Sasuke's voice suddenly cut through the discussion that Momochi Zabuza who was standing on his sword which was embedded in the trunk of a tall tree was having with Kakashi who was reaching for his hitai-ate. The fact that a mere Genin had dared to interrupt while the adults were getting the pre-battle banter that usually gauged how serious either side was about the upcoming fight out of the way was near-unthinkable, not that Sasuke cared.
"What do you want brat?" Zabuza asked, turning his attention to him.
"Have you either seen or seen pictures of the Fourth Hokage?" he asked.
"Yeah, why?" Zabuza replied, looking slightly confused as to why the boy would interrupt with something so completely irrelevant to the situation at hand.
"I just wanted an outside opinion. Does my teammate Uzumaki Naruto look like the Fourth Hokage or does he not?" he asked, placing a special emphasis on the Uzumaki because that was all Naruto was in his opinion.
Zabuza turned to look at Naruto. Soon he would have his answer, it would be no, and everything would go back to normal. There was no way in hell that the Idiot, the Dead Last, the one just about everyone except Umino Iruka hated, the one who only managed to graduate due to the blatant favoritism of the Third Hokage who seemed to view him as some sort of pet was the son of someone as important as the Fourth Hokage.
Kakashi stared at his new least favorite student unable to comprehend the massive scale of the boy's latest act of stupidity. He was going to kill Sasuke. He was going to kill him in the slowest and most painful manner imaginable. He hadn't told Naruto who his father was because what the boy didn't know, he couldn't reveal under interrogation and Naruto had understood this and accepted it. Now, here Sasuke was trying to announce Naruto's parentage to the entire goddamn world.
"Uzumaki? Not Uzumaki Takeshi's grandson?" Zabuza asked as he looked Naruto over apparently searching for something.
"I don't know. His mother's name was Kushina. He has her maiden name." Sakura replied.
Zabuza's eyes widened slightly at this.
"Change of plans." Zabuza said. "I'm going to kill all of you except Naruto."
"Why?" Sakura asked in that screechy tone that seemed to drill straight through your skull and activate the parts of your brain that caused headaches.
"Because, unlike Naruto, my family doesn't owe any of your families a massive debt." Zabuza said as if he was explaining something rather simple to a toddler.
"Debt?" Sakura asked. "How much money do you owe him?"
"All of it is non-monetary." Zabuza said before he lunged towards him to start the long-delayed fight.
He leapt back not letting any musings on how a family could owe such a debt to a family of foreign shinobi, especially shinobi from a village that Kiri had had a hand in destroying, distract him. He would have to think on that one later though.
Sakura moaned as she flopped down onto the futon that had been provided for her at the bridge builder Tazuna's house after the unconscious Kakashi-sensei had been settled onto one of his own. Tazuna's daughter Tsunami was in the next room over tending to poor Sasuke-kun's ribs. Her own back ached, and she was near certain that it was all one massive bruise.
There were times when she really really hated Naruto and this was one of them. The Demon of the Mist had gone after them in a way that made it apparent that he was toying with them a bit before he killed them. Even though Kakashi had given his all to defend them, Sasuke had been drop kicked twice and she'd been tossed into a tree. And what did Naruto get? He got patted on the head before he was gently pushed away from the battle. Not that he stayed out of it mind you, but still...
Edited 4/2/13.
