[R/A]:

To karthik9: It is good review.

To darthridian: I might let Zabuza and Haku die anyways. Just read on to find out… As for keeping quiet, Zabuza isn't a Jonin-class opponent for nothing :).

To alaskan-dracolych: Well, just wait and see.

To fanofmany: But it's still not enough choppa.

To NecromancerX69: Thanks, the sword will become a permanent part of our blonde ninja's arsenal. As for the mekshop idea, it will have to wait at least until after the timeskip. At the moment, Naruto only provides the ideas, and Kogs sets to work to make those ideas a reality. Naruto hasn't picked up any tech skills to speak of at the moment (granted, he does know which way around to point a shoota, which makes him probably the most tech savvy person on the planet, but still).

To Tzeentch: Ah, my least favorite deity has decided to join us (nothing towards you personally, but out of all Chaos gods birdface is the one I truly despise). Well, you'll have your 'malfunction', just. As. Planned. *cackles*

To Lord Sia: Plenty of people have that: Orks, Khornate Bezerkers, Jason Vorheese, Freddy Krueger… On second thought, start worrying.

To toxinvictoria: You're welcome, I feel people who give me reviews deserve a little favor in return. On your suggestions, I like 1, I just have to see how I can implement it. 2 is a lot harder, I feel it will get in the way of the plot too much. It's hard to make a fun story if the protagonist can shake off a dismemberment as a minor injury, it leans too much towards suedom. 3 is fun, although it won't show up until the invasion arc I'm afraid. 4 is… Well, I like the idea, but I've got to spend some time working that out. I'll come back to you on this one.

to Absolute Edge: Stomp no more, update has arrived.

to Outcaste: I'm afraid you'll have to be patient. I'm studying aerospace (rocket science for the layman), and that takes priority over writing.

to blane744: Thank you for the appreciation, as for the update see the response above.

to Skelo: Thank you.

[A/N]: I'm back! First, any reviews along the lines of 'hey, it's an update!' will no longer be replied to, as it would just take up too much space. They're still appreciated though. I must also note that, no, I do not dislike Sakura. She just makes a perfect Tsundere, complete with unstoppable rages, so she may seem a bit unreasonable at times.

I have started on an original work, because I enjoyed writing so much. Who knows, in a couple of years, maybe sooner if I fail my studies (I don't hope so)… Frak it, enough of me dreaming, here's what you've been waiting for:

[=\/=]

8. Da Bridge Battle Part Wun

It would surely have been the end of our male protagonists, had there not been Tsunami to save them with a simple message: Kakashi had woken up. The older Jonin was still lying down on his sleeping roll, but as soon as his students entered his single open eye turned towards them.

"What did I miss?" he said. After catching up on the events that had transpired, Kakashi gave them a contemplating look. Though he didn't show it on the outside, Kakashi was proud of the fact that in just one month his team was starting to show true competence. Still there were flaws in their planning, and it was his duty to point them out.

"You did well, but there were several faults in your plan, the most blatant being splitting up into individuals. Two of you might stand a chance against a chunin, but alone? Also, while you did good to avoid capture, what if one of you got into trouble? How would the others know?" Kakashi said, and continued to mercilessly dissect their actions over the past twenty four hours. To be fair he also highlighted their plus points.

"Allright. Now that the debrief is over, time to plan our next moves. While your paranoia is a good thing Sakura, right now we need to concentrate on our defenses. No more spying trips that is. Right now, one of you will remain here and train under my supervision, the other two will remain with Tazuna, rotating daily. In the evening, I will train all three of you. Starting now."

"What, right now?" Sakura asked. "Aren't you too seriously injured?"

Kakashi simply gave them his patented eye smile.


"We have to what?" Naruto shouted.

"I believe you heard me quite clearly the first time around. Climb trees." Kakashi said. Then, to the amazement of his students, he walked up a tree, crutches and all, as if gravity had shifted to accommodate him. Pensively he stared down to his students, suspended upside down on a tree branch.

