Chapter 5: Prelude to the Land of Waves


January 25th, - March 14th, 64 AFL

The next month and a half provided the Uzumaki's and the Uchiha's a chance to grow stronger which they took full advantage of. Since the bondings that the Soul Seal Justu provided Naruto and Sakura spent almost every waking hour together, from training, to missions, to just going on casual dates.

Over the course of time their relationship started to grow and Sakura began easing up on Naruto for his antics and even agreed to help him and Hinata with a good prank to the Hokage monument although she ended up having to give him an even greater smack for trying to put whiskers marks on his father's face.

They practiced their taijutsu every few days with Hinata and their styles began to mix with each others adding an element of the others fighting style to their own. Once a week the girls would buy Naruto fresh groceries and every few days Hinata would cook dinner for them, while trying to give the Uzumaki's a few cooking lessons at Naruto's apartment.

Naruto could manage a few things but anything Sakura touched would somehow get burned, be sour, or just plain inedible which had caused the Uzumaki matriarch to have a sudden emotional breakdown. This had resulted in Hinata and Naruto comforting the pink haired kunoichi and giving her several pep talks until Naruto said something stupid which caused Sakura to snap from a state of sadnees to overwhelminng anger in turn causing the blonde baka to fly through his front door. When she went to give him another Hinata had stopped her and whispered in her ear,

"He does that on purpose to make you feel better, tell me are you sad anymore Sakura?" Hinata had asked her with a frown on her face. Sakura immediately realized the truth and helped Naruto up and brought him to his bed. She decided to feed him a few of the packages of cup ramen she had been hiding from him and sat with him the rest of the day. Little did she know Naruto was fine and was currently enjoying one of his most re-lived dreams. Naruto honorably tried to repay the two girls for their kindness but they would just smile and say, "Make it up to us on our dates." Naruto would try his best but even the future Hokage makes mistakes from time to time.


Naruto's first date with Sakura after the Soul Seal Jutsu hadn't gone well unfortunately, they had gone to Ichiraku's like they had done a million times before but Sakura wasn't just a Haruno anymore she was an Uzumaki too and had acquired some of the traits that she would of prefered to live without.

She had realized by the end of the night that even though the majority of date had gone well and Naruto had even eaten like a gentleman for once, something was wrong. She saw exactly what that was when she saw her stack of ramen bowls that was at most ever at two was currently at thirteen and she was currently on her fourteenth. She immediately began crying and beating Naruto similar to when she had thought he pranked her but Naruto couldn't contain a blush and a smile at Sakura's odd reasoning for her anger

"Where not even having babies yet and you're already making me fat," she wailed in sorrow and sobbed into his chest eventually stopping her assault and falling asleep in his arms. He proceeded to carry her home, he thought she was asleep when her parents let him in and laid her on her bed when the son of the Fourth said to her "Goodnight my wonderful cherry blossom," he kissed her forehead and exited her room leaving out the front door after saying goodbye to her parents. She touched the spot where he kissed her and smiled in content as she drifted off to sleep.

Naruto was a little oblivious when it came to actual romantic dating and Hinata had to give him a crash course on proper dating etiquette and what gifts a girl like her or Sakura might enjoy, to proper restaurants for a romantic outing. Like anything he put his mind to Naruto soon mastered the art of the romantic date and even earned his first kiss from Hinata after he had surprised her with a moonlit picnic, at the very place they had met.

As Hinata gazed at the moon she had heard him say the words she had dreamed to hear "I love you, Hinata, you know, you're more beautiful than the moon." She looked into eyes and they shared an intimate kiss, it was short but it was everything Hinata had ever dreamed of. That night Naruto mentioned Kakashi's saying something about Sakura having a potential in genjutsu and the very next day Hinata was introducing a nervous Sakura to her sensei Kurenai. Kurenai agreed to train Sakura after she got a little stronger and had a little more experience which the pair of Uzumaki-Namikaze's kindly thanked her for.

