Whew, a monster of a chapter! And I still wrote it faster than the previous one. Of course, now I'm worried that I should had taken more time with it and filled it a little bit more or something. Or that the pace was too quick. But I finally got into the good stuff. This story is what got me so interesting in writing this fic, and it finally starts unraveling here. This is where my long-term plans start. Enjoy!

Tazuna

When Kakashi arrived in the morning, Team Seven almost lost their collective minds.

When he promptly told them they had a C-rank mission, they openly started dispelling genjutsu.

"What? I think you three are ready for it, is all." Kakashi said with a shrug.

They still didn't believe him even as he led them to the Hokage Tower.

"What's this? It's just a bunch of darned brats!" a man exclaimed, coming into the Hokage's office at that moment with a bottle of alcohol in his hand.

The boys' suspicious stares at their jonin stopped, replaced by glares at the unknown man.

"Look at 'em, even the smallest one is glaring like a kicked puppy!" he kept going, taking a drink when he finished.

"What the hell's the big deal you asshole! And who are you?" the offended blond immediately fired back, and the Hokage winced. Sasuke nodded, fully agreeing with the village prankster and even Sakura secretly approved of her teammate.

"Now, now, we are all here for the same mission. Team Seven, meet Tazuna of the Land of Waves. You'll be escorting him home." the Hokage applacated his ninja, then turned swiftly to the drunk man. "And I can assure you, this team is quite capable. Three genin and a jonin are more than enough for a C-rank mission." he declared, catching the gulp of alcohol the man took and his lack of an answer.

Of course Hiruzen knew of Waves' plight, and he hoped for the bridge builder's sake that he had told the truth. It would be almost free money for the Leaf Village if Kakashi got even a sniff of enemy ninja and decided to abort the mission, as Tazuna would still have to pay. The risk that Team Seven could even get hurt before the silver-haired jonin detected any threats was essentially zero.

He was a former ANBU captain known for his great smell and on-the-fly decision making. Hiruzen could trust him to make the right call if things went south, right?

Right?

The Hokage held in a sigh; the aged man knew better than most that Kakashi could troll him by doing the exact opposite of his expectations if he knew about them. He could show no weakness to the dog summoner's nose to smell. No trace of his doubt, or of his confidence.

'Is it my imagination or is Kakashi's nose twitching? Bah, mind games!' the man at the head of the village wondered to himself, mentally cursing the jonin's ability to mess with him.

Luckily Kakashi was sneakily staring at Tazuna, noticing the drunkard's body language and coming to the same conclusion as the Hokage. While gifted, his genins were still oblivious to this whole invisible exchange but he wasn't their jonin for nothing.

'And I won't lose any more comrades if I can help it.' he mentally swore to himself, extending his hand to his new client and squeezing his hand stronger than normal at purpose.

Tazuna looked at the jonin as if he was seeing a ghost and made to say something, but chose to take another sip of the bottle while the kids snickered at each other. All they saw was the man being put in his place after making fun of them. Kakashi knew better.

'I'll have to teach them how to read this kind of thing…' the jonin noticed, and made a mental note for later.

"Meet me at the gate in half an hour. Be ready for a two-week trip. I'll see you there Tazuna-san." Kakashi said before disappearing in a whirl of leaves, leaving the trio of genin to do their preparations.

"It's my first time outside the village!" Naruto shouted out loud, stretching his arms up as he walked right out of Konoha's gates.

Sakura didn't want to agree with the blond on anything, but grudgingly nodded as inside her mind she couldn't be more excited about the trip. Flowers were her guilty pleasure, one of the things that used to unite her with Ino.

Thinking about her former best friend was uncomfortable at best, so she focused on the new flowers she would be able to see.

It was hard to do so when she turned as pink as her hair every time she looked at Sasuke and realized she was sharing this first time with him.

Sasuke couldn't had cared less about being outside of Konoha, but he was enjoying the opportunity of a rank C mission and testing his skills. There was no way he could ever get tired of Anko – the woman threw a different challenge at him every day as a hobby – but he felt the need to prove himself to the team.