"Of course, there's the minor detail that you're not allowed to use your hands." Kakashi said, starting their instruction. Later that evening, much swearing could be heard outside of Tazuna's residence. Again. Then an explosion could be heard. Again. Kakashi sighed. Every now and then, Naruto would get so frustrated with what little progress he made that he would blow up whatever poor tree he was training on. It had made him jump up at first, but after a while the shock wore off. Kakashi wondered for a moment if he should be disturbed by the fact that explosives were now so commonplace around the blonde that he was no longer worried about it. At least it shut up Inari about them never going to be able to win. The look on his face was quite amusing when he realized that one of the junior ninjas was able to shred a grown oak tree without much effort. Looking at the blonde contemplatively he decided that the largest obstacle for Naruto to becoming Hokage was his impatience, and that it would be something to work on. Moving on to his next pupil, Sasuke, it was almost the complete opposite. Whereas Naruto would loudly announce whenever he failed, Sasuke stayed silent. Whereas Naruto would blow up the tree if he got frustrated, Sasuke merely grit his teeth. And whereas Naruto overloaded the technique to the point of blowing up the bark, Sasuke held back to the point where he wouldn't stick to the tree enough. There were similarities though. Both, when all was said and done, went back up and at it, displaying extreme perseverance and stamina. Both were steadily making progress up the tree, each attempt higher than the last. And both really, really wanted nothing more than finish first. They would make fine rivals, pushing each other to new levels, possibly the most powerful Ninja of their generation. As for Sakura… frankly, Kakashi was amazed at how fast she'd mastered the technique. There was no doubt that she'd make an excellent Kunoichi, once she got over the fangirl behavior.


Several days later, an exhausted but thrilled duo entered the house.

"We…" Naruto began, panting.

"Did it." finished Sasuke. Then they collapsed in a tired heap on the floor.

"Kakashi-sensei, didn't you call them in at nightfall like you said you would?" asked a worried Sakura.

"Oh, I said that? Must have slipped my mind again." Kakashi commented airily. Getting more serious, he said, "Our enemies will probably make their move soon. Naruto, Sasuke," -the pile of human flesh gave off a vague grunt of acknowledgement- "rest for now. Then, I want you three to rotate between guarding the bridge, the house and training or resting. I'll be supporting you where needed."


"Think I overdid it?" Naruto asked.

"Nah, ya know da humie sayin': Betta safe den sorry." Kogs answered. They were currently standing outside Tazuna's house, having spent the entire morning of the next day making various upgrades to it, as Naruto had volunteered to take first watch defending the place. A solid steel wall (well, semi-solid at least) of two metres high surrounded the place, with grot-manned gun-turrets in strategic places, non-strategic places, and random places. Traps ranging from anti-tank mines to sguigpits dotted the surrounding area and to top it all off mechanised patrols roamed around at random intervals happily machinegunning everything that so much as twitched in the wrong way.

"Right, jobs a good one then." Naruto said, dispelling Kogs. He saw Inari eying him, and grinned. "Still think we're dead, boy?"

"Well, when my Kaa-san finds out that you trampled through her flower patch and subsequently rigged it with high-explosives, then yeah I think you're pretty dead." Inari answered. Naruto blanched.

"MY GARDEN!"

"Um, oops?"


After being forced to dismantle his elaborate defenses, Naruto spent the better part of the afternoon practicing with 'Eadchoppa, as he had dubbed the blade taken from Zabuza. Mainly it consisted of swinging the blade around a lot while trying to maintain his balance, being to weak at the moment to do more then simple chops and slices. Still, the devastating power of a successful hit, further magnified by the whirring chain-edge was enough to take down even the toughest of opponents, as demonstrated when he nearly cut down a girl watching him… after slicing straight through a cluster of pine trees, the hard wood slowing down the blade by roughly zero point zero per cent.

"Whoops, er, sorry girl." Naruto apologized. The girl seemed slightly ruffled but otherwise unharmed.

"It is okay, although I am a boy by the way. May I ask what you are doing here?" the effeminate boy replied.

"Training! I have to get stronger if I want to wield this thing in battle." Naruto said enthusiastically.

"It certainly is… unique. Where did you get such a blade?"

"I looted it from a ninja me and my team beat earlier, then I made some customizations to it." Naruto said. "I call it 'Eadchoppa."

"Are you not afraid of the wrath of the ninja you took it from when he finds out what you did?"

"Nah, he's probably dead anyways."

"You seem sure."

"Well, we found out that his employer never paid any ninjas he hired before, so probably he got double-crossed if he survived us defeating him." Naruto said shrugging.

"So anyway, what are you doing out here in the wood all alone?" Naruto asked.

"Oh, I was just gathering herbs for someone close to me. May I ask, are you a ninja?" the boy replied.

"You noticed? Yeah I am. Uzumaki Naruto, Konoha's number one most surprising ninja, future Hokage, pleased to meet you." Naruto said grinning.

"I'm Haku, well met. Future Hokage? Why would you want that position, don't you know how hard that job is?"

"To prove I'm the best ninja there is, to make everyone acknowledge my strength, and to prove something to someone!" Naruto summed up enthusiastically.

"To prove something to yourself or to others?" Haku asked.

"Both! I'll be the best Hokage ever, so that no one will have to be alone again, and to make everyone acknowledge my existence."

"Do you truly believe you can create a place where everyone can live together?"

