AN: Alrighty, before we begin, a quick answer to a question posed by ThatOneGuy, who asked why Naruto is called Namikaze and not Uzumaki. That is a very good question, and it's a bit of the world building I hadn't found a chance to explain yet, so what the hell, I'll just answer it here. Naruto goes by Namikaze because the third Hokage decided to pretty much completely cover up the fact that he was the nine tails Jinchuuriki from the village, this meant concealing his relation to Uzumaki Kushina, so yeah, Naruto goes by Namikaze, which is also the reason why he grew up loved and supported as the son of a hero instead of growing up as an outcast. Good question ThatOneGuy, you are a cool and sexy person. If anyone else finds something they think either doesn't make sense or looks like a plot hole, please point it out to me, how else am I supposed to either explain it or fix it? On with the fic?

ON WITH THE FIC!

Team 7:

Tazuna lived in a small wood built cottage that, even in its modesty, somehow made the other nearby houses look small and shabby. Whatever had happened here, the village of waves was clearly not a rich place. This confused Naruto, from what he had seen when they entered the village, there had been a number of large and luxurious seeming buildings, but on closer inspection, they had all been unoccupied and run down. Most, if not all of them, simply had sections that appeared to have been torn away, used either for firewood or raw construction material. How could a place go downhill like this?

The group was greeted by a kindly looking woman whom Tazuna referred to as Tsunami, his daughter. She had made it halfway through greeting them, before seeing the condition of the man her father carried and giving a small shriek, rushing them inside. Tsunami, as it turned out, had been a nurse back when people could afford such things, and still functioned as a sort of emergency doctor for those who required it. They laid Kakashi out on a small cot, the children explaining the situation and the first aid they had supplied.

"He was suspended in a ball of water that was hit with a fireball," Naruto explained. "We think he was probably only in contact with the hot water for a few seconds before landing in a pond."

"Was the pond hot or cold?" Tsunami asked, a small part of her brain noting how absurd that question would have sounded in any other situation.

"It was cold when we got to him," Sasuke answered. "Although it may have taken a while for the heat to disperse out into the water."

Tsunami nodded. "Yes, by the look of it, I'd say it dispersed rather fast. Most of these wounds are superficial skin damage, except for-" She pointed to the crisscrossing patches of white skin. "Those. That looks somewhat more dangerous."

"Why?" Sakura asked. "What are they?"

Tsunami shook her head sadly. "Well, you see how the skin looks like cooked meat?" She asked, the kids nodded. "Well that's because it's cooked meat." Sasuke and Naruto grimaced, Sakura looked slightly sick. "What else?" Tsunami asked. "What else happened to him?"

Sakura swallowed hard, before continuing with a nod. "W-we pulled him out of the water, he was groaning when we did so, and we applied an antiseptic and analgesic cream to the burned areas."

Tsunami winced. "Well thank god he was lying in the pond before you got to him. If the water hadn't cooled him down, that cream would have carried the left over heat to other parts of his body, maybe even deeper into his skin. As it is, we're lucky you made the right call."

AN: This is apparently true, moral of the story kids, let the professionals deal with burn victims, kay?

Sakura gagged slightly, Tazuna quickly pulling her out of the room with a concerned expression. Tsunami pointed to Naruto. "When you were applying the cream, did you find any sections where his clothes were stuck to his skin?" Naruto hesitated, and nodded. "And what did you do with these clothes?"

Naruto breathed deeply before he answered. "We uhh… we figured they had been kinda… welded onto him and… left them be in case we tried to remove them and accidentally uhh… ripped his skin off or something."

Tsunami nodded appreciatively. "Good decision, point these spots out to me." Naruto and Sasuke began explaining the locations and spread zones where the clothing had attached to Kakashi's skin. Sasuke warned that the clothing was professional Shinobi gear and therefore, probably very strong fabric. Tsunami thanked them, and told them to get out.

The three children sat in a close silence for the hours that followed. Tazuna left briefly and returned with a small bag of ingredients, with which he began cooking a rudimentary dinner, some sort of fish broth. Sakura had offered to help, more for something to do than anything else. Naruto and Sasuke cleared a floor space to spar, more as a release for the nervous energy than for any real practice benefit. They ate together in silence, joined by a small boy who Naruto assumed to be a grandchild. The quiet was punctuated only by the slight groans of pain that emanated from the other room.

After what seemed like an eternity, Tsunami opened the door from the small pantry turned hospital and leaned against a wall in exhaustion. She drew a sleeve across her forehead, wiping away at the sheen of sweat covering her face, before looking at the room at large. "There will be some pretty serious scars, but he'll live. I don't know how, but he's conscious right now. He'd like to talk to you."

The three students stood quietly from their seats, feeling a strange mixture of relief and nervous anticipation, before walking as one into the small room and closing the door behind them.

Kakashi lay under a clean linen sheet, unmoving as the three stood before him. To all the world, he seemed to be sleeping, his eyes closed and his breathing slow and regular. "Let me begin," he said in a surprisingly normal voice that made Naruto and Sakura jump and Sasuke give a quick flinch that he tried to pass off as a move to check his hair. "By saying that what you did was stupid, reckless and foolhardy." The two boys looked down at their feet in shame and nodded. "But," Kakashi continued. "Me telling you to run was even more so. Had you followed my plan, Zabuza would have killed me, and would have hunted the three of you down within the hour. As it stands, the two of you saved my life and from what I saw when the fireball hit, Zabuza is either dead, or injured worse than I am."

"Dead," Naruto muttered quietly. "A few minutes after we hit him, he tried to fight us hand to hand; a person in a mask killed him with these dart things and carried him away. Said they were a hunter nin."

Kakashi considered this for a minute or so. "Well that's not good," He said quietly. "That was probably one of Zabuza's team providing an extraction, A hunter nin would have destroyed the body then and there. How bad did he look when you saw him?"

Sasuke fielded that particular question. "To be honest sensei? He kinda looked like overcooked bacon rinds. There was a pretty big cut on his chest too, where the skin pulled apart."

Kakashi chuckled. "And that, kids, is why you always wear a shirt to a combat situation." Sakura went pale, Naruto chuckled slightly and Sasuke gave a short snort of laughter. "Well," Kakashi said. "The way you say it, it sounds like you managed to seriously injure him. I expect he'll take a good while longer than me to recover, hell, I doubt if he'll ever recover completely; so in our next fight, we can probably focus on his teammates. Alright, you kids go to bed, we have training to do in the morning, okay?"

The other three nodded, none of them voicing the obvious question, how was he going to train them if he couldn't even walk? One by one, they left the room. Tsunami led them into a small room where she had some spare bed rolls laid out and the three lay down, each one wondering how they were supposed to fall asleep after a day like that. They were out the moment their heads hit the pillows.

Team Zabuza:

The two treated Zabuza together in silence. Kimimaro wanted to speak, to say something that might reassure Haku that everything would be okay; that it wasn't as bad as it looked. But he could think of nothing. Kimimaro simply wasn't that good of a liar. They did what they could for the burns that covered their master's skin, removing what they could of blackened, dead tissue, and applying medicines and regenerative chakra wherever possible. The process lasted well into the night.

At one point, somewhere around midnight, Haku collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Kimimaro shook his head. His friend had clearly used too much chakra in the effort to help Zabuza recover. Haku always had always been far too kind to others. Then again, that was what Kimimaro loved about Haku. He rolled his shoulders and continued his work into the early hours of the morning.

AN: So there we have it, another chapter done, feel free to review and all that stuff. Otherwise, thanks for reading, BYE! :P