He'd seen how Naruto could had helped with his Shadow Clones, and though Sakura was next to useless she would at least have a positive attitude about the D-rank missions when he could barely stand them.

So when Kakashi suggested he take point, the raven haired boy wrapped a dark rag around his eyes and walked ahead of the pack without hesitation. The jonin had hoped he'd use his Sharingan, but the Uchiha's sensing had grown to more than compensate for the loss of his normal sight. Years of walking around in the Forest of Death blind could do that to a young boy.

They were good enough to detect a couple of chakra signatures in the ground where they really shouldn't had been. It smelled wet, yet Sasuke couldn't feel any kind of humidity in the area. Anko had trained him to use his senses to their extreme before even trying to sense chakra, and she had forced him to detect any temperature or humidity changes even in the middle of Konoha's infamous forest.

There was no way he'd tell anybody what happened if he got it wrong by even one degree, or failed to detect the water jutsu the crazy woman had casted.

Kakashi didn't even twitch; Sasuke was sure the man knew, so the boy figured to keep going until ordered not to. Not even when they walked past the two small ponds of water on the ground and two ninja slowly slipped out of them. Not even when the group turned around and Kakashi was seemingly trapped by chains then shredded into pieces.

Sasuke wasn't good enough to tell what clothes they were wearing, but even without seeing their flak jackets he could tell they were at least chunin by their speed and chakra.

But they weren't counting on him being a sensor.

Two evil grins turned into open mouths in surprise as their chains were pinned to a tree trunk by a kunai, and they realized at least one of the genin had seen them coming.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto screamed, having only seen Kakashi utterly obliterated before turning his sights on the chunin and charging blindly. Sasuke sensed this and scowled; the two chunin were wearing bladed gauntlets, and he would had preferred to pepper them with long-range jutsu instead of letting the more experienced ninja use their tools.

The two would-be assassins had let the chain go before it could pull them out of balance, and immediately met the blond's charge far too fast for the genin to even react. A strong right straight shot forward at him, but a kunai lodged in the offending limb's inner elbow and forced it to completely miss Naruto's face who didn't miss with his right hook to the crook's face. His cry of pain from the kunai was quickly silenced by the punch, but his teammate was quick to reassess the situation and instead target the Uchiha.

The boy, having thrown his kunai to save Naruto, had no weapon to block the gauntlet. The chunin had stepped in too fast for him to draw another, so Sasuke was forced to jump back to avoid getting skewered. His enemy stepped in, but instead of punching he put his foot down and kicked Sasuke's torso with the other. Spinning around, he was able to easily parry Naruto's furious counter-attack by flicking the blond's punches aside then stepping in with his gauntlet ready to deliver a hook that never came.

"Gahk!" were the man's first words as Kakashi had suddenly reappeared next to him grabbing his arm with a vice grip, then throwing him against a tree trunk while Naruto blinked and realized he wasn't about to get killed.

Sasuke had been busy getting back up from the ground after the kick, but the sound of their attacker's pain signaled the end of the short fight.

Naruto had thoroughly knocked one of them out with his punch, and the other one laid in a crumbled heap at the base of a tree trunk courtesy of Kakashi. The jonin looked bored, as if nothing had happened.

Tazuna's eyes threatened to come right out of their sockets, as the action had happened too fast for him to even hide properly. One moment he had seen the oldest of the ninja team die shredded and the two boys fought the enemy while the girl kept a kunai in her hands while standing guard at front of him as he had stumbled and fallen behind a small rock. Next thing he knows, the team leader appeared right at front of his eyes and easily tossed the last enemy standing against a tree like he weighted nothing.

Then he noticed the jonin's single eye glaring at him.

"Is there anything we should know, Tazuna-san?" Kakashi said with false sweetness dripping from his tone, making the bridge builder gulp. All three genin were utterly confused, but said nothing as their sensei mercilessly questioned their client and Tazuna confessed his entire story.

Kakashi had wordlessly ordered the rest of the team to tie up the two chunin, both of them passed out at this point, but all three of them had paid close attention to the man's words. Naruto slowly looked like he understood, but was obviously conflicted with himself. Sakura shook her head every time the man mentioned Gato, clenching her fists but staying silent. Sasuke had taken his blindfold off and didn't need to see Naruto to know what he was thinking.