"Hell yes! You know what, when I become Hokage, I can show you!" Naruto said, his boundless enthusiasm making Haku smile. His mind was reeling from all the new information. Zabuza would probably flip if he found out what Naruto did to his blade, but on the other hand the boy had also unwittingly warned them of an impeding betrayal and this... 'Eadchoppa' seemed a great deal more powerful than the original. Also, the boy had made him smile in his boundless enthusiasm, striving for a goal like that. If he succeeded, it would mean that finally he and Zabuza had a place to settle down.

"I certainly hope your dreams come true one day. Let's meet again somewhere." Haku said, and left.

"Sure, whatever. Later!" Naruto said, and went back to his training. 'What a weird boy. He was nearly prettier than… than…'

"Wait a minute - THAT was a BOY? Whoever thought that up was sick!" he shouted as realization hit him.


The week was over far too fast. That morning Kakashi announced he was back to full health, and he wanted to preform a team exercise by the waterside today. Halfway, Naruto realized he'd forgotten lunch, and went back. As the remaining members of team seven and Tazuna reached the bridge, they immediately knew something was up. A great fog cloud had settled over the construction site, and the normal sounds of the builders getting ready for a hard days work were missing, replaced by an eery silence. Coming closer, they could see the prone forms of several of Tazuna's men lying in haphazard piles all over the bridge. As Sakura kneeled down to check on one, a voice rang out.

"Don't worry about those, they'll live. One heck of a headache afterwards, can't move for a goddamn week or so, but they'll all live."

Kakashi's eye narrowed.

"Zabuza. What do you want?" he said, getting ready.

"Isn't it obvious? I want to talk." Zabuza replied from somewhere inside the mist.

"You're not getting Tazuna, wasn't I clear enough last time?"

A little chuckle followed. "You can keep that overweight drunk, I'm no longer interested in him. No, what I want is a little workout while we discuss our mutual problem. You see, my kind employer thinks he can stab me in the back without fear of retaliation, and I'm not really in the habit of letting little stinks like that live. So, what do you say? Just you and me, my student versus yours, while we talk things over. No deaths, promise." Zabuza replied in a sweet voice that was somehow much more threatening than any sort of battle-cry.


"Go faster, we're late!" Naruto shouted over the roaring noise. The trukk driver gladly obeyed, gunning the supercharged engine once more. They shot down the road to the construction site like a cannonball, when suddenly Naruto's eye caught something: Mist. Lots of mist, hanging around the unfinished part of the bridge in an unnatural white blob.

"Zoggit, looks like there's trouble ahead. Drive me closer! I want to hit them with my Choppa!" Naruto shouted from his perch on top of the drivers cabin.

"Yes boss!" replied the driver.

Meanwhile, Sasuke was back to back with Sakura in a dome made of icy mirrors. They had several needles sticking out of them, nothing fatal but highly painful. Haku was just too fast for either of them to catch up, politely trying to get them to give up.

"It is not shameful to lose to someone more powerful you know." he said from the safety of a mirror.

"Shut up. How can I get stronger if I give up when it gets hard?" replied Sasuke. He was getting frustrated by the fact that someone of his own age group was so much stronger than him. What was he doing wrong that he was so weak?

"Very well." said Haku, and it started to rain needles again.

"Looks like my student is a class higher, eh, Kakashi?" came a disembodied voice from the mist.

"Well, in all honesty I have only been training them for a month, and most of that was getting them to work together more." replied another voice. Said students realized that both their respective mentors were very close by now. A clang sounded from the top of the dome. One of the reflections of Haku moved, and the top mirror rumbled a little.

"Goddammit Haku, that's me!" cried Zabuza.

"Sorry sempai."

"I thought I told you to stay out of my fight!"

"Sorry sempai."

"Stop saying sorry!"

"So-I mean excuse me."

"And what on Earth is that racket?

Haku might have wanted to say something, but at that moment Naruto chose to make his entrance.


A few seconds earlier.

"YEEHAA! OUTTA DA WAY PINKIES! WOO!"

"Allright, we're here. Hit the brakes."

"WOOHOO! Wait, say again boss?"

"Hit the brakes."

"Err..."

"You know! For braking?"

"... Wot's brakin'?"

*SMASH*


Kinetic energy is the energy generated by a moving object, and can be calculated by taking half the mass times the velocity squared. Thus a golf ball moving at 100 meters per second contains less energy than a bowling ball moving at the same speed, and an ork trukk at this speed contains enough energy to smash through an ice mirror reinforced with chakra, keep on going, swerve around a flabbergasted Sasuke and Sakura, lose a wheel whilst smashing through another mirror and finally coming to a rest against a half-finished bridge railing. Naruto was launched of the top during the initial crash and landed somewhere over the edge with a splash. Shaking his head, Naruto swam up to the side of the bridge, ran up a support pillar and reappeared at the railing.

