Soon after Kakashi had passed out and Zabuza had been taken out by that Hunter-Nin, the three guys carried the white-haired man to Tazuna's house. The Bride builder's daughter answered the door, her eyes widening, "Tou-San! You're back!" she cried. Her eyes wondered over the three exhausted Genin and passed out Jounin, "oh, my god, what happened?!" she exclaimed, worried. "Hey Tsunami, these are the Ninja I brought with me, they just had a hard battle and their Sensei is unconscious, would you mind if they stayed here with us?" he asked. The woman, Tsunami nodded immediately, "of course! Come inside quickly!" she replied, beckoning the group into her house.
Everyone entered and Tazuna's daughter looked around before hurriedly closing and locking the door. The woman led the group into an empty room and set up a futon. Then the adults began getting Kakashi ready for bed, taking off everything but his Jounin blue's and mask. After he was safely resting, Naruto began to explain to Tsunami what had happened during their mission so far. It was fair to say the woman was shocked and worried when she heard about the Ninja battles they'd participated in. "But I'm okay now thanks to these Ninja" Tazuna explained. "Well, thank you all very much!" The woman said gratefully, smiling at them.
Sasuke blushed slightly and looked away. "You're all stupid" a young voice said from the doorway. Everyone looked towards the person who had spoken to see a young boy, around seven years old standing there and glowering at them. He turned to Tsunami, "Kaa-Chan, all these people are going to die" he said. "Inari! These are Ninja from the Hidden Leaf Village who risked their lives to protect your Jii-San!" the woman admonished. Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the boy, 'his eyes. They're just like mine were after the Massacre before I met Anija. He must have seen something horrible' he thought. "So?" Inari asked, "they're still going to die! Gato is going to kill them!" He looked at the Leaf Nin with contempt, "if they don't want to die, they should go back to where they came from!" he yelled, storming out of the room. "Inari! Inari where are you going!?" Tsunami demanded. "To look at the ocean from my room!" The woman sighed and stood, "I'm, sorry about that" she said to Naruto and his team, before following her son out of the room.
Everyone is quiet for a moment, "well, I don't know about anyone else, but this had just made me even more determined to succeed! I'm going to go train, you wanna come with me Sasuke?" Naruto asked. The Uchiha nodded, "sure Anija," he turned to face Sakura, "are you alright to stay here and keep an eye on Sensei?" he asked her. The pink-haired girl nodded, "sure, I'll take care of him and if anything changes I'll let you know" Sakura replied. Naruto nodded and picked up his Gunbai from where he'd placed it against the wall, while Sasuke retrieved his sword. Then the brothers left the house to train. Sasuke stares at the ground in thought, while Naruto is also silent. Eventually the two boys reach a deserted clearing in the forest. The Uzumaki gets into his stance with his Gunbai ready for both offense and defence, while Sasuke draws his sword, "you ready Otouto?" Naruto asked. Sasuke nodded.
A moment later the two shoot forwards, both their weapons ready to attack.
ŃĚĤ
The next morning, Kakashi shot up in bed, just as Tsunami was changing the sheets. The woman gasped, before she smiled slightly, "I'm sorry if I disturbed you Kakashi-San, my name is Tsunami, I'm Tazuna's daughter and this is our home, your students brought you here after you collapsed from Chakra exhaustion" she explained. The Jounin lay back down slowly, "I see, thank you for your hospitality Tsunami-San, but could you ask my team to come see me, we have some things to talk about" he replied, closing his eyes, he was still so tired. "Of course, and thank you for continuing to protect my Tou-San by the way" the young woman replied, leaving the room. A few minutes later Sakura rushed into the room, followed by a calm Sasuke and Naruto, "Kakashi-Sensei! You're okay!" the pink-haired girl exclaimed. The white-haired man nodded, "yeah, I'm okay, just really tired" he replied.
"You know, if your Sharingan takes so much out of you whenever you use it, maybe you should take Chakra Replenishment Pills with you as one of your main items for away missions Sensei?" Naruto suggested. Kakashi nodded, "yeah, that sounds like a good idea, I'll do that from now on, thanks Naruto" he agreed. Then their Sensei's single visible eye turned serious, "I have to talk to you about something and I want all of you to stay as calm as possible, alright?" he asked, eye falling on each of his Genin in turn. Naruto and Sasuke nodded seriously, but Sakura simply looked confused. "Zabuza is still alive" he said. Sakura's eyes widened, "w-what? But you checked him yourself and you said that he had no pulse Sensei?!" she cried, nearly hysterical. Kakashi sighed, "what did I just say?" he asked rhetorically. Naruto crossed his arms, "now that I think about it, it does make sense" he said. He closed his eyes, "I've been think about doing a bit of training in medical Jutsu, or at least enough to help keep someone alive if they're hurt badly- one of the things I found in the books I read was about the uses of Senbon" the blond began.
Sakura looked confused, "what do you mean?" she asked. Naruto opened his eyes, "Senbon can be used in a variety of ways, from piercing pressure points in the body to relieve pain, to putting another person in a death-like state" he explained. "Wait, how could putting someone in a fake death be counted as medical Jutsu?" Sakura asked. "Well, imagine you are treating someone out on the field, and they are bleeding out, if you use Senbon to place them in a temporary death-state, all of their bodily functions would temporarily slow to the point of non-functionality. For example the heart would slow right down in the process of pumping blood around the body, meaning the patient wouldn't bleed out while you're trying to heal them, get it?" Naruto asked. Sakura's eyes widened, "oh, I get it, it's a preservation tactic for until you get your patient somewhere you can actually heal them!" she gasped in realisation.
