Upon arrival at Tazuna's house the group was greeted warmly by the man's daughter, Tsunami. She fussed over her father as soon as he walked in, that was until she saw the two unconscious ninja being carried in by Naruto's clones and immediately took to mothering the pair. Directing the clones to the spare bedroom, she immediately began setting up futons and putting some restorative tea-leaves on to boil. Once it became clear that neither required the services of a medic she began grilling her father and the two upright shinobi remaining on what had happened.

Once the story had been told, emphasis heavily removed from the dangerous parts after a look from Tazuna, she asked how the genins' team had chosen their mission, expressing her utmost thanks that they had.

Naruto grinned sheepishly at the question and Sakura sent him a glare and sighed as she remembered the boy's antics in the mission room not two days previously.

"Oi, ojii-san, when you gonna give us a decent mission for once?" Naruto had yelled at the Hokage after turning in yet another mindless chore of a mission scroll.

"Naruto, these missions are effective and useful ways for you to gain experience without exposing yourself to dangers outside the village..." Iruka began reprimanding the boy, he had been working with the Hokage on mission assignments during the Academy's holiday period to earn a little extra money, proof that teacher's salaries suck balls everywhere.

"Now, Iruka,if they think they are ready for a higher ranked mission we should give them the opportunity to prove themselves.' The Hokage reprimanded his assistant lightly, "What do you think Kakashi, are they ready for a C-Rank mission?"

"Hai, Hokage-sama, I believe they are." Replied the cycloptic jounin, never once raising his head from reading his book.

"Right" Hiruzen Sarutobi said, looking over his desk at the team assembled in front of him. "Team 7, we have several C-Rank missions for you to choose from; there's this one from Sea Country, apparently they are having a spot of pirate trouble."

"Pirates?" exclaimed Harry with a grin. "Garr, them swashbuckling' bilge rats'll be keelhauled by the time we're done wit'em! Garr!"

Naruto joined in swiftly with a cry of; "We'll hoist 'em up by their mizzens and skewer the lot o' 'em! Yarr!"

Kakashi merely sighed and announced; "For the sake of my sanity, Hokage-sama, I think we'll take a different one."

Harry turned to his sensei with a stricken look in his eye and in a small voice asked "No gar?"

"No gar," the jounin confirmed, glad to have dodged that bullet.

It was to no avail, however as the black haired menace turned to his blond partner in crime and suggested "Mutiny?"

"Mutiny!" Naruto's cry was swiftly silenced by an overhead slam punch from the last member of their team, who then turned a rage-filled eye on Harry.

"No mutiny, we be good."

Silently struggling not to burst into laughter at the antics of the team, the Third Hokage suggested the relatively safe escort to Wave country and introduced the team to their contractor before waving them out of his office. 'I have got to get a video camera set up in here before their next briefing, this stuff is too hilarious to be left to mere memory to record.'

The event had sent Sakura into a fit of melancholy as she wondered, yet again, why she couldn't have been assigned a team with her Sasuke-kun.

Naruto gave her a look as she seemed to disappear into her own thoughts again. Getting up, he excused himself, saying he'd watch over Harry and Kakashi until they woke. Tazuna agreed, stretching and declaring that he'd like to get some sleep as well before disappearing upstairs.

It was only an hour or two later when Sakura snapped out of her daydream to find everyone bar Tsunami had left already. As she was the only ninja up she guessed that left her with sentry duty. She growled quietly, swearing Naruto would pay for leaving her to do Kami-knew-what.

The next day their Kakashi had awoken to see Harry in the next bed over with a haggard looking Naruto watching over them both in a chair by the window.

The blonde boy perked up immediately upon seeing Kakashi awake and created a shadow clone instructed to fetch Sakura. When said clone popped from a vicious right hook to the jaw he got a very bad feeling.

This was confirmed as an equally haggard-looking Sakura stormed into the room, cursing Naruto's head off and waking Harry in the process. Sakura wasn't impressed, though Kakashi was, that Harry's response to a loud awakening was to ding a kunai off of her hitai-ate.

"Huh? Whazzat?" Harry asked, still in a sleepy daze.

"I said this BAKA left me on guard duty all night whilst he slept up here with you two all night!" Sakura yelled, making her displeasure known.

"That's not true, I've been sending clones out on patrols all night coz I thought you were resting in your room!" Naruto countered. He was interrupted from saying anything further as a clone jumped in through a window, handed him a small bag and dispelled itself.

"What's up Naruto?" Kakashi asked as the blonde sealed away his bag in a small scroll.

"Oh, I had my clones scout out the town. The place needs a severe influx of money soon or they're all gonna starve, one of them decided to help out a shopkeeper who was especially down and bought some books for me, some series called the 'Horus Heresy'. Anyway, nothing to report around the house, though there are roving bands of thugs, mostly under Gato's payroll, wandering around the town and in the woods. Their jobs seem to be harassing the townspeople, extorting money from same, stopping them from growing their own food and making sure no-one tries to leave the island."

Kakashi nodded before turning to Sakura and asking for her report. "No-one approached the house and Tazuna snores loud enough to be heard in the kitchen," apparently didn't impress him as much as Naruto's report did.

"Right, anyway team, we may have a problem. You see, senbon are not very effective means of killing someone." Kakashi began.

