They could hear Team Ten before they could see them. Sasuke suppressed a shudder and double checked his expression was blank and calm; Sakura may not be a fan-girl anymore (he owed sensei big for that) but he remembered what she and Ino had been like.

Hopefully, Ino had grown up too.

And if she hadn't, then he could at the least hope Sakura didn't revert at seeing her 'ultimate fan-girl rival' in person.

They had rivals in who was the better fan-girl. What was wrong with girls? Did the extra X-chromosome make them more susceptible to insanity?

"Baka! This is our mission!" Ino screeched.

Naruto stumbled, shaking his head and growling, before saying, "She just killed my clone! Damn, sensei – you go first."

Kakashi-sensei just chuckled and nodded, jumping down from the trees and they followed his lead, falling into the diamond formation he'd set them in earlier today. It made sense after all, especially now that Sasuke had his sharingan to cover his left.

The three genin and one apparently seriously tired jounin were arrayed around a pale-faced civilian man who took one look at them and flinched, taking a half-step back. Ino spotted it and rounded on them, opening her mouth to start shouting again when sensei flared his killing intent and said, "Enough, Yamanaka-chan."

She shut her mouth with a gulp and the oppressive atmosphere lifted, sensei clearly giving his stupid eye-smile as he said, "Maa, Asuma-san, what are you doing on the ground? Sleeping on the job?"

"Shut up Hatake," the man panted, "Momochi Zabuza was definitely not a pushover. He dead?"

"Taken care of, as was his accomplice," sensei said breezily, "Injuries?"

"Minor cuts for me, mostly chakra exhaustion," the jounin-sensei, Asuma, apparently, groaned, "My kids are fine. Yours?"

"Eh, blood's not theirs," sensei shrugged and Sakura squawked, "What?! I still have blood all over me? Ewww! Sasuke, Naruto, why didn't you say anything?!"

"…Because we thought you knew?" Naruto said hesitantly, "Ah! Please don't kill me!" he hid behind Sasuke and the Uchiha sighed, knowing what they were doing.

Mocking arguments and banter – a sign of teamwork. An entertaining one, at least, so he'd suffer through it silently. It was working after all, Team Ten's genin looked at least interested, if not perturbed, and that civilian looked nauseous.

"Grrr…"

"Sakura, enough," sensei said quietly, "We'll all clean up once we get Tazuna-san home and Team Ten rested up and secure."

Sakura subsided, nodding shortly and retaking her spot in the diamond. Professionalism retained despite Ino's presence. So far, so good.

"Naruto, one clone, please," sensei requested, his own clone appearing beside him and his hands blurred through the summoning jutsu, the pug from his contract, Pakkun, appearing with a simple, "Yo. Not back in Konoha yet, boss?"

"No, had an emergency," sensei said, "Track this scent – there's a spot about a mile back that's the kill zone, we need to find their hideout. Should be mixed with Zabuza's."

Pakkun took a few whiffs of sensei's bloody arm (now that had been a cool jutsu) and nodded, saying, "You got it boss," before searching the area with the clones following him.

Sasuke seriously wanted to learn kage bunshin – then he could back sensei up on these errands too! Naruto was getting so much more experience than he was this way, it was ridiculous!

"All right team, expanded diamond around Team Ten and Tazuna. Asuma, you going to make it yourself?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine," the man groaned, pulling himself to his feet slowly. "Didn't think the old man would send another genin team – didn't think he'd send anyone, actually."

"We were in Keiharu, it was convenient," sensei replied, Sasuke having to strain a bit to hear after he took up his position – Ino was, of course, the closest member of Team Ten to him but was at least limiting her fangirlishness to heated looks and sidelong glances rather than doing anything else. He seriously didn't want to deal with that. At all.

Actually – since Naruto could kawarimi with a jounin, he could surely do a replacement with him…

Something to bargain for.

He could probably swap tips for the chakra-string exercise, because that had been super useful fighting the hunter-nin. The whole fight had been an adrenaline fueled rush, he didn't even remember it starting, not clearly – just a sudden flash of white and there were so many senbon flying at him – he hurled kunai and shuriken, enhanced for speed and strength but the nin was just too fast he only got some blows because of those chakra strings, he was able to tug them back towards him while the nin was in the way. Now that he was calmer, he could remember where the sharingan activated – things were suddenly clearer, and more set in his memory – he'd been able to count the senbon as they flew towards him, deflect some with his kunai and drop in time for sensei to crash into the fight and take care of things.

They'd been so fast!