When Kakashi had declared they were returning to Konoha, the black haired boy wasn't surprised when Naruto threw a fit. He wasn't about to get in the middle of their argument but soon the jonin left while taking one of the enemy ninja.

All three genin knew what was probably happening, and none of them particularly cared. When their sensei came back without the other ninja, they didn't ask about it. Instead it was the silver haired man that spoke first.

"They are two missing chunin called The Demon Brothers, formerly from Kirigakure. This is easily a rank A mission, and frankly not one I would want to take with you three right now." Kakashi stated, his glare keeping Naruto from opening his mouth to protest. "But-" and Naruto lit up at this then stopped looking excited when Kakashi glared at him again. "-but this one is up to you three, if you so choose to accept it. If even one of you is against it, we're going back to Konoha and getting paid." he declared with finality, and the three genin looked at each other before looking back at their sensei with determination in their eyes.

Kakashi sighed and turned around to glare at Tazuna. "You are one lucky man, these 'brats' have decided to save you." he said, fully enjoying the bridge builder's shameful stare down at the ground. "I will pay you all once the build is finished…" the man promised, his voice broken and full of guilt and disgust at his own self.

He wasn't expecting that a hand much smaller than his own would tap his shoulder, and when Tazuna looked up he saw the shiniest shit-eating grin he had ever seen. "Don't worry old man, we're gonna kick Gato's ass and save Wave! Believe it!" Naruto exclaimed, making Sasuke snort and Kakashi hum to himself with secret joy at his genin's determination.

It had been many years since he'd seen anything similar. Far too many years.

Sakura nodded to Tazuna from behind her blond teammate, her green eyes shining with indignation at the tyrant of Nami no Kuni.

The bridge builder stared at them for several seconds, not knowing what to say or do as his body started to shake and tremble before settling for sucking in his tears and getting up to his feet. He silently swore to himself he'd pay them one day even if it killed him, and turned around to continue their way back to the Land of Waves.

Aside from Kakashi dressing down Naruto's reckless charge at the Demon Brothers and Sasuke's slow reaction to his enemy's attack, the group didn't speak much even as they took a boat from the coast of Hi no Kuni to Nami no Kuni. Tazuna was poor, but he wasn't a fool. Even he kept an eye on the ferryman he had hired to take them back to the island, surrounded with an ever-lasting mist that felt eerily cold. At some points he started shivering and wasn't sure if it was out of coldness or fear, but the man would make sure he'd return and finish the bridge. The ferryman had grumpily kicked them out of the boat earlier than he had been paid for with an excuse about pirates being seen ahead, but had otherwise taken good care of them.

Tazuna hadn't thought the man would betray him, but in those days he never knew when someone would pick up a paycheck from Gato to kill him. Things were that desperate.

All three genin had grown extremely careful after their encounter with the Demon Brothers. Naruto had been particularly spooked, bad enough to immediately throw one of his shuriken at some bushes when they made the tiniest sound.

"Really Naruto? You just killed a poor animal." Sasuke informed him matter-of-factly, having sensed the poor thing get hit and quickly drop its blood pressure.

When Naruto took a good look and saw a beautiful white bunny he couldn't had felt more remorse. "I… I'm so-" he started to apologize before Kakashi stretched an arm at front of him. "Shh." he ordered.

Immediately after that, the jonin had to push his blond student away and pull Tazuna into the ground to avoid a massive cleaver from doing its job on them. Sasuke had heard it coming far too late, but was luckily far enough that a step to his right left him out of the weapon's trajectory. Sakura hadn't even been threatened, even though she was the last one to react by gasping at her near death experience.

"Stay down!" Kakashi ordered as the sword had harmlessly lodged itself into a tree, and a massive man suddenly appeared standing on it with his arms crossed. Sasuke hadn't taken his blindfolds off, but he could clearly sense the man thanks to all the chakra pouring right out of him and knew he had to be jonin-level. It was a similar amount of chakra to Kakashi's, which spelled very bad news for them.

"What the hell?" Naruto exclaimed, pointing a newly drawn kunai at the man who chuckled darkly.