"Okay..." Harry said, confused as to why his sensei thought this was a problem, none of them used senbon needles.

"They are, however effective at hitting pressure points on a human's body, several of which can induce coma-like or 'near-death' states. In these states the body's vital signs can be suppressed to give the illusion of death."

"Right..." Naruto led his sensei on, thinking he'd get to the point eventually.

"Fortunately it takes a while to recover from being put into such a state, normally around five days to a week."

"Um sensei...?" Sakura began but was cut off.

"Which gives us a week to train you up for when Zabuza recovers from playing possum."

There was a pause.

It went on for a bit longer than anyone of them would have cared to admit.

In fact if anyone were to reveal the actual length of time it took for this information to process all three genin would be thoroughly embarrassed at their apparent lack of cognitive ability.

It lasted about five minutes.

Kakashi even pulled out his little orange book and started reading.

They were taking that long to acclimatise and adjust to the new information.

"ZABUZA'S ALIVE?" Naruto and Sakura shouted.

Harry's response was slightly delayed and somewhat different, having anticipated his teammates'.

"I'M BRIAN BLESSED!"

After getting funny looks from everyone he clarified; "You know, Flash Gordon."

"Who?" was the collective response.

"Flash... You've never seen...? Come one, it's a classic... Fuck the lot of you then."

Kakashi continued the team meeting, whilst Harry lay back down in his bed and sulked.

"Anyway, yes Zabuza may well be alive and if he is then there's a good chance that we may have to deal with the hunter nin of his when he returns to try and finish off our client. Until then we shall be training and guarding Tazuna's family and bridge in shifts." Kakashi then tested his muscles, trying to stand, leaning against the wall for support.

"Ugh, thankfully I didn't get hit with Zabuza's water prison jutsu so my chakra isn't as drained as it should be, I should be able to train with you in a few days. Harry on the other hand did get his chakra exhausted by it so should probably take the week off to deal with chakra exhaustion."

"Nah, I'll be fine tomorrow." Harry spoke up, still in a mood from earlier.

"What? How?" Kakashi was shocked by this statement and it took a lot to do that him nowadays with Harry and Naruto on his team.

"I recover fast. It's how I keep up with Naruto-nii-san. He has the stamina to train all day, I get second winds after short rests." Harry explained.

Kakashi knew that the boys would often train themselves into the ground but he'd thought Harry just took sensible regular breaks. If he was actually training himself to exhaustion several times a day... No, his chakra capacity would have doubled by now at the very least, not to mention the chakra burns would have cooked the boy from the inside out. There had to be some kind of explanation for it.

"Fine, we'll talk about that later, right now let's discuss training for the lot of you. Sakura, we still need to build your reserves up but there won't be enough time in the week for that to make a difference, so I'm going to show you that B-rank genjutsu I promised you; Demonic Illusion: City of the Damned."

He turned to the blonde shinobi, "Naruto, the way you fight is a lot like a puppet/weapon user, but with clones as your tools so you need to both refine your Taijutsu and learn some long range jutsu as a support. Have you chosen a weapon you want to use yet?" Getting a head-shake signalling no he smiled, "Good we wouldn't have time to you a decent one anyway, still I think you should know jutsu so have your clones practice these." He handed the blonde several scrolls. "I managed to beg a supplementary shadow technique off of the Nara clan but don't use it on Zabuza as it would just enhance his silent killing technique, better to save it for after this mission or use it on any of Gato's thugs that get close to the house."

Naruto nodded and accepted the scrolls off of his sensei, noting the symbol for shadow on one and wind on two others, before sealing them into one of his own scrolls in his jumpsuit's inner pockets.

Harry turned to his sensei once more, curious about what he would be learning. "Harry, I think I may have found a taijutsu style that could suit you, it will however require you to relearn how to fight from the very basics as it is nothing like the Academy, or even most other styles I have seen, though some come close. Even so far as having you relearn how to make a fist. Yes, that's right relearning a fist, not to mention moving... and you may have to grow your nails slightly longer as well. Normally I wouldn't even consider trying to teach something like this in just a week but with shadow clones it could just about be done."

"What is it Kakashi-sensei?" Harry, not to mention the other two, were incredibly curious about this now.

"It's called the Monkey-Fist style. It has several sub variations and advanced styles like the Drunken Monkey, the Standing Monkey and the Stone Monkey, but that would be too much to take in even with the shadow clones, how many can you do at a time?"

"About 250 to 300, Naruto can do up to about ten times that if he has to, though, so I was wondering if he could learn it as well."

Kakashi nearly had an aneurism at that, as Harry's reserves were nearly ten times his own level of chakra capacity, (that put Naruto's reserves at 100 times Kakashi's own which was fucking INSANE), but agreed if the blonde was up for it. "In a week that's about 4-5 years of study at minimum with those numbers. More than enough time to get the basics down, don't you think?" He then showed them the scroll containing all of the 'basic' moves.