Sasuke's eyes widened now, "that Hunter-Nin! The weapons he used were-" he began to say, while Kakashi nodded, "Senbon, exactly. Zabuza was never killed, he was just placed into a temporary death-state so we wouldn't kill him- and if that's true then that means that masked person and Zabuza were allies rather than enemies" he affirmed. Sakura shuddered, "Sensei, does this mean that Zabuza is still alive?" she asked fearfully. The Leaf Jounin nodded tiredly, "I'm afraid so Sakura" everyone was silent at this, just processing the information. "Well then, what do we do? No doubt you're going to be out of commission for a few days, but we need to train more if we want to protect Tazuna-San" Sasuke stated. Kakashi nodded again, "exactly, which is why as soon as I'm recovered enough, we're going to be doing some training, understand?" he asked. All three Genin nodded, "right!"
ŃĚĤ
The next day Kakashi led his team into the forest. Because he was still very tired and weak, the white-haired man was using crutches he had managed to summon. Thankfully summoning objects wasn't very energy consuming. Once he seemed satisfied with the spot he had picked out, he turned to his students, "alright everyone, today you're going to learn to climb trees without using your hands!" he said cheerfully. Naruto raised his hand. Kakashi quirked an eyebrow, "um, you do know that this isn't the Academy, right Naruto? You don't have to ask permission to speak" he asked his blond student. Naruto nodded, "sorry Sensei, it's just, Sasuke and I learned how to do the tree-climbing exercise years ago when we were still in the Academy, so it would be kind of a waste of time" he explained.
The man raised an eyebrow and turned to the Uchiha, who nodded, "he's right, Anija and I mastered the tree-climbing exercise when we were nine years old" he confirmed. Sakura was staring at the two of them like they had sprouted tails or something. The Jounin scratched his head, "eh, okay, I guess you're right, it would be redundant to make you do this when you've already mastered it, hmm" he replied, then thought for a minute, "do either of you know the water-walking exercise?" the man asked his two male students. At their negative head-shake, the Jounin nodded, "alright, then Sakura will begin the tree-climbing exercise, and you two will begin working on water-walking" he decided. Naruto and Sasuke nodded at that. After Kakashi explained the technique to her, the pink-haired Kunoichi began running up her tree, "hey, this is easy!" she called about half a minute after the Jounin turned to his two male students to begin explaining water-walking.
The three males looked towards where Sakura's voice had come from to see her sitting on the lowest branch of her tree. Naruto and Sasuke looked astonished, not even they had mastered tree-climbing that fast! The white-haired Shinobi eye-smiled, "well, it seems that you have a natural talent for Chakra Control Sakura- however, your reserves are infinitesimal compared to your teammates, so for now I want you to continue that exercise until your stamina and Chakra reserves increase, okay?" he asked. Sakura frowned slightly, before nodding, "hai Sensei" she replied, before turning to continue up the tree. Kakashi nodded, before turning back to the two boys, "now, what do you know about Water-Walking?" he asked.
"Well, it's pretty much like Tree-Climbing except you need a finer amount of control due to the water being so unstable" Naruto replied. Their wasn't really much to know without having done it yourself. The white-haired Jounin nodded at that, "yes, those are the basics, and the reason you need a finer amount of control is due the way the water shifts and moves, so yes, to keep your balance on that, you not only need the regular coating of Chakra on the bottom of your feet, but also to send a steady, constant stream downwards from your feet to keep your balance." Kakashi explained. Naruto and Sasuke nodded at that, "I see, so it's like walking on stilts then" the blond crossed his arms in thought. Sasuke raised an eyebrow, "how so?" he asked, looking towards his brother.
Naruto looked at the other boy, "well, with stilts, you need three things: a flat place to put your feet, the part of the stilt that is touching the ground and balance- with water-walking, the flat place to put your feet is the water's surface, where you're basically standing on Chakra pads on top of the water, the part of the stilt that is touching the ground is the stream of Chakra leading from your feet downwards and thirdly, you need to be able to balance yourself on the surface of the water- so it's just like using water stilts" he explained. Sasuke nodded, "I get it, so that's how this works hm?" he thought, getting into a thinking pose. Kakashi sweat-dropped and cleared his throat, "thank you for that explanation Naruto, but could you let me do the talking from now on? I am your Sensei after all" he said. Naruto turned back to the man and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "right, sorry Sensei". The Jounin eye-smiled, "It's alright, but since you both know what to do now and how to do it, why don't you give it a try?" he asked. The brothers nodded and removed their clothes. Kakashi stared at them, "um, what are you doing?" he asked.
"Well we don't want to get our clothes soaked, we'd just have to take them off anyway if that happened" the blond boy replied, then he closed his eyes in concentration and focused on forming his Chakra into how he needed it. Once it was shaped properly, Naruto took a tentative step onto the water, 'focus, you need to keep your Chakra flow steady-' suddenly a wave rolled underneath him, unbalancing as well as distracting him and the Uzumaki gasped, "wah!" before falling into the water. Naruto climbed out onto the shore, watching as Sasuke barley manage to stay upright as he went over a wave as well. Upon observing this, Naruto noticed something, "oh, I get it! if you increase your output going down into the water, your 'stilt' will have more purchase when going over waves!"
Standing up and walking out onto the water again, Naruto began to test his theory. Kakashi smiled as he watched. 'This team will go far in the Shinobi world, especially Naruto and Sasuke' he thought to himself , not know exactly how right he was.
To Be Continued