Sakura would eventually have the conversation about how her mother knew Kushina and she revealed that her, Kushina and Mikoto all used to compete for Minato's affection and had become friends and rivals through there love for Minato. She told Sakura how she had ended up falling for her father instead and that Kushina had even considered her for Naruto's godmother although that never happened because of the Nine-Tails attack.

Mubuki told Sakura many stories about Kushina and actively compared the two and after a few hours Sakura began to look at Kushina as a role model and would pass these stories to her Naruto-baka whenever they had the time. Eventually Sakura asked her mother why she never encouraged her to play with Naruto but Mebuki just smiled and said,

"I never told you not to play with him, it was your crush and infatuation with Sasuke that did that and if I remember correctly I would catch the two of you alone playing every once in a while." Sakura smiled back, "Yea I wasn't sure what you would say so I never told you that I played with him but I'm happy I did." Sakura had replied with a small blush on her cheeks.


As for Sasuke and Ino they had indeed been training every day after missions and team training which had caused the pair but more noticeably Ino to improve dramatically. Sasuke slowly began teaching Ino the Uchiha's taijutsu styles although he had to be careful what to implement into her form since it was supposed to technically be used in conjunction with the sharingan. He even tried teaching her the Uchiha's signature fireball jutsu but that had failed miserably.

Sasuke was so astonished by Ino's complete lack of fire style chakra that he was curious enough to swipe a few chakra papers from the academy in order to determine Ino's chakra nature. Sasuke was extremely pleased to learn that like himself Ino had two chakra natures with a strong affinity to earth and a weaker affinity to water. With Sasuke's lighting as his primary affinity and fire as his secondary, the two Uchihas could cover four of the five chakra natures in combat. Sasuke in turn realized he would have to learn more jutsu than ever before and began practicing copying other peoples jutsu's to an excessive degree. In order to do this effectively the Uchiha's and the Uzumaki-Namkiaze's would meet up once a week for friendly spars which made both of their clans even stronger.

Naruto received a nice surprise when he realized Sakura was cheering for him now instead of Sasuke. After one of the boys more intensive spars Sakura took it upon herself to start studying medical scrolls and common antidotes for poisons which Ino soon followed not wanting to be out done. Sasuke had mastered his one tomoe sharingan buy the end of February and was struggling to unlock his second tomoe but on March 12th after an oddly intense spar between Naruto and Sasuke, he finally unlocked the second tomoe in his left eye. Sasuke was so elated he actually thanked Naruto and took Ino out for their first real date.

It was a small meal in a decent restaurant but Sasuke was pleasant and the two communicated relatively well. Ino was still curious about Sasuke's second soulmate but had chosen not to pry, she had learned that given enough time Sasuke would open up himself and pushing him would only be counter productive. He walked her home at the end of the night and she thanked him but instead of saying a word for the first time he hugged her. No one else was around so no one would see this act of emotion from the last of the Uchiha but Ino was still elated and returned the hug with affection not too tightly as to make him uncomfortable but snug enough to know he would feel her love for him.

Sasuke disappeared into the night and Ino entered her home and immediately called Sakura to talk about her date. Ino and Sakura both decided to do something nice for their boys whenever their first real mission to leave the village would be. It was a shock for Ino of when Asuma had commented her on her increased patience and concentration as well as her shinobi arts which Ino too kindly accepted. What worried Ino the most however was that sick and evil grin Sasuke would get on his face when no one was watching, it gave Ino the shivers and she prayed hopefully that given enough time that sadistic expression of his would disappear completely.