Harry stared at the open scroll in his hands, with Naruto and Sakura looking over his shoulders, going through each individual pose, their minds filling in the blanks of the movements in between as they had trained to do during the Academy. It involved staying low to the ground, with a LOT of rolls, flips and difficult acrobatic movement, not to mention the weird, interchangeable extended-fist/claw position the hands were to be held in. Strikes looked to be aimed at either the groin or throat areas, with claw swipes against the eyes and face, whole thing, it said at the beginning was to be included with varying facial expressions, to be changed at random times to confuse attackers and required movement in a crouched, all-fours type of method that was oddly reminiscent of the Inuzuka's Beast style, but with less emphasis on ferocity and more on confusing, jerky movements. There even seemed to be the basis of staff-fighting poses interspersed in with the other katas.

Sakura, unable to see Harry's expression, turned on their teacher. "That's got to be the stupidest..."

"THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME STYLE EVER!" Harry's shout was on a level of magnitude even Sakura would be hard pressed to reach. Kakashi was nearly deafened and then squashed as the boy literally leapt from his bed to hug his sensei.

The boy then leapt out the window, shouting back, "I'm gonna go practice right..."

Kakashi turned to Naruto, who was nearest the window, "He collapsed again didn't he?" Getting a nod he ordered him to bring the boy back up and for the two remaining genin to get some rest as well.

Naruto left and before Sakura could go too he stopped her. "Before you say anything about the techniques I gave him, just remember, the Sandaime has the Monkey summoning contract and has more than likely incorporated some of the moves of the monkey style into his own taijutsu techniques."

Sakura, at least, had the humility to blush and begin to apologise. Kakashi just wave her off saying, "Remember something my sensei once told me; any action, no matter how stupid, if it works, isn't stupid."

The next several days went by in a bit of a blur. After the second day, Kakashi even managed to do a little training of his own, though he kept himself from tiring himself out just in case the team came under attack. Sakura had progressed to the point where she could make three shadow clones, though she was pretty much wiped out after that. Being fair to her, that was pretty much a low Chunin's standard chakra capacity and Kakashi was loathe to compare her progress to the other two members of his team. She also made great progress with the genjutsu Kakashi gave her, she could get the illusion down perfectly, calling up a city from Hell around her opponents to torment and disorientate them, she just needed practice at introducing the changes slowly in order to fool an opponent's subconscious into believing the illusion.

That was the true sign of mastery of genjutsu. Anyone could cobble together an image and force it into someone's head with chakra, well except for Naruto for some reason, but the true art was in building up to the event so that, even if the victim's conscious mind recognised the illusion, their subconscious would work against them in helping to keep the fantasy going.

Naruto spent the majority of his time working on the wind jutsu, drilling air bullet and great breakthrough. One required a lot of concentrated wind chakra to act like a spiralling ball of wind which was launched at the opponent, creating a piercing effect more common to lightning jutsu than to wind attacks. The second was more along the lines of a massive destruction attack using wind chakra to cut through barriers and overwhelm smaller jutsu and things that got in the way, such as people. He also spent a bit of time on the 'rising blackness' shadow technique, which worked like Zabuza's hidden mist to obscure the battlefield by covering the land in shadow and darkness. This was a discontinued supplementary Nara technique as pretty much none of them had the chakra reserves to pull it off.

Harry spent his days in a near constant combative state as he and his shadow clones trained in monkey taijutsu. His highlight was definitely during a spar when he rolled from a lying down position into a handstand and kicked two of his clones in the face with a splits kick.

Everyone was pretty tense about the whole Zabuza thing at first but once Naruto decided to break out the insanity again. This led to Kakashi saying many things that he's never even considered having to utter as long as he lived.

Included were such classics as; "Naruto, even if we do find Zabuza's base I doubt either he or his companions would believe we're the hosts of a show called 'Pimp My Sword'. Even if they do fall for that, I doubt he'd let us mess about with his weapon..."

Then there was the incident where Naruto decided on inventing a new form of teamwork/combat practice;

"Naruto, dual-wielding your teammates is generally frowned upon"

"Aww."

"BAKA! PUT ME DOWN!"

"Especially when Sakura is one of them."

Even that paled in significance when Harry and Naruto both decided on a way to rile up their sensei during Henge practice;

The two boys grinned at each other before yelling in unison whilst slamming their right fists together; "Wonder twin powers Activate!"

"For the last time, would you please just call it Henge no Jutsu like everyone else?" their cycloptic Jounin's complaint went unheard by the two.

Then, one day Inari, Tazuna's grandson watched him practice and had run home crying. That night he screamed at them, telling them how little their training would do them, how Gato ("Mmm... Cake" from Harry didn't help) would just kill them in the end, he told them all to just leave. By the end Naruto was fuming and ready to yell at the kid but Harry beat him to it.

"You ungrateful little shit. Your grandfather is doing his best to stop that tyrant, to help his people and break the bastard's control over this country and what does he get to hear, from his own family, no less? 'We're all gonna die' Doom and gloom statements instead of the love and support you should be showing him. You have a family that loves you, a family that cares about you, you have a room all to your own, a roof over your head, food on your table and people trying to fight for your right to survive and be happy. You claim to know suffering? You don't know the half of what evils there are in the world!"

He had stood up by this point and was shouting down to the still seated boy. "Naruto has been orphaned, beaten and ostracised in a village he protects with his life nearly every damned day of his life for something he can't control. I grew up with relatives of mine who beat me and worked me like a dog ever since I could stand until I almost killed myself out of desperation! We have had to fight and scrape for every shred of clothing on our backs, for every scrap of food we can get to eat and for every measly ryo we could get to afford our induction into the ninja ranks because the council of our village would rather see us dead than have us serve them as shinobi. WHERE THE HELL DO YOU GET OFF CLAIMING YOU HAVE HAD A HARD LIFE?"