"Well well well, if it isn't the Copy Ninja Kakashi Hatake with a pack of brats…" the man said with a chuckle, and Kakashi's single visible eye glared.

"So you know me, Momochi Zabuza Demon of the Mist." said the mentioned jonin. 'And he knows of my summons too…' he quietly thought, picking up the man's use of the word pack.

At the name of their opponent, all three genin gulped. They didn't know who he was, but anyone with the monicker of Demon that Kakashi wouldn't make fun of had to be a real threat.

"You have one chance to go back to your tree-hugging village in one piece…" Zabuza declared, his muscles not moving even as he was perfectly balanced on the flat side of his sword.

"Nah, I think I'll pass." Kakashi casually replied.

"Suit yourself." the man formerly from Kirigakure shrugged and quickly struck a handsign. Instantly the area around him was covered in mist, and Kakashi quickly lifted his headband to reveal his Sharingan. Instantly Zabuza stood at the edge of a nearby lake, his sword in one hand while the other held his handsign. The mist quickly intensified as the genin wordlessly formed around Tazuna, with Sakura in the middle and both boys on the sides.

"This mist is bad…" Naruto commented.

Sasuke smirked to himself; he could still sense the missing nin, and readied his kunai.

"I'll protect you with my life." Kakashi swore, and after blowing the mist away with his chakra he turned and gave the blond a small smile.

"I wonder about that." answered the disembodied voice of Zabuza, who instantly afterwards appeared right next to Kakashi and swung his sword at the Konoha jonin. He was prepared, and instantly stepped into Zabuza's guard with a kunai on his hand and went to lodge it into the missing nin who turned into water. Kakashi didn't have time to be surprised before being eviscerated from behind by a grinning Zabuza

Only to find a kunai casually threatening to the same thing that happened to the clone, courtesy of Sasuke. The missing nin quickly realized what had happened and chuckled. "So you're a sensor…" he said, only to turn into water as Sasuke's eyes widened and simultaneously had to dodge a swipe from yet a third Zabuza. The follow-up would had cut right through him, but Kakashi appeared and narrowly reflected it with a kunai. The blade stuck on the ground but Zabuza merely shifted hands to send a devastating kick to the jonin's sternum. Even when Kakashi had blocked, the former ninja of Kiri was too physically strong and sent him flying backwards into the lake. The jonin flipped and drew his kunai, and he got ready to rush back to his team and protect them from Zabuza.

But Zabuza wasn't going for them.

Water had suddenly erupted under the Copy Ninja's feet, keeping him from standing and forming a sphere around him. Kakashi had been too focused on Zabuza with his Sharingan and couldn't put his hands together before the missing nin appeared and connected his hand to the sphere. An outside layer formed and covered the man's hand while the inner layer of the sphere started rotating its water faster and faster until it almost glowed with speed and chakra.

Zabuza's grin told the Konoha jonin that the battle was over.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, barely standing up with chakra on his feet now that the sphere had finished forming but unable to think of any jutsu that could break through the impossibly fast water. He knew even kunai would be cut through, and it was all he could do to keep pumping his chakra into the water so Zabuza couldn't compress the sphere and end him then and there. "Run!" he desperately ordered his team, hoping that at least his students could escape.

'Those who abandon their mission are scum, but those who abandon their teammates are worse than scum' he remembered bitterly, and mentally cursed himself for putting his team in danger.

His mental cursing got vocal when he saw none of his genin move.

"I said run!" Kakashi ordered louder as Zabuza formed a water clone that quickly got in front of them.

'Damnit! Damnit damnit! It's my fault!' Sasuke mentally berated himself, his hand shaking as he kept the kunai held at front of him. 'I got Kakashi into this… I'll be damned if I let him die for my mistake!' he swore, standing his ground even as the Demon of the Mist stood before him.

The man was grinning.

"Just like he had his chance, you three have your chance to stop playing ninja and go home. You lot aren't even worth your headbands." Zabuza declared, casually holding his cleaver on top of his shoulders.

"Not gonna happen!" Naruto yelled, and filled the space between Sasuke and Zabuza with clones.