Team 7's dynamic had changed completely compared to what it had been before the final graduation exam. Instead of fawning over Sasuke, Sakura was taking all of her training and missions seriously and had even started berating Sasuke the same way she had always done with Naruto when he took things too far. One day Sasuke actually thought to talk back but that was a big mistake,

"Your funeral," was all Naruto said, after Sasuke called her, "An annoying flat chested billboard brow,"

The next thing Sasuke knew he was buried under three small trees and some pieces of concrete. Even though Sasuke had left angry that day after having a good talk with Ino he actually began to appreciate this new side of Sakura. It was like having a mom again although that thought had caused Sasuke to actually breakdown in laughter for the first time in years, realizing what kind of situation Naruto had been in for the last month.

Naruto no longer needed to compete with Sasuke for Sakura's affection although he would still get a little jealous from time to time which would usually be resolved by Sakura having to pet the blonde's whiskered cheeks, a trick she had learned from Hinata. Kakashi noticed this new team dynamic and was very pleased but continued to train them in baby steps figuring they wouldn't be battling real shinobi for a long time.


March 15th, 64 AFL

It was a normal day like any other when Team 7 entered the Hokage's office in order to obtain their daily D-ranks missions, however a blonde hair knucklehead voiced his own opinions to the elderly man,

"No!, we want to go an a real mission were all sick of this baby crap you've been sending us on, please Oji-san," Sakura quickly backed up her blonde baka,

"Naruto's right we've been training really hard, please Oji-san," Sakura gave the Hokage her best puppy dog eyes. After learning about Naruto's relationship with Lord Third and more about the old man Sakura had started to see the old man as a grandfather herself and if she knew one thing, she knew how to get her parents to give her whatever she wanted and she applied the same trick to the Hokage, unfortunately he wasn't fazed.

Lord Third began explaining the different ninja missions and ranks but after his explanation was finished he fell face first, into his desk. The entire group including Kakashi had just ignored him and were having some talk discussing ramen. "Silence!" he screamed regaining their attention,

"Kami all you do is lecture me old man or have you forgotten who I am and who my parents were." Naruto took off his headband and held it out towards the Hokage,

"This means I'm a ninja now and we all deserve a true ninja mission, believe it!" Naruto stated with pride.

"Naruto's right were more than ready," Sasuke added, "Believe it, Cha!" Sakura nearly screamed and held her hands to her mouth realizing what she had just said and looked around the room to see if anyone caught her slip of the Uzumaki catchphrase. Nobody seemed too and the Hokage finally began laughing, after a while though he calmed down,

"Fine, I'll give you a C-rank that should satisfy you, you'll be bodyguards for that man right there." Team 7 looked where the Hokage was pointing and a man with a beer in his hand came through the door. "What a joke you're giving me kids" the drunkard stated but as quickly as he did three kunai rushed by his body missing his shoulders by inches and destroying his beer bottle in the process.

"Never mind meet me at your village gates in an hour," the drunkard left with an odd grin on his face that only Kakashi noticed but chose to say nothing. "Alright you heard the client, Dismissed!" the Hokage said. "Right!" the three genin replied and returned to their homes to gather the necessary supplies they would need for their first real ninja mission.

An hour later Naruto and Sasuke arrived at the village gates and saw that Kakashi, their client, Sakura, and Ino were standing there waiting for them. Naruto rushed over to Sakura and noticed what she was wearing, it was a white cloak with cherry blossoms on the bottom and sleeves, on her back was the Haruno clan symbol and overlaying that was the Uzumaki clan symbol.

"Wow Sakura-chan that looks really good on you, believe it!" he stated honestly causing her to blush and shove a roughly wrapped package into his hands, "Sorry, it's not wrapped properly, Ino and I just finished them last night," she giggled at his confused expression as he unwrapped it.

He saw Sakura had made him a cloak that matched the color scheme of his jumpsuit, it was primarily the same shade of blue as his jumpsuit but had the orange that he loved so much along the bottom in a pattern that resembled flames and had similar designs on his wrist with the Uzumaki symbol displayed proudly on his back. He quickly embraced his cherry blossom in a tight hug and pecked her forehead to which she could only blush redder for, "Thanks Sakura-chan this is amazing just like you are!"

