mission had somewhat been compromised by Tazuna's deception, but much like the stars, good shinobi were always there if needed. He personally did not want to single-handedly field attacks from enemy jounin but as her virtue he knew the right thing was to help the bridge builder. Sakura and Sasuke sat in calm contemplation, eating the meat that Naruto had sent back before leaving to do some training. She reminded herself to ask him upon returning what animal the meat had been cut from; she had never tasted such a rich cut of beef. Sasuke sat, pondering his life. Dear brother Itachi, he wondered, why did you murder mom and dad? I'd have liked to have been afforded the chance to get to know both you and them. He brushed aside a tear, then felt shamed for losing his calm composure. Crying, he knew, meant a lack of willpower that signified losers and fools. Mildly he felt jealous of both of his teammates; Naruto and Sakura both had loving parents and happy homes. Only he had been left alone in the world. He turned to Kakashi just for an instant.

The jounin empathized. "Sasuke, what's bothering you?" He inquired but already knew.

"You would not understand." Sasuke currently had a bad mood and would not be bothered.

Kakashi coughed a brief burst. "Bull. You're in a heap of self-pity which isn't helping you heal."

It seemed as though the Uchiha picked that moment to throw a fit. "What the fuck do you know, okay!" he screamed. "How would you like it if I murdered the one you love most." Surely such an act would get the jounin to understand his pain.

It did not faze the copy nin. "No such person exists," he shamelessly admitted. Staring at his young companion caused a shift in Sasuke's mood. "All I love has already been murdered." Without regard to comfort he leaned back his head. "You don't see me moping about it." He already had confronted the demons of his past and won; Sasuke merely lacked gumption.

"I'm sorry," Sasuke lamented, looking down.

"Don't be," Kakashi suggested in response. "Being 'sorry' is what you do too much." The boy knew his sensei's advice rang true. Ironically, his inner recluse, the 'being sorry' problem, is what caused Sakura's heart to pine for him. She saw a cold shell, hiding from the world and standing defiant against it, knowing all the while that it was she who could break the barrier. She boldly put her left hand on his shoulder, and he merely brushed it off. She chalked it up to shyness. Not once did she notice that he did it not out of lack of interest in her but self-defense against what she represented in his eyes. She was the pretty girl, the status symbol, the culture child; she stood for everything he so desperately fought to kill in himself, to choke the breath out of and remove from his soul.

"Everyone okay?" a voice cried out. Kakashi turned to see Naruto. "As I have said before, a soul cries out for love and hope, while a shinobi feeds on lust and ambition." The line he'd quoted had come from a book written by the first Hokage, which served as a password. Satisfied, Kakashi breathed a sigh.

"Peachy," he uttered. "You can rest a few hours while I keep watch, then its your shift again."

"Understood." Taking Kakashi's seat as the jounin patrolled the camp perimeter, he took a drink of his flash of juice.

"Tell me something, Naruto-sama," Sakura had been curious about, "if Kakashi-sensei gives you your recommendation, what is going to happen?"

Naruto smiled inside; he liked the way she said "what is going to happen" instead of what would happen. "I'll get three months of training under Hokage-sama's team of personal jounin, then I'll take the test to become jounin," he explained. "I just need this one more A mission." He'd awaited said moment since becoming a chunin.

"So, you'll be like Kakashi in rank?" Sakura's question came out of pure curiosity, although it seemed a little harsher than she'd have preferred.

"Young jounin are looked down upon a little bit," he divulged, "but officially…yeah. I'll be the same rank as Kakashi-sama." He stared at the fire. Because his heritage had been held secret from all save a few, his remarkable progress of chunin at twelve dumbfounded quite a few uneducated. "I imagine that if I made it I'll be quite the sight. Imagine being the same age as the kids in the cell I'd be leading." His train of thought made them all laugh. No doubt in the genins' minds at least, that such would be startling for a twelve-year old genin to be instructed by a thirteen or so jounin. "Although," he reconsidered, "Hokage-sama could just keep me on missions until I'm about eighteen or so to compensate."

Sakura remembered something she'd wanted to say. "Um, Naruto-sama, that meat you brought back was good." He nodded, accepting the complement. "Where'd you get it?"

He grinned. "The thigh muscles of those nin I killed," he admitted without hesitation. They both very nearly wretched, but somehow held it together. He liked being a fox demon; it made it much easier to eat human flesh.

"Eww!" She coughed. "How…how can you…just eat people!" She considered the ramifications of said action. "I mean, what keeps you from eating someone innocent? What keeps you from eating me?"

He rolled his eyes. "I only eat those who try to kill me, or are my enemy. And, for your information, eating human flesh keeps me fuller, longer than typical meat." He patted Sakura on the shoulder. "Trust me, human meat makes you stronger."

She looked at him wide-eyed like he was nuts. "Just…eww…"

"Go to sleep," he suggested. "You'll wake up feeling better." Both Sakura and Sasuke complied. Naruto, however, only needed one night's rest a week, so he could afford to lose sleep. Tazuna never left his sight that night.

Both genin were awoken by a gentle pat on the head. The morning sunlight streaked in through the trees, creating a beautiful shimmer effect. Any who had slept had done so fully clothed so as to avoid wasting time. The bridge builder always had to be the first priority, so everyone huddled around him and began walking on with their focus on any shinobi that might be headed their way.

"GET DOWN!"

Kakashi reacted first to the screech. Sasuke and his comrade piled onto Tazuna as human shields. It had been Naruto's yell in response to a whoosh sound he'd heard. Turns out that a gigantic decapitator's blade swirled just over their heads and buried itself in a tree. Its wielder leapt from the forest canopy and landed on it. "Thanks for the early warning," Kakashi informed Naruto. "I certainly wouldn't have heard that on time." The enemy chuckled. "I see our main villain Gatou's hired some heavy artillery, eh, Zabuza?" He removed his hitai-ate from over his left eye, revealing the sharingan.

"So, you know me, don't you, Kakashi the copy nin?" Zabuza sneered.

Sasuke stepped forward but Naruto held him back. "No," the chunin instructed. "I know you're thinking, 'This is my chance!' However, we'd merely be interfering. Protect Tazuna and that's an order." The Uchiha muttered an angry "yes, Naruto-sama" in response. Zabuza caught sight of the chunin. When Naruto looked at him in response, he knew this had to be the reason he'd been specifically brought along; in case they met more resistance than anticipated.

"Ah." His sneer enlarged. "Naruto of the Uzumaki. Child of two powerful fox demons and heir to the legendary demon blood line." He looked at Kakashi. "I see you've got some heavy artillery as well." Eagerly he gathered his speed and bounded into action.