"What the-" Zabuza started, taken by surprise but nevertheless quickly took care of the few clones that attacked him.

Sasuke was used to the blond's massive chakra and his absurd amount of clones, but his mind drew a blank on how to deal with the missing ninja. Every idea he came up with was shot down by the man's incredible power and experience, until he noticed a Naruto putting something in his pockets.

A Fuuma Shuriken.

"Underneath the underneath, right?" Naruto asked with a smirk, reminding Sasuke of Kakashi's mantra every time the man left him as a mere head above the ground during training.

The Uchiha knew there was no way he could ever hit a moving Zabuza, so there could only be one reason Naruto was giving him such a thing.

'Here goes nothing…' Sasuke silently mused as he jumped clear of the Naruto multitude and took aim of the Zabuza clone. The man easily saw the maneuver and readied himself to dodge, as the Naruto clones were far too weak to pin him down, but as the blades barely missed him despite him not feeling the need to move he knew something was up.

If the real Zabuza could call his clone an idiot fast enough he would have. But as it was he was barely able to notice how the Uchiha had thrown one shuriken above the other and dodge in time. A smirk slowly formed on his mouth when his eyes followed both shuriken and almost popped out of their sockets when one of them turned into the grinning blond.

The orange clone quickly threw a kunai at the missing ninja, who had no choice but to jump away from the water prison to avoid getting impaled.

'Not even I saw that coming…' Kakashi admitted to himself as the water prison quickly fell apart, his chakra making easy work of the water currents now that Zabuza was no longer controlling it himself. 'Now then. My team gave me a second chance, and I can't waste it trapped inside another water ball.' he mused and grabbed the quickly sinking Naruto to throw him back into dry land. Immediately the jonin fired a handful of shuriken with his other hand to keep Zabuza busy, while he positioned himself away from the genin to avoid stray attacks landing on them.

The former Kirigakure jonin had figured out by now he was contending with "The Last Uchiha" and Konohakure's resident jinjuuriki -both far too easy to identify for him with the clan's emblem on his shirt and the absurd amount of chakra, respectively- but his clone had been too busy sensing such tricks from the multitude of clones to notice.

And the real one had been too busy tracking the water currents Kakashi had taken control of to counter them with his own.

Silently, the missing nin admitted he had bitten more than he could chew by underestimating the two genin.

But he was still on the lake, and once he had easily dodged the point-blank shuriken from Kakashi it was time for the Demon of the Mist to get serious.

"Water Style: Teppodama!" he screamed, while making the handsigns for a very different jutsu. Soon a water dragon formed in the lake, but he saw that instead of taking the bait Kakashi was making a water dragon of his own.

'I can't believe it! He knew I would use this jutsu?' Zabuza mentally screamed the question at himself, while both water dragons clashed in the middle of the lake with an explosion big enough to blow the leftover mist away. 'Damn, I don't have time to keep the mist up!' he swore and jumped back, away from the genins' range to pelt him with throwing weapons.

The precaution had been met with the silver haired jonin speeding forward, as if he had read Zabuza's intention before he had even put them into motion. Their distance shortened, and without the mist both knew there was no way even one of the legendary Swordsmen of the Mist would match up to the Sharingan.

Zabuza stopped and concentrated on a hasty chain of handsigns, only to watch in disbelief as Kakashi had already started his own. 'No way! He can read my mind?!' Zabuza questioned with true fear, but the Konoha ninja's glowing red eye gave no answer.

Instead, a monumental wave erupted from the man's feet and Zabuza knew there was no escape. With a guttural scream he was carried back into the trees, crashing through more than two before being slammed with the full force of a tsunami into a massive trunk. The wave kept the pressure for a few moments, further pushing his broken ribs in and threatening the soft organs below them to burst out of the sheer force until it was finally over.

Kakashi took a look at his handiwork. Zabuza looked completely destroyed, as it looked like an elephant had rammed him head-on then stepped on him. Contusions were quickly forming all over the man's chest and torso, but the silver haired man quickly deducted it hadn't been bad enough to puncture or explode his vital organs. With a couple weeks of heavy medical ninja treatment the man would be able to fight again.