With that he left the crying boy at the table, ripped the door open and stormed off into the fading light.

Harry wandered in the forest for a while before the desire to destroy something over took him and he began projecting explosive seals onto every tree within twenty feet of him. He stopped when he heard a familiar approaching set of footsteps.

"Hey, 'Ruto, sorry about outing your secrets about your life and everything back there."

"No worries nii-san." Naruto paused "I think I can afford to let Sakura know, we are teammates after all." He left a longer pause. "You never told me about... before."

"Yeah, not exactly something I like to remember."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"Nah, I'm okay for now. That rant at least got some of it out in the open and it feels a little better... and no, you don't need to put me on suicide watch," he joked, his humour almost as dark as his mood by that point.

"'Kay, wanna head back?"

"Not really, you mind sparring for a bit?"

"Yeah, sure, what do you say, free-for-all, tournament style or just one-on-one?"

"Free-for-all, fifty clone limit, taijutsu only. I wanna know I can at least use the basics in a fight."

"Good idea," Naruto said, stretching his arms above his head, "On three?"

"One..."

"Two..."

*BOOM* A huge smoke cloud enveloped the recently created clearing when a hundred figures leapt from both sides.

"For Chaos!" came the Narutos' battle cry.

"For Glory!" Shouted the Harrys

"FOR RAMEN!" They all shouted in unison.

It was mid morning the next day when Harry and Naruto began to stir. They'd both been given a fairly intense workout that night and Harry still had some of the bruises to show for it. Naruto, or as Harry dubbed him 'the lucky bastard', seemed to have healed up already. 'Mental note, dodging could improve.' He thought, especially as that was one of the key defences of the style, the ability to coordinate seemingly random movements into dodges and counterattacks quickly. He still had to smile at the look on Naruto's face when he'd dropped to the ground, paused for a second then rolled forward and swept his leg from under him.

Stretching Harry saw Naruto was just beginning to wake too and that they weren't the only ones in the clearing. Across from them stood a figure with its face in shadow, wearing a light green kimono and carrying a small basket in their arms.

"Hello," came the girly voice from across the clearing, "Sorry to wake you."

"No problem, we needed to get up anyway, I'm Harry, this is my brother Naruto."

"Hey" waved the slightly drowsy blonde.

"Good morning, Harry-san, Naruto-san, my name is Haku. Pardon me for asking but aren't you worried you'll get sick if you sleep outside all night?" Haku asked, stepping forward to reveal a very effeminate face showing concern.

"Nah, we're fine," Naruto assuaged her fears, "We're totally awesome ninja who never get sick."

"Oh, wow, ninja, that's impressive, but you still get ill sometimes, though, right? I mean no one is immune to sickness."

"Huh, never thought about it but I don't think I've ever been sick before... Neither's Harry..."

"Well, anyway, I'd better be going..." Haku began but Harry stopped her.

"Wait, um... what's the hurry?" he asked.

"Oh, I have someone very precious to me and he's sick at the moment so I'm gathering herbs to make him some medicine."

"Well, we'll be happy to help you, won't we bro?" Harry asked, getting a nod from Naruto.

"Yeah, what are we looking for."

"Oh, these ones with the blue and white petals." Haku indicated some of the flowers already gathered in the basket.

"Gotcha."

Conversation quickly turned from what the two were doing in the forest, "Training", to why they were in the county in the first place as Wave didn't have a ninja village, "Helping an old man with a work project of his" to finally the horrible condition of wave in general and the man responsible.

"The thing is I can't understand why the man hired ninja for a long term mission in the first place." Harry chipped in at one point, to himself than the other two.

"Why not?" Haku asked.

"Well, ninja are expensive, especially high ranked ones like the one we fought. Missing nin are even more expensive because their services come 'off the books' of the hidden villages, which is why corrupt guys like Gato go for them. To hire one on for more than a week makes no sense, especially when he already has this many mercenary bandits roaming around the place, that is unless he hasn't payed them yet..."

"What are you talking about?" Haku asked.

"Well, if the guy is waiting for them to complete the mission before paying them then it's easily one of the oldest tricks in the book, hell even animals do it all the time. You wait until the two powerful guys fight it out and once they're both weak from the fight you swoop in and butcher them both and take the power, or in this case the money for yourself. If Gato's done that then guaranteed that's why there's so many mercs around, they're waiting for Zabuza to take out the competition before they stab him in the back and swarm him with sheer numbers."

Naruto piped up at this point; "Yeah, hell I bet even that fake hunter nin is in on it. A double play, Gato hires Zabuza to take down the enemy, then hires the hunter nin to 'help' him until he's taken out the enemies, i.e. us, then to take Zabuza out when he's weakened. Once the hunter nin comes back with Zabuza's head he greets him with his army of goons. Wham, bam, no ninja to pay off and he also gets the bounty of a high class ninja to boot."

"Yeah, but if that were the case then why would he have helped the guy when we first fought?"

"Because Kakashi-sensei hadn't gone down yet and the hunter nin didn't know how much longer he could keep fighting for."