Sakura had been pleasingly competent, assessing his arm and informing him of the paralysis points, which was reassuring, especially when she was able to start removing them and confirm there wasn't any poison. Naruto had been weirdly protective and Inuzuka-like – and when the hunter-nin had shown up again his fast reactions and that weird trace of intense killing intent – he was just glad that sensei had flashed over and killed the nin with his chirping lightning jutsu, blood-shower aside.

Something that made him want to shy away from Naruto couldn't be good.

***===***pagebreak***===***

Kakashi was relieved when they reached Tazuna's house and the man greeted his daughter and introduced Team Ten – Asuma handled their introductions and Kakashi graciously turned down her offer to come inside immediately. He and his genin needed to wash up and review appropriate behavior before they went in there.

Judging by Sasuke's easing tension as they walked towards the household dock and Team Ten was ushered inside, he wasn't the only one who needed a bit of a breather.

Taking off his vest, Kakashi considered his shirt and gloves ruefully before pulling them off too, cackling mentally when his kids sagged as his under-mask remained in place. Suckers.

"Damn it sensei!" Naruto grumbled, crouching down and splashing water on his face, "We will see your face eventually!"

"You will," he agreed, "How's this, when you're Hokage, I'll show you three my face, so long as all of you are alive, jounin and in Konoha for the promotion ceremony."

"Deal!" they all chorused, Sakura turning to Naruto and saying grimly, "Sasuke and I have a lot of work to do."

"Hey!" Naruto spluttered, Sasuke finally chuckling out loud, which was undoubtedly the goal if Sakura's pleased grin was any indication.

Shaking his head, Kakashi unsealed his pack and dug around for another shirt, kneeling next to the water-line and scrubbing his arm and gloves clean before pulling the clean shirt on. After that he set to work on the shirt, water around the dirty sleeve turning pink. "Neh sensei – what was with that guy?" Naruto asked, "He had a mask like ANBU!"

"That was a fake hunter-nin," Kakashi replied, "From Kiri. Or at least pretending to be from Kiri, that ice-jutsu he used looked like a bloodline from there, but they were reported wiped out during the massacres."

"Why would you fake being a hunter-nin? Don't they – oh. If Zabuza-san got in a tough spot, the hunter-nin could jump in and fake killing him with senbon, I read about some death-like state really good senbon users could induce – and then drag him away without people being suspicious," Sakura explained, wringing out her hair and sitting back on her heels, "Right sensei?"

"Exactly Sakura-chan," he smiled at her, wringing out his shirt and checking the sleeve – not quite clean yet. "Standard policy for hunter-nin is to behead the body and burn it on the spot, so there might be some suspicion if he took off with the supposed corpse, but on the whole, slim odds. Especially if the only goal was to escape."

He checked his shirt again – good enough. Wringing it out and tossing it over his shoulder after he put on his vest, he sealed up his pack and asked, "Ready to head inside?"

"First, Naruto – if you kawarimi with me whenever Ino tries to hug me, I'll teach you the chakra string thing sensei taught me – and a fire jutsu if sensei okays it," Sasuke offered, Naruto perking up at the idea of a new jutsu – and a new jutsu that set stuff on fire at that.

"I'll send a clone so I don't get a concussion, so there may be a bit of delay, but you have a deal!" Naruto grinned, the two genin shaking on it.

Trading knowledge with allies already! His little genin were growing up so fast.

"I'll try to distract her," Sakura sighed, "With this scar being visible, shouldn't be too hard, she was giving me weird looks the whole walk here. Do I tell her what really happened sensei, or the edited report you made us read? Or Naruto's story – whatever that is."

"The edited one," Kakashi replied promptly, having thought more about it on the walk over and realizing there was a problem with telling them Naruto's story, even though he was seriously looking forward to hearing what he had come up with. "The real story is much less epic, neh? Just make sure you tell her that your parents are going to hear a different story so they don't know you got that injured in training, so she doesn't blow your cover with them. Since your injury was treated by a medic-nin and is in the edited story's report, she may one day look it up and know you lied to her – better to seal her with conspiracy against your parents. She'll understand, she's a clan child."

"Right, thanks sensei," she nodded, Sasuke saying quietly, "Thanks Sakura."

She absolutely lit up at that. Her crush probably wasn't entirely gone then, but she was at least capable of hiding it and working as a competent teammate, so he'd leave it be for now. It'd die (or not) as it would.

"Good. Now, let's go in and get the story behind this. We need information from all perspectives, and then we're going to see where we fit in to help. No offers of assistance without my okaying it, got it? Konoha hasn't profited from this yet."