Sasuke slowly made his way to Ino and noticed she didn't have a cloak on but was in her casual ninja attire. Ino also had a package similar to Sakura and Sasuke couldn't contain a small grin as he finally stood in front of her.

"Is this for me?" he asked her in sincerity. "Of course idiot," she replied and he just grinned a little more. Ino had slowly become feistier and was more eager to tease him which Sasuke was grateful for since it provided a sense of normality. She handed Sasuke the package which he then proceeded to slowly unwrap.

Ino had made him a black cloak with the Uchiha symbol displayed on his back, unlike Sakura and Naruto's that had designs that reflected their personalities Sasuke's had none and Ino figured he would prefer this design which he definitely did. He thanked her and that's when Team 7 heard the client's voice, "Alright brats my name is Tazuna were heading to my home, the Land of Waves, lets move out," and with that Team 7 finally exited the village for the first time for their first true ninja mission.


It was a few hours later Team 7 was deep in the woods when Naruto stepped in a lone puddle but thought nothing of it, Kakashi and Sasuke just looked at eachother but said nothing. It wasn't a few minutes later that the Uzumaki's started one of their classic arguments but this time Sakura had a trump card. She looked at her sensei while smirking,

"Kakashi-sensei there are no ninja in the Land of Waves are there?" Sakura asked him. "No there aren't," he replied flatly. "See told you Naruto there are only shinobi in the five great hidden villages which are in control by the Mizukage from the Land of Water, Raikage the Land of Lighting, Tsukikage Land of Earth, Kazekage Land of Wind, and our very own Hokage from the Land of Fire," Sakura stated proudly, she loved being the smart one.

Kakashi actually laughed "That was very good Sakura but there are other hidden villages that have shinobi they just don't have what we call Kage only the five great nations do because the Kage technically serve the Daimyo of their respective lands."

"Oh," was Sakura's lone comment she was wrong and now she felt bad for telling Naruto he was stupid but when he grabbed her hand for a few moments she looked into his eyes and they both shared a smile while continuing their journey there argument forgotten.

It was over before they knew what happened, Kakashi was in pieces on the ground and two chunin were right on top of them. Sakura moved to protect Tazuna while Naruto and Sasuke engaged the two in battle, it didn't take long but when one of the ninjas tried a sneak attack on Sakura, Naruto lept in the way and took a good slash to his right hand. Sasuke finished the shinobi he was fighting with a kick to the skull knocking him out, while Naruto ripped the chain that the enemy shinobi impaled into his hand to the ground and began pummeling the second ninja to a pulp for daring to attack his Sakura-chan. It was a good five minutes before Naruto finally stopped and Kakashi reappeared surprising his teammates.

"Sensei you're alive!" Naruto and Sakura said with relief as they both tried to embrace him in a hug but he moved out of the way causing the two Uzumaki's heads to collide in mid air.

"Tazuna it's about time you told us why there are enemy shinobi after you? Kakashi asked with malice, this is not what his team signed up for. Kakashi looked at Tazuna but when he never received a reply he turned to his team and was surprised to see Sakura treating Naruto's wound,

"Sakura, Where did you learn how to treat poisoned injuries?" he questioned. She looked up at her sensei and smiled, "The boys like to beat themselves to a bloody pulp at least once a week, so Ino and I decided to take up some basic first aid, where just lucky those guys were using a pretty common poison and I was able to figure it out," Sakura said with pride.

Kakashi looked at his team, they were ready and determined, Sasuke and Naruto had taken out those chunin like it was nothing, Sakura had protected the bridge builder and even treated Naruto's injuries after he protected her, "Is this pride," Kakashi thought. He couldn't cancel this mission not after they begged for it, not when they were ready and if things got really bad he could protect them, Kakashi was confident of that.

He looked at Tazuna again using his killing intent, "I'm not canceling this mission because I believe in them!" he pointed to his students who were too wrapped up in a new argument to even notice the two men.