Haku suddenly turned from where they stood and told them that it was late and the sick friend would probably be needing his medicine soon.

"Wait, Haku-chan," Harry yelled, "Will we see you tomorrow, maybe?"

"I don't think so," Haku responded, "Oh, and by the way, I'm a boy." That said Haku quickly disappeared into the forest.

Harry was so stunned he couldn't move.

Naruto calmly walked up and placed a consoling hand on his brother's shoulder. "Harry-nii-san, I realise that since last night was a very emotional and difficult time for you it would be in very poor taste to make fun of you right now."

He pulled his brother into a manly one armed hug. "However, you have just fallen in love with a boy and as soon as your girly emotions are all in check I am going to mock you so hard you'll think it was a national pastime."

Kakashi was getting worried about his two wayward students. After Harry's outburst Naruto had gone looking for him but neither had come back. He resolved that if neither had returned by lunch he would send out a nankeen search party to look for them, just to make sure they hadn't gotten in trouble.

He was greatly relieved, then when the two ame barrelling in through the front door before anyone else was up, just as he sat down with his freshly made breakfast.

Kakashi looked at the two and asked; "Hey, you guys okay after last night?"

"Oh, I'm fine sensei," Naruto responded first, "But you might want to take it easy on Harry, he's just had his heart broken."

"Shut up!"

"Don't be like that, I think you and Haku would've made a cute couple."

"Oh," Kakashi perked up at this news, "Tell me about this Haku."

"Well, Haku's cute, wears a gorgeous green kimono, enjoys picking flowers with Harry-kun and thinks ninja are amazing. Then, it all went wrong when Haku had to leave, when Harry asked Haku if they could meet up tomorrow he said he couldn't and left."

"Well, that's too bad Harry, but... wait... he?"

"Oh, did I forget to mention that Haku was a boy?" Naruto said, relishing the moment.

"You thought he was a girl too!" Harry practically shouted at the blonde.

"True, but I didn't fall madly head over heels in love with him."

"I hate you so much," Harry stated before turning his glare on his giggling sensei, "Not a word!"

"I'm sorry, Harry, it's just a bit of a shock that's all. Naruto, you should be ashamed of yourself. There's nothing wrong with people who are inclined that way. You shouldn't mock your brother for it."

'Damnit, you two! I'M NOT GAY!" Harry yelled.

"Harry, there's no need to be ashamed of it now that you're out of the closet. As your sensei it is my job to offer what support I can to you if you find it hard to transition to a more expressive lifestyle and I promise to do the best I can to help you."

"Fuck the pair of you, I'm going to train." Harry ended up once more storming out of the house, this time leaving his teammates laughing to themselves.

On the other side of the island, in a heavily fortified underground location, Zabuza of the Bloody Mist was receiving a rather disturbing report and theory from his ally.

"I think they could be right."

"I don't care we were hired to do this job and we will see it through to the end. If the pompous midget stiffs us then we just need to pay him a visit at the end of this as well."

"Are you sure you want to do this? I know gathering the funds would be difficult any other way but deliberately crippling and destroying a whole country just doesn't sit right. The whole reason we started this was to save our own country from a madman, if we keep up with this, how are we any better than him?"

"Quiet! When I want your opinions I'll ask for them. I don't like this any more than you do but it is not your place to question me. Remember, you are my tool and nothing more."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Zabuza-sama. I forgot that I'm your dirty, filthy tool. Oh won't you please use your naughty tool?"

"Stop that, you know how wrong you make that sound don't you, Haku?"

It didn't get any better for Harry as he grew hungry and when he returned to the house for lunch he was immediately mobbed by Sakura, who had degenerated into her rapid fangirl-speak that was hard for him to hear never mind get a word in.

"Oh my god, I'm so happy, finally someone on this team that I can talk to properly. I'm so sorry, looking back now I know I must have made it hard for you to be open about this but I'm so happy for you. Quick, you must tell me about this boy of yours, was he pretty or butch? How did he measure up to Sasuke-kun? I know just how we could help you win him back, but first we need to go SHOPPING! Yay!"

This culminated in a small rage-induced blackout on Harry's part. He could never remember and none who witnessed would ever willingly speak of what happened in those short few minutes but afterwards Tsunami couldn't look at Harry the same way ever again, Inari and Naruto both swore off wasabi sauce for life, Sakura was violently ill, Tazuna swore off of drinking before noon and Kakashi gained a newfound respect for his dark-haired genin. Kakashi even went so far as to lend him his first Icha-Icha book on the condition that Harry never tell him the full extent of what he carried around in his sealing scrolls. Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura all ended up with some minor injuries as well but they were quickly overshadowed and forgotten by The Very Much Straight Harry Fiasco.

Thankfully the tension was dissolved by a knock at the door.

Surprised, Naruto answered the door, whilst Kakashi took up a relaxed guard position in front of Tazuna's family and Harry put his jacket back on.

When the door opened Naruto found himself staring at an open brown trench coat barely concealing the assets of a woman dressed only in that, a fishnet body stocking and a tan miniskirt.

"DANGO-CHAN!" Naruto cried as he glomped the woman as hard as he could, sending her falling onto her ass on Tazuna's porch.

"Hey, gaki, good to see you." The purple haired woman greeted him. "Now while I don't mind the occasional public roll in the hay, you're still a little young and we appear to have an audience."