'Shame, but I can't allow that.' Kakashi darkly thought to himself, but before he could finish the job two senbon needles suddenly found their way to Zabuza's neck. His head slumped forward, with a glassy look on his eyes.

A shadowy figure jumped down from a tree next to the downed man, whom not even Kakashi had seen, a mask over its face that any ninja could identify.

"What's a hunter-nin doing here at this time?" Kakashi demanded to know, having jumped forward with a kunai and was now standing a few meters away from the two.

"I mean no harm." the figure answered, holding its arms up. "I am from Kiri, and have been hunting Zabuza for a while. I wasn't powerful enough to take him down on my own. You have my thanks, ninja of Konoha." the figure declared, as all three genin plus a civilian had made their way next to their sensei and had arrived just in time to hear the explanation.

"Wait." Kakashi ordered, and quickly appeared next to the downed Zabuza with a Shunshin to check the man's pulse himself.

But there was none. Zabuza was gone.

Kakashi didn't have strength left, so he pulled his Sharingan down to at least stop the bleeding of his chakra and maintained a carefree façade to the hunter ninja. "Can never be too sure." he explained with a shrug, mentally fighting back the fiery headache he was sporting. There was nothing he wanted more than to rip his red eye out, but with the practice of several years with the foreign organ inside his body he held out.

It had seemed like Naruto wanted to protest, but Sasuke took his blindfold off and put a hand on the blond's shoulder then squeezed. Hard. "We're out of our league here Naruto." the Uchiha whispered to him, making even the hyperactive ninja hold back.

In a moment, the hunter had grabbed Zabuza's body and disappeared with a flicker.

Before they even had time to be suspicious, Kakashi's body slumped forward and it took both boys to keep him from eating dirt.

"Kakashi-sensei!" all three genins exclaimed at the same time, but the man had passed out standing and didn't answer. The three quickly noticed this and looked at each other, not needing words to communicate the utter confusion shared by all.

A suggestion came, from a person that surprised them.

"Come, the town isn't far off!" Tazuna hurriedly ordered, pointing at the road straight ahead and quickly leading the march. The genin had no choice but to follow, terrified at being ambushed in this state.

Luckily for them no ambush came, and soon the old bridge builder had introduced them to his house. A woman opened the door, and her eyes instantly lit up when she saw the old man at the porch.

"Father!" she exclaimed in surprise and joy, throwing her arms around Tazuna who just chuckled and hugged her back.

Naruto was instantly relieved, while a now-conscious Kakashi secretly admired the woman's features. 'Hmm… she looks a lot like Juvia of the Water Clan would look like if she was real.' the jonin thought to himself, fondly remembering his beloved Icha Icha Magic Guild book he finished barely before starting the mission.

In Kakashi's humble opinion, its well-known author had outdone himself yet again.

His perverted thoughts couldn't dull his shinobi instincts, however, and his single eye instantly noticed the poor state of the house. Wood patches covered almost every corner, and though they were well done it just wasn't enough to make up for the rotting roof above. It was obvious even for him that the entire thing needed to be replaced with new materials.

A bridge builder would surely know this, which meant only one thing: Tazuna was too poor to afford even the cheapest wood or the time to fix it. Kakashi could sympathize with the man. On one hand, this had lead Team Seven into the already disastrous mission of keeping him alive until he finished the bridge. On the other, the jonin confirmed Tazuna just didn't have any other option.

'I just hope my decision doesn't cost me even more peop-' Kakashi thought before roughly stopping himself. There was no way he could bare even thinking about it. He wouldn't allow himself to. It was then that he realized this was the moment to start regretting the promise he made to his genin. With a look at each of the three kids under his charge, he squashed any ideas of regret. 'I wonder… Did I pick them, or did they pick me?' he silently questioned to himself, smiling underneath his mask as the two boys under his arms carried him into an unused room and set him on the only bed available.

With their sensei now resting and quickly falling asleep, Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other. The blond would open his mouth first.

"So, what now?"

"We wait for him to wake up."