"Hai sensei."

He'd make professionals out of them yet!

Naruto made a clone to follow them in, which was a good thing as the moment Sasuke stepped in the door Ino lunged for him, squealing, "Sasuke-kun!"

Her face when she was left hugging a Naruto was priceless and she shouted, "Naruto-baka!" swinging her fist towards his head – Kakashi sighed and grabbed her wrist, saying sternly, "I would appreciate it, young kunoichi, if you did not assault any members of my team. Your attentions are not wanted."

"Thanks sensei," his boys chorused, the clone dispelling himself.

Releasing her and leaving the girl to retreat to her teammates, rubbing her wrist with wide eyes, he turned to the sitting Asuma and Tazuna, saying, "I have received authorization to renegotiate the terms of the contract and serve as witness for Konohagakure no Sato. What has been agreed to already?"

He sat down next to them while his genin split as he'd implied they should, Naruto bounding over to Shikamaru and Chouji while Sakura approached Ino gingerly. Sasuke hesitated before going into the kitchen to find Tazuna's daughter and either offer help or question her – ah, sounded like a combination of both. Such a good bunch.

"As initially hired, our contract with Tazuna-san is up," Asuma said, chewing on a cigarette but not lighting it – apparently smoking wasn't allowed inside this house. Good, Kakashi's nose thanked that policy. "But given the fact nukenin have been hired against him, it seems likely that as soon as we leave, the problem will continue."

"If I could just finish my bridge," Tazuna inserted, an undertone of desperation in his voice – get in line, old man, a lot of people hired shinobi out of desperation – "Then Gatou's stranglehold will be released and people will stop being so scared of him!"

Kakashi highly doubted it would work that way. Given Gatou's usual policies, he could easily hire a nukenin or two to blow up the bridge when it was completed, giving them the illusion of success and allowing them a day or so of hope before crushing it completely. Do that, make an example of the bridge-builder and his family, and there you had it – guaranteed fearful obedience for at least a couple of years before desperation made people stupidly brave again.

Given the look Asuma was shooting him, he agreed but didn't want him to spell it out to the civilian. Please, he knew something about civilian-shinobi relations. Not a lot granted, but something.

"So you want to hire Team Ten as protection until you finish your bridge?" Kakashi said blandly, "Given the rank of nukenin after you, the originally C-rank escort mission was definitely an A-rank. Assuming we call the country of Wave your home, the journey here with the Demon Brothers was a B-rank at least. Adjusting that price to a B-rank, along with the surcharge for lying to us in the first place, leaves you 80,000 ryo in debt."

Tazuna spluttered and he could hear Tsunami-san choke, Kakashi continuing mercilessly, "An additional protection mission of indeterminate length – let's say a week, to be on the safe side – against unknown opponents of up to A-rank… that would be a B-rank with a potential for increase depending on opponents encountered. So that's another 100,000, at least. This is, of course, assuming you are interested in hiring only Team Ten. Normally, you would be charged an additional 50,000 ryo for our assistance in the resolution of your falsely-classified mission, however as we were ordered here by our Hokage to assist Team Ten without any such terms being stated, that surcharge is being disregarded."

Asuma spoke up then, tone deliberately chiding – they'd played this sort of game before, after all – "Come on Kakashi, be reasonable. The man would have paid for the higher rank mission if he'd had the money – and surely you've seen the place? That Gatou creep has the entire country starving to line his pockets, it's not right."

"I am being reasonable," Kakashi said, "I just want him to understand the kind of debt he's incurred. Now Tazuna-san, Konoha does have a policy for completing missions on the understanding of payment on a later date, or even for favors – for example, if your bridge were completed, we'd accept a trade agreement where there were increased export taxes on your goods for ten years, or Konoha and Hi no Kuni received preferential treatment in trade agreements up to the value owed."

"For future reference, old man, if you'd told the mission desk that when you asked for this mission, this could be done without the surcharge, and, more importantly, without putting my students at excessive risk," Asuma said, conciliatory attitude dropping away to let the bridge-builder know just how big a mess he'd made with this lie of his.

"I wouldn't," Tazuna gulped, looking between the two of them, "I wouldn't be able to say anything with that – I mean, the daimyo has final call on that sort of taxing stuff but… but if I finished this bridge, I'd have the right to charge a toll to use it. I wouldn't for a bit, to get people to use it, or at least wouldn't for people coming out of Wave – but I could at least make it so no Konoha citizen paid, and then give all my toll money to Konoha until the debt was paid off. I don't know how long it would take, to do that, but… I at least have the power to offer that. I can't say anything about taxes and stuff."