"You're rude, Dango-chan." Naruto accused the woman as he got to his feet.

"Dobe, get out of the way." Came a surly voice from behind the scantily clad woman and Naruto's expression immediately darkened.

"What the hell are you doing here, Teme?"

"Baka, Anko is my sensei and the Hokage ordered us to come and bail you out when he heard you're team was too weak to pull off a simple C-rank mission." The Uchiha smirked, annoying the blonde. His smile quickly vanished as a loud screech came from inside the house.

"SASUKE-KUN!" This time it was Sasuke's turn to be glomped as a pink blur slammed into him.

By this time Harry and Kakashi had made their way to the door and were treated to the rather disturbing sight of their pink haired team-mate trying to snuggle up against a struggling Sasuke whilst Naruto and Anko stood off to the side laughing at the boy.

Naruto quickly made introductions; "Sensei, Nii-san, this is Dango-chan."

Kakashi nodded to the woman simply saying, "Anko."

Harry on the other hand saw the opportunity to cause some havoc and grinned at his brother. "So this is the woman you've been crushing on, nice choice, 'Ruto."

Before Naruto could think of a reply he was swept up in a bone-crushing hug and pressed firmly into the older woman's chest. "Aw, does my little Chibi have a crush on little old me?"

Naruto's vain struggles and shout of "Mmf mmh mhm mmph mm" did little to help get him out of his situation as Anko held him there, cooing to him whilst she made her way into the house.

Eventually, when oxygen became a problem and no other options seemed available he shouted "Mmf Mae Mmu Mphn Mo Muphu", ten clones appeared, grabbed hold of his legs and pulled him free of Anko's grip.

Naruto drew a deep breath and the clones dispelled themselves, leaving him, a laughing Harry, an amused Kakashi and a shocked Anko, Tazuna and Tsunami staring at the boy whilst Sasuke and Sakura had still yet to come in from outside.

"Gaki, why didn't you tell me you were a one man gang bang? Opinion changed, you are now firmly on the shag-able list." Anko gave Naruto a wink that had him shuddering, suddenly very fearful for his innocence. "However, business before pleasure, Kakashi, what do we need to know?"

"Mah, not much, Gato's thugs are patrolling the town, Zabuza's been quiet, most likely resting from our fight and his accomplice is nowhere to be seen, the rest was in the missive I sent back. I've been training my students this past week to prepare them for the encounter, oh and speaking of, aren't you gonna help your student?"

"Nah, if he can't handle one fan girl then there's no hope for him. I'll fill him in later, when your student is done filling me in."

"Dango-chaaaaan!" Naruto whined before turning on his brother "This is all your fault."

Harry just grinned "Hey, I'm not the one who showed off his amazing doubling act in front of a kinky woman with what I'm guessing are fairly flexible morals."

"Morals is a new name for them, I'll give you that brat."

"And a very dirty mind." Harry turned to the grinning woman, "Uzumaki-Potter Harry, the blonde's adopted brother, close combat specialist and Seal-Master in training."

"Mitarashi Anko, Snake Mistress of Konoha, seduction and assassination specialist."

"You're the Uchiha's sensei." It wasn't a question.

"What gave me away?"

"Can you fix him?"

"As in mentally or like you do with pets?"

"One or the other, preferably both, but I'm not particularly fussed."

Anko laughed at that, "Sorry, gaki, the council would use that as an excuse to finally have me killed. I like you, though, got a good attitude."

"Ahem," came the testy cough of Tsunami from by the table, "so I take it the two of you will be staying to help as well." she asked with a surly look at Anko.

"Yep, not a problem is it girly?" Anko replied.

"Not at all, I'll just go and put some more rice on for lunch, father would you mind helping me in here?"

Tazuna, who had not stopped staring at Anko's cleavage since she arrived grunted in reply.

"NOW!"

Snapping out of his stupor, Tazuna made a hasty retreat into the kitchen after his angry daughter.

"What's up with her?" Naruto asked, clearly confused by Tsunami's sudden shift from over-bearing mother to pissed off bitch.

"Ah, don't mind her, Chibi, women get like that around me sometimes, I'm used to it, now come over here and give Anko some sugar."

She was interrupted by her student, who chose that time to come flying in through the closed front window. The smash and his cry of "I'll pay for that." were all they heard before he'd exited the building again, this time through the back door. Sakura followed not ten seconds later, using the front door this time.

She looked around at all the shinobi present before each one unanimously raised their hands to point where the boy had gone. A mumbled thanks later and she was gone.

"Hey, Harry." Naruto asked, a mischievous smirk on his face.

"Yeah?"

"You got that proximity detection seal working yet?"

"More or less, it's kinda limited though, can't get much more than a few inches out of it yet."

"Don't worry, that's plenty." Naruto grinned, taking out a tag from his pouch.

He didn't get much further as, several miles away, on an otherwise unremarkable beach, a few hundred discarded objects, ranging from kunai to refrigerators to blow up sheep, disappeared in a poof of smoke.

Everyone seemed quite shocked when Naruto suddenly twitched and passed out.

Several seconds went by before Anko asked; "I take it Chibi doesn't do this regularly, does he?"

"No," Kakashi answered, putting away his book and beginning to run through one of the very few diagnostic jutsu he had picked up over the years.