"Hey, come over here. Let him sleep." Sakura whispered from the hallway outside the room, waving at them to return to the kitchen. Both boys nodded and did as ordered, but neither missed the look of concern their female teammate gave to their sensei before she followed them.

Tazuna and Tsunami, the bridge builder's now identified daughter, were waiting for them at the kitchen as the man paced back and forth while the woman nervously prepared tea. She was the first one to notice the three preteens entering the room, and the frown on her face turned to relief then quickly to a welcoming smile as she looked at them.

"I'm so glad you could bring my father back to us. Thank you so much." she said, then gestured to the tea pot. "I hope you like tea, it was all we could afford…" she trailed off, her eyes flickering between the genin and the tea to then settle on the newcomers.

"Heheh, don't sweat it. That old man's gotta build that bridge to kick Gato's ass out of this country, right? Then we're all for it!" Naruto said with the biggest grin he could muster, making Tazuna stop his pacing with a chuckle. "Hah! Well said brat." the man praised Naruto, who just grinned wider. Even Tsunami chuckled a bit, while both silent genin looked at their blond teammate. 'How can he stay so cheery when Kakashi-sensei is in bed?' Sakura thought, unaware that her eyes gave away the amazement she felt for the boy she usually couldn't even stand.

'Naruto… So you can stay calm in moments like these.' the Uchiha thought, having been friends with him long enough to know when the blond's grin was hiding his true worries. It still amazed him, and try as he might Sasuke could never truly hide his emotions as well.

The sound of the tea pot letting hot air out grabbed their attention, and soon they sat down on the family's sturdy-looking dining table to drink what Naruto called "leaf juice".

It wasn't the best tea any of them had ever had, but compared to soldier pills they wouldn't fuss about drinking it. As if it was an universal rule, anything incredibly good for their diet or chakra would taste proportionally bad.

Once the tea had disappeared down their stomach and the house owners left to rest on their rooms, the three genin had to find spots in the house's single spare room to sleep in. After a couple games of rock-paper-scissors they decided each one's sleeping arrangements and quietly went down for the night. One of Naruto's ever-convenient clones stayed up to keep watch, but it was tough for all three of the genin to sleep after their first real combat against an insanely stronger opponent.

All three knew this wouldn't be the first time. None of them felt safe or satisfied with how they handled that fight, and every time they heard Kakashi's groans of pain it sent waves of regret down their spines. Still, their Academy training soon kicked in and sleep grasped them in its clutches.

"Get up." a voice said above Naruto, and the boy jumped up with a punch ready to send its owner flying. It took the boy a blink before realizing he was looking at himself. "Look." his clone ordered while pointing at the bed. Naruto quickly realized what the clone meant to show him.

The bed was empty.

"Kakashi's gone!" he screamed, waking up both his teammates with a jump while he quickly ran out of the room and outside the house. Both Sasuke and Sakura hadn't been able to hear what he said, but they quickly saw the same thing as the blond and quickly followed.

None of them expected to see the jonin sitting on a pier right next to the house, looking at the horizon just as the Sun was barely coming out of the horizon.

"Sensei?" Naruto carefully asked, having never seen arguably the laziest person he knew awake so early.

"Hmm?" he asked without even turning around, picking up a rock and making it skip several times on the water before it finally sunk into the ocean.

"Uhh…" Naruto started before drawing a blank, completely taken off-guard. The clone now came out of the house and stared hard at the jonin, then pointed a finger at him. "He wasn't there just a minute ago!" the clone exclaimed in outrage, making the jonin lazily turn around to face him. "I've been here the whole time, though." he replied.

"No you weren't!"

"Yes I was."

"No you weren't!"

"Well yes, I was."

"No-!" the clone was about to keep going before being popped by its creator, who already had a vein popping on his forehead.

"Too early for your shit!" he exclaimed, making both his teammates look at him with half a glare. "No kidding." Sakura said before properly socking Naruto with a vicious left hook on his shoulder. "Ow! What the hell!" the offended blond cried out, making Sakura huff. "Technically it was your shit." she concluded, making Naruto pout.

"Actually, clones can develop their own personality…" Kakashi explained, making Sakura slightly wilt.

"W-well… I thought… Heheh… Sorry Naruto." she apologized.