"Hmm. Acceptable. We'll hash out details like toll amounts and interest later, depending on if your daimyo is open to contracting with us," Kakashi agreed, knowing the daimyo, who had obviously let Gatou get a foothold in the country, would undoubtedly agree to no such thing unless Gatou's head was in hand.

But the tolls – that was a decent idea. And one that would let them do the mission without getting a reputation for freebies, but still keeping Konoha's reputation as 'friendly and merciful'.

And since the man wasn't asking about hiring Team Seven, more than understandable, given the sheer volume of debt he'd accumulated already without increasing his protectors, Kakashi's side-mission might just have a chance to kick in. This once, it seemed having baby genin wasn't going to cramp his style.

Tazuna let out a gusty sigh of relief, bowing to both of them and saying, "Thank you, shinobi-san. Wave and I are both in your debt."

"Maa, just the job," Kakashi waved him off, relatively cheerful now that Konoha was profiting, grabbing a scroll and pen from his vest and writing up the contract before signing it as witness, "Read it over and sign if you agree, Tazuna-san, then pass it off to Asuma. Jounin are allowed to accept missions on behalf of their genin."

The man read every word – not a complete idiot then – and signed quickly, passing the scroll and pen off to Asuma who didn't even bother skimming it before he signed with a flourish. An opportunity lost!

"I think I'm going to take that offer of a futon, Tazuna-san," Asuma grimaced, flexing his left hand experimentally, "I need to treat these cuts and pass out."

"Right, yes, let me show you to the guest room – we should have enough rooms for the girls to share their own," Tazuna said, standing quickly and Asuma was about to follow so Kakashi took the opportunity to ask, "Want me to do anything with your kids?"

"…Nah, you got your own brats to deal with. Besides, it's not like you're getting paid for this," Asuma shrugged, looking over his shoulder at his genin, "Oy, Team Ten! Take it easy for the evening, help out Tazuna-san and Tsunami-san if they need it, obey Hatake-san's orders, but you got the evening off. See you in a few hours, hopefully."

"Sweet, I'm exhausted," Ino huffed, "Thanks sensei."

Asuma waved it off and followed Tazuna into the hall and up the stairs, from the sounds of it. Kakashi made a copy of the contract for his own records and read the signed one with the sharingan – between that and the Yamanaka extraction technique, if the worst happened he'd have proof it was agreed to.

So far, he hadn't ever needed to use that combination because he didn't want people in his head. Ever. Which meant he reacted very, very strongly to those who made contracts vanish or change terms without his agreement, because they made him risk dealing with just that.

The joys of a mercenary existence.

Leaving the unsigned copy on the table, he tucked the original away and rose to his feet, turning to Tsunami-san and saying, "May I steal away my student, Tsunami-san? Also, if you and I could negotiate compensation for room and board during the duration of the mission at some point, that would be appreciated."

"Of course," she smiled, a very pretty woman, too bad this was a mission, "Thank you, shinobi-san, for being willing to renegotiate. Perhaps we could have that discussion after dinner?"

Ah, so she had had dealings with shinobi before and understood what her father had risked. Good to know, and very curious, that she had known what her father had not. "At your convenience, Tsunami-san. Sasuke, come along. Naruto! Sakura! Outside, let's go, chop chop!"

"You mean chirp, chirp," Naruto said, standing from where he was sprawled next to Shikamaru.

"No no," Sakura replied, wagging her finger as she walked to the door, "Chop chop is right – you use a kunai to threaten people to get moving. Chirp chirp makes them stop moving. Permanently."

"Are you calling my A-rank Raiton jutsu chirp chirp?" Kakashi asked, unable to keep a note of incredulity out of his voice. Really, he had thought Naruto was bad – at this rate, the Naruto-Sakura team was going to be far, far more dangerous to his and Konoha's sanity.

Heaven help them if they managed to wrangle Sasuke into more of their schemes. To think, he had thought the girl was the innocent one.

"That's what it sounds like, sensei," Sakura replied virtuously, eyes wide and attempting to be guileless – she managed remarkably well, really.

"And we don't know its name," Naruto supplied with a mischievous grin, "Have to call it something!"

Kakashi started to tell them before sighing, his chosen name wasn't going to help his case in the least. At their eager eyes (even Sasuke, damn it!) he gave in and said, "It's called chidori, it's an original technique of mine."

"Yeah – chirp chirp totally makes sense," Naruto nodded smugly, the four of them finally passing into the trees surrounding Tazuna's property. "So what are we doing, sensei?"