Naruto awoke blearily to sunlight flooding the room. He didn't know what happened, one minute he had thought up a great prank to pull on Sasuke, the next he was having dreams about sitting on a beach for a week with nothing to do.

Stretching, he yawned and began putting his clothes on, which someone had removed and layed out on the chair next to his futon. Gods, he hated those things. He swore, every time he woke up he swore that when he had enough money he'd get a hammock, no he'd get two, one for home and one for missions.

Finishing off his stretches as he pulled on his jacket he was startled by loud voices coming from downstairs. Figuring Harry or Kakashi had angered Sakura somehow he paid it no mind until he heard a scream.

Within seconds he had his kunai pouch strapped to his thigh, his general purpose pouch on his waist and he was on his way down the stairs.

Arriving at the scene he found a hysterical Tsunami being held by a thuggish looking guy with a sword on his back whilst another with a club stood over Inari's prone form.

Before either of the two could quite register his presence he'd run through hand seals and spat out a wind style; drilling air bullet at the one standing over the boy.

Said grunt took the jutsu straight to the chest and was forcefully propelled through the closed front door of the house. As all eyes turned to follow the man's flight Naruto quickly made several shadow clones and had them sneak up behind the man holding Tsunami.

When everyone turned to look back at him he began slowly advancing on the the pair before the guy held his katana to Tsunami's throat and began shouting. "Back off, kid!" His cry was slightly too high, his eyes too wide to be threatening, showing just how scared the display had him. Naruto stopped his advance. "One more step and she dies."

"So?" Naruto countered, "Our contract is to protect the bridge builder, not his family. Also, you kill her and there's nothing stopping me from using this..." he pulled out a kunai, "to gut you like a fish."

Now the guy was sweating bullets, he held his katana a little tighter and closer to Tsunami's neck. "I mean it kid, I'll do it!"

"Option one; you kill her, I kill you, blah blah blah we both lose out. Option two, you put down your little toy sword and run on home while the big boys play. Or, option three..."

Naruto's clones spoke up from directly behind the man, "We kill you right now." The guy's scream was cut short as one clone cut his throat whilst two more grabbed his arm to stop him from killing Tsunami and the rest stabbed the guy in various vital organs.

Shaking uncontrollably, as soon as she was released Tsunami dropped to the floor and vomited up her breakfast.

Naruto crouched beside her and offered her a drink of water whilst his clones cleaned up the mess. Grudgingly she accepted as he spoke; "Mah, mah, sorry about all that." He said, a big smile on his face to reassure her, "I had to distract the guy while my clones got into position. Also, sorry about the door."

"How...?" Came a small voice from the middle of the floor, "How can you smile like that after what you just did?"

"Inari," Naruto began, "It was necessary to protect you and your mother. Some things, especially those precious to you, you have to be willing to fight to protect. That's what strength means to me, that's what strength means to my brother as well. As long as we are protecting each other or those we care about, we will face any hardship. Was it right to kill those two? In an ideal world, no. It was necessary, however, to protect you guys and I can live with that. I hate having to kill, but I'd hate to see you two get killed even more if there was something I could have done to have stopped it."

"But... but Gato's got an army, how can anyone be strong enough to fight that?"

"You don't have to be strong on your own."

"Eh?"

"Gato's got an army? Get your own damn army!"

Harry was having a problem.

Scratch that, he had two bloody problems, the only thing was he could only kill one of them.

Problem one was the needle throwing, mask wearing, ice using bastard that was Zabuza's hunter-nin partner.

Problem two was the glory seeking, stuck-up, emo, sharingan wielding cock sucker that was Sasuke Uchiha. That and Konoha's rules about 'friendly fire'. If he had his way there would be no friendly about it.

He was currently stuck with the broody bishounen-from-hell inside their mutual enemy's ice mirror jutsu, dodging wave after wave of senbon needles. Fortunately his new taijutsu style training had incorporated enough dodging practice from Naruto's army of kunai-throwing clones that he was mostly free of... well he wasn't vitally wounded.

Sasuke, however was fairing even better as he had the unfortunate habit of placing himself behind Harry whenever a fresh wave of senbon appeared.

Harry had no idea how many senbon were currently sticking out of his back but he had the strangest urge to paint himself blue, put on a pair of red shoes and just run. This was not a good sign in his opinion.

"God damn it! Why can't I copy this guy's jutsu?"

"Ha, foolish child. Even with your precious eyes only one of my kin could use my bloodline jutsus."

"Oi, Captain Emo, stop whining and try thinking of a way out of here."

"Dobe, it's not my fault you were too stupid not to hang back whilst your betters began fighting."

Harry gritted his teeth and tried to think of his own way out. He couldn't project any seals onto the mirrors... maybe the ground beneath them? No, he'd tried that and the mirror just regenerated almost instantly. He definitely couldn't fight this guy up close whilst the damn jutsu was active. He didn't know many jutsu, well underground projection fish or whatever Kakashi called it might help but he never learnt it. Dammit Naruto was the ninjutsu guy on their team and they just had to leave him at the house to recover from passing out.