"But it's always based on the original's personality." the jonin finished.

"Forget my apology." Sakura hastily ordered, fire again lit in her eyes.

"That's no fair!" Naruto shrieked, making the pink haired girl humph in return.

'They're both annoying.' Sasuke judged, wanting to knock some silence into his loud teammates. He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but he was smart enough to know Kakashi wouldn't be out there without a reason. 'Then again, he could just be trolling us again.' Sasuke mentally feared, remembered how the jonin had found a different way to torment them every single night they spent on the trip to Wave.

It had been five weeks of Hell for Sasuke, whose sensing had been tricked somehow by the silver haired man every single time. When he thought Anko was evil, Kakashi had to be the Devil himself. He had no idea how, but he woke up one night with a polar bear attacking them.

Sasuke felt like facepalming. The bear had to have been a genjutsu, and he was only now realizing it. 'How did I not see it before?' he asked himself, then came to the obvious conclusion: he had been too scared for his life as their crazy sensei had also tied them down to logs strongly held in place under the ground.

That had been the fourth night, which only made the jonin's stealth even scarier. They had three nights to grow aware of the man's sadism yet nothing prepared them for something like that.

The Uchiha could swear that Kakashi was reading his mind, as the man picked up a large and thin log next to him and used it to push himself and stand. "Okay kids, time for training." he announced, making all three genin look at each other in realization before they nodded in determination.

"Pick up the rest of your gear, then meet me at the clearing outside of town." Kakashi ordered, before slowly walking away from the house using the stick as support. The genin nodded, and soon were back at their room picking up any spare kunai they could find. Sakura and Naruto started towards the door but noticed Sasuke was lingering behind.

"Everything okay teme?" Naruto asked, but Sasuke didn't even look as he rummaged through his backpack looking for something.

"Yeah, just go on ahead." the Uchiha answered, and the blond nodded and shrugged before leaving the room with Sakura behind. The raven haired boy stopped pretending that he was looking for something; he already had all the weapons he could get, and all he needed from the bag was a cloth.

He held it at front of his eyes, ready to blindfold himself like usual but visibly struggled back and forth with it.

'Why… why do I always do this? My sensing isn't at Zabuza's level… I just got in Kakashi's way. I could have gotten him killed. Itachi would had been mad at me.' his thoughts ran in his head, and he shook his head. 'No! I'm just trying to find an excuse to use them. I won't dishonor Itachi like this.' he firmly concluded, but as he wrapped the cloth around his eyes and tightened it he couldn't keep his composure. Tears soon made the fabric wet, as he remembered the feeling of helplessness in Kakashi's chakra when he was trapped in the Water Prison jutsu. He knew all of them would had died if it wasn't for Naruto's genius idea. For his Shadow Clone jutsu. For Kakashi's overwhelming strength and speed.

'Itachi… Would you forgive me if I use these eyes to protect them?' Sasuke wondered, but he knew he already had the answer and already hated it. He hated the idea of using his brother's eyes for his own selfish reasons, even if he could act like they weren't selfish. He hated the idea of breaking an oath.

With a scream of frustration he ripped the cloth off his eyes, his Sharingan flaring to life. Three tomoe swirled in his eyes, and he made his way out the house; even if he hated himself for it, he wouldn't let his team die even if he had to disgrace his own brother to save them. 'These eyes won't let me fail them again.' Sasuke swore to himself, and he stepped into the now illuminated ground outside the house for his first day of training in Wave.

Wave seems like an extremely important arc for the Naruto series. It sets up what we expect from our heroes and our villains, and we see the rest of the story going along those lines. It also announced the start of a few mistakes that I want to address with this fic. The most glaring one is how Kakashi, master of more than 1,000 jutsu, just stood there watching from inside the water prison while his genin were probably going to get killed. That also made Zabuza look rather weak, just to make the Sasuke/Naruto team look cool. Hopefully I can bring a viable alternative to this, though I recognize I'll have my weaknesses there or maybe I just can't fix that kind of plot holes at all. Who knows. This is the kind of stuff I write for, though. Now that this Wave arc is underway, I hope to really get this going. For now, adios!