"We're going to take advantage of the afternoon light and examine our corpses for intelligence," Kakashi replied, happy to get back on a serious topic, "Did the Academy talk about corpse-searching?"

"Uh… just that there were dangers, since they could be trapped, I think," Naruto answered, of all people.

"That was the long and short of it," Sakura agreed, apparently considered the resident expert on all things Academy. "They talked a little about the fact you could get intelligence that way, and that bringing in corpses for bounties was a good way to supplement your own income, but not much."

"Well then, allow me to educate you," Kakashi said, bowing with a slight flourish and producing his corpse scrolls. "These are specially designed sealing scrolls intended for corpses – when sealed, the corpse does not decay for at least a year, and remains recognizable for at least three. These have standards after all. Black and red trim are for enemy corpses, black and gold trim are for allies," he grew more solemn as the topic distanced from any sort of humor beyond black, "Every shinobi carries at least one of each. Personally, I carry one ally scroll for each of my teammates per mission and at least that many enemy scrolls. I always keep three – two enemy, one ally – easily accessible. These scrolls are also special in that you can store them within standard storage scrolls without damage. Explosive tags – and specially marked ones – are the only other seals commonly used that can be layered like that. Not recommended mind, but not catastrophic."

"How hard is it to create tags that can be stored like that?" Naruto asked, "At least, compared to basic tags."

"The ones I taught you can be stored. It's possible to make 'shorthand' seals for use in combat especially things like explosive tags – but first you need a thorough understanding of theory. If you want, I can get you some scrolls on it so you can advance independently – but don't experiment unless I'm around all right?" he had visions of a demolished Konoha, a sheepish Naruto in the middle saying, "Uhhh… too much chakra?"

The Sandaime would kill him.

"Of course sensei!" Naruto beamed, "That sounds awesome, thanks!"

"Good. All right, Zabuza first, or hunter-nin?"

"Hunter-nin!" Sakura cheered, and Kakashi shook his head, unsealing the proper scroll and the body thudding into the ground again. He kneeled on one side, his genin kneeling across from him and watching curiously – he wasn't surprised. Once the body was dead, there was a gruesome sort of curiosity that took hold and overrode a lot of nausea. Given, this was a pretty clean death, and no need for a full autopsy, so that helped.

"All right, first thing you want to do is see their face, especially if you've familiarized yourself with the bingo book so you have a solid chance of recognizing any good bounties," he began.

They were hanging off every word, and he wouldn't be surprised if Sakura was itching to take notes. Seriously, they were pretty adorable.

***===***pagebreak***===***

Ino sat down next to Shikamaru and Chouji, demanding, "Okay, what did Naruto-baka tell you?"

"Don't think he's baka anymore, Ino. Not with that swap they pulled with Zabuza," Chouji pointed out.

"Please," she waved him off, "Sakura-chan told me that it was her and Sasuke's plan with their sensei correcting it. Naruto-baka had nothing to do with it."

"Sakura-chan?" Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, "Not Forehead?"

Ino hesitated, before nodding, saying, "Sakura-chan told me she'd decided to worry about catching Sasuke-kun later, and that our nicknames were only okay if they were amiable, and she didn't think they were. So she stopped calling me Ino-pig and I stop calling her Forehead. Whatever, she's just trying to lull me into a false sense of security! I'll still conquer in the realm of love!" she vowed, holding her fist to the heavens with fire in her eyes.

"Ugh. So troublesome."

"What was that?!"

Tsunami sighed, looking at the meal she was creating ruefully as she listened to the children explode into an argument (or at least the girl did, if she wasn't mistaken, the boys were entirely ignoring her and one seemed to be asleep). She'd been thinking about asking the remaining genin for help, but she'd probably have better luck if she waited for that other team to come back in – they had plenty for tonight, but they may need some extra fish tomorrow, with all these shinobi here to protect her father.

If she worded it right, she'd even get them to help her out without that silver-haired jounin charging her anything for it. The children would be easy enough to guilt into doing chore-like errands for free – she had the patented mom voice, after all. But with her father having pulled a stupid stunt to get discounted protection and then gotten called on it, she wasn't about to risk anything that might be even vaguely interpreted as taking advantage without proper compensation.

Honestly, it was a good thing her father let her handle the finances most of the time, he obviously had no head for it whatsoever.


A/N: We begin Wave Arc proper... a few more chapters for this arc, we'll see if any new ideas come along to kill my three chapters like last time... Hope this works for you, more of a world-building chapter than any epic action sequences.