Kakashi was once more fighting Zabuza, and it was shaping up to be just as bad as the last time. He didn't even have help as he'd planned because he wasn't the only one who called for backup during the week long respite they'd both had. Ducking a slice that came out of the ever thickening mist and took down a set of scaffolding he glanced over to see how Anko was doing. Before he could get a look at her he was forced to dodge and stab at another of Zabuza's mist clones. Those were definitely getting old fast.

Anko, meanwhile, had the distinct honour of fighting an individual she's neither been informed about nor prepared for whilst her comrade faced off against the eyebrow-less wonder and her student played with the man's little boy-toy. The man she was facing was another missing mist nin. His face was mostly obscured by long shaggy hair, he wore a kind of black overcoat/cloak ensemble that did much to obscure his figure and hide his hands and feet.

This led to Anko unfortunately having no clue which way he would go next or what jutsus he would be performing when he did. Fortunately he didn't seem keen on using jutsu and instead focused on trying to get in close and stab her with his kunai, launching senbon needles whenever she managed to retreat a little to gain some distance.

Fortunately her flexibility allowed her to mostly avoid his attacks, though she did get nicked with a senbon at first which turned out to be coated in a mild poison. Redoubling her dodging efforts she exulted when she ducked a swipe meant for her neck and managed to bury her kunai in the man's chest.

Her grin faded when he didn't even slow down and she had to roll to the side to duck an overhead slash.

'What the hell? He should at least have been irritated by that. He's not wearing armour that I can tell..." Anko thought as she kept dodging the man's follow-up combination of strikes, 'The blade stuck so that means he has to be... Oh for fuck's sake! How did Mist even get one?"

"Fucking puppet wielding bastard! Show yourself!" She yelled into the mists surrounding the bridge. Her only answer was a directionless chuckle at her expense and another volley of senbon needles from the puppet. Said puppet then dropped all pretence of humanity and soared up into the air, the shaggy hair parting to reveal the wooden visage of a larger than normal Karasu-style puppet.

Sakura was panicking. Her beloved Sasuke-kun had gotten trapped in an ice prison with Harry-baka, her sensei was locked in another struggle with Zabuza and the other woman was stuck fighting a really creepy guy... who had just started flying!

This was bad. This was really bad. She couldn't even go help her Sasuke-kun because she had to guard the client. What was she going to do?

Is that music?

Naruto had found that clones he henge'd into birds could actually fly. Now he was riding the only bird he'd ever heard of as being big enough to carry a human, a Roc. He didn't know that said bird was a mythical creature because if he did then he'd have clones henge'd into dragons following him around constantly.

He'd also tried another aspect of his clone henge's and said Roc was carrying another clone in the form of a boom-box.

For some reason he felt that 'Flight of the Valkyries' was truly fitting for what he had planned.

Approaching the bridge from the air he waited until they were almost overhead before leaping off with a cry; "TAJUU KAGE BUSHIN NO JUTSU!"

Everyone looked up as a force of over two thousand Naruto clones with shit-eating grins appeared over the battlefield. Kakashi had time to think 'Oh god, no!' and perform a quick Kawarimi before the same cry was heard from more than a thousand mouths.

"FUTON: DAITOPPA NO JUTSU!"

"AUTHOR STYLE: CLIFFHANGER NO JUTSU!"

A/N: Right, new chapter and with it a request. REVIEW people! Seriously 50 reviews? There are 109 people out there who have favourite'd this story and 153 who've got it on alert! Seriously, I'm running out of funnys to put in the story (Until they get to Hogwarts that is) and need suggestions, comments, opinions, whatever.

I thought posting a challenge would get more reviews last time but no such luck. So this time it's open suggestions for reviews to get the comments coming in.

Choice no.1: Summoning contracts; Yes, no? Found, gifted, self created? Which animal for who? Should Harry get one?

Choice no.2: Should Harry's Chakra projection (Still need to come up with a japanese name for that) become a doujutsu bloodline? As in a technique that imprints itself on a user's DNA with frequent use? Could be a kinjutsu because it overrides previous bloodlines such as the Sharingan and Byakugan and as such is feared as 'dangerous' by the clan council.

Choice no.3: As a last reserve, if you can't think of ANYTHING else to comment or review on, maybe I'd be open to suggestions for future pairings as a remote possibility IF you make a decent argument for your case AND you appease me with gifts of cyber cookies and/or shinys.

OMAKE by Keeper of Storms

The guards ran for all they were worth towards the office. Someone had not only bypassed several of the alarms but eliminated half of the shift before the alarm was raised. Even then, the only reason that had happened was because of an accident. The new guy had taken a wrong turn and found the unconscious bodies tied up in a corner of the storeroom. As the door came in sight they didn't slow down, crashing straight through it with a resounding smash as the door splintered under the weight of their assault.

They quickly began searching, spreading out across the room in an attempt to find anything amiss. It was a cry from the sergeant that brought said item to their attention. One of the many hidden safes in the room had been opened, the contents no longer present. These papers in particular were extraordinarily valuable, as they contained the operational details of the smuggling ring currently operating in Fire Country… A smuggling ring sponsored by the advisor to the Lord of the castle. If Konoha were to get their hands on these papers… The end of all those involved would be swift, and most likely painful. Unknown to the guards there was a scolding currently taking place a mere hundred metres away…

The distance meant they did not hear a, rather grating not to mention sickening, voice coo with disappointment. "Tora! How could you run away like that! Shame on you!"