"The hero of the hour, who is always fashionably late, has appeared! Konoha's number one most surprising ninja, Uzumaki Naruto, has arrived!" he declared triumphantly.

"I take it that's your third student?" Zabuza said deadpan. He would facepalm were he not locked in a combat position with Kakashi.

"Yes he is. Not what you expected?"

"I dunno, I was thinking of someone taught by you to be more…"

"Subtle?"

"Bingo."

"What are you talking about?" asked Naruto offended. How could they not like his special entrance?

"Naruto, a basic ninja lesson: Don't attract attention to yourself, you'll only get killed faster." Kakashi sighed.

Zabuza's killing intent suddenly flared.

"Wait a minute, IS THAT MY SWORD?" he shouted, pointing to 'Eadchoppa strapped to Naruto's back.

"Can it, I looted it fair and square." Naruto said. When he blinked, 'Eadchoppa was gone from his back, Zabuza behind him inspecting the blade thoroughly.

"WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO MY BELOVED SWORD?" the assassin shouted angrily as he examined the chainsaw edge, the force field projector and the bulky power core. How anyone could do damage with this new… thing was beyond him. Use those stubby teeth along the edge to rasp away at an opponent like his former colleague Kisame did? Even then, the center of gravity was all wrong for that. That kid had ruined his blade! Zabuza looked at Naruto with a look in his eyes that predicted a horrible, slow, painful and messy death.

"I'M GOING TO ****ING KILL YOU!" he shouted, and raised the sword with one hand. Naruto wisely jumped out of the way before it could come down on his head.

"HOLD STILL YOU FAGGOT!" Zabuza shouted as he chased the orange clad ninja. As Naruto ducked under a slice, Zabuza noticed the buttons on the hilt. Experimentally, he pressed one as he chopped downward. Along the length of the blade blue lines lit up with a hum, and suddenly the weight of the blade decreased by more than a half. Because of the sudden change of weight and center of gravity Zabuza overshot his mark and embedded 'Eadchoppa into the bridge deck where it stuck. He raised an eyebrow.

"INTERESTING. Wait, why am I screaming that?"

He thumbed the second switch, and with a roar 'Eadchoppa freed itself as the chainsaw blade activated.

"STOP RUNNING YOU LITTLE SHIT!" he shouted as he started to chase Naruto all over the bridge, when suddenly Kakashi appeared in front of him.

"Zabuza, that is still my student. If you want to kill him, you'll have to go through me first." Kakashi said.

"Aw, don't worry. I'll only beat him up a little, but if you want to go first be my guest." Zabuza replied, and attacked. Kakashi stepped aside, and countered lightning quick with a couple of stabs, forcing the nukenin back.

Zabuza was so absorbed with his new opponent it took him a moment to realize there were more buttons. Zabuza started to grin. He was starting to like this new blade.

"Well, lets see what more this thing can do won't we?" he asked, and pressed the button as he moved to swat a couple of thrown Kunai out of the way. The collision didn't even make a sound as a golden-yellow glow surrounded the blade and reduced the metal projectiles to their component atoms. Zabuza only realized he had cut down a support after the scaffold it upheld came crashing down around him.

'What the hell?' he thought, and experimentally made a gouge in the bridge deck. The concrete offered hardly any resistance whatsoever. His smile got wider.

"Nice." Pointing the blade at Kakashi, Zabuza pressed the final button as he began to monologue. Before he could utter a word though, something shot out the tip that bowled the other Jonin over.

"Oh, it can shoot stuff too?" Zabuza mused as he looked at the sword again. "I think I might just start to like you."

Then he noticed a switch he had missed the first time around, hidden on the butt of the hilt. Swinging the sword overhead to deliver a coup de grace to the prone Kakashi, he pressed it. Immediately, every system powered down with a hum. This included the anti gravity plates, meaning that all of a sudden the one hundred kilogram sword weighed exactly that again. Caught by surprise, Zabuza lost his grip on it. Gravity had its way, and thus 'Eadchoppa fell straight down right on top of Zabuza's head with a nasty sounding thud. So it was that the Demon of the Mist was knocked out not by his opponent, but by his own weapon.

[=/\=]


Woohoo! longest chapter to date!I know in the manga the roles were reversed for Chakra-usage, but it seemed more fitting for their characters to make Sasuke use too little and Naruto too much. I also am aware that they're rushing through the training faster than normal, but I took a little artistic liberty here to fit in more choppa. Lastly, I must apologize for my slow updates. I currently study aerospace (that's rocket science in layman's terms), and it takes up a hell of a lot of my time and energy. Sorry, but my studies take priority over my writing.