"When we get to the Land of Waves you will tell us everything, got it," Kakashi said, lowering his killer intent a little and putting on what looked like an odd grin, if you could actually see his face.

"Got it," was Tazuna's simple reply as he gulped in a terrified expression. "Alright, Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, Lets move out!" Kakashi stated to the three teenagers, "Right!" they all responded and the group of five once again resumed their journey to the Land of Waves.

It wasn't long before Team 7 and Tazuna found there way to a small fishing boat with a man waiting for them, "You ready Tazuna?" he questioned. "Yea lets go, get on the boat everyone this is our ride." The four shinobi got inside the small vessel and there group slowly made their way into a dense fog. There were all thinking the same but Sakura was the one to voice their opinion,

"It's so foggy, I can barely see anything. Her teammates agreed with her as there captain began to speak up, "We should see the bridge soon, and just beyond that is the Land of Waves." Naruto looked and said aloud

"Wow that's an impressive bridge Tazuna-san!" but as soon as he did the captain gave him a death glare, "Shut up where trying to be sneaky, why do you think were using the fog as cover." Naruto looked down in disappointment and Sakura gave him what she now called a love tap to his cranium. Kakashi looked at Tazuna again in anger,

"Before we reach the shore, I want to know the whole story, I need to know why those ninjas were after you?" Kakashi asked him but when he received no response he added "If you don't tell us I'll be ending this mission once we reach the shore."

"Fine," Kakashi went to turn away from him but Tazuna finally spoke up,

"Wait, fine I'll tell you everything, you do deserve the truth after all. "The one who wants me dead is a short and ugly man who has cast an even uglier shadow over my country," Tazuna finally started explaining.

"What's his name?" Kakashi asked his anger starting to vanish albeit not fully.
"He's one of the richest men in the world, I'm sure you've heard of him the trader known as Gato, the owner of Gato Transport," Tazuna finally answered.

Kakashi looked at him impassively and Tazuna just continued, "On the service he appears to be a legitimate businessman but the truth is he's cold blooded crook who will do whatever it takes to get his way, underneath his so called legitimate business he runs several illegal operations including drugs, women, and assassination requests using mercenaries and rogue ninja,"

Tazuna took a deep breath and continued once again. "It was one year ago when that bastard stuck his fangs into our land, using his wealth he took control of all trade on our small island nation and anyone who tried to stop him was killed or disappeared. Since Gato controls trade to the entire country, he by proxy controls all of our lives but if I finish the bridge I can break Gato's hold over our country and finally set us free,"
Tazuna said finally finishing his tale.

"So what you're saying is you're a target because your the only thing standing in his way," Sakura said aloud, with Sasuke then adding, "So those two ninjas were hired by Gato to assassinate you." Kakashi looked at Tazuna his anger slightly returning,

"Why didn't you tell our village the truth, especially if you knew there would be shinobi sent after you, why did you hide this from us?" he asked the bridge builder. "Like I said Gato's been in control for a year now, none of us, not even the nobles have any money, we simply can't afford an A or B-ranked mission,"

Tazuna responded looking down in shame but quickly regained his composure and stared eye to eye with the jounin. "If you choose to abandon the mission when we reach the shore, I have little doubt that I'll be killed shortly after and the bridge will never be finished, and my people as well as my grandson will continue to suffer." Tazuna actually looked at Team 7 and laughed, "But that's not your problem know is it,"

Kakashi looked at him with sympathy and then looked at his team who had similar expressions on. He turned to face Tazuna again, "I guess it's unanimous we'll keep guarding you," Kakashi actually informed the bridge builder with a wary expression.

Eventually the group found their way under the bridge and came out on the other side and what they saw surprised them all. The fog was gone and it was as sunny as could be with several rundown buildings on the shoreline. The boat they were in came to a stop at a small wooden pier where they all disembarked.

Tazuna gave his thanks to the boat captain who simply informed him to be careful. He then turned to face the group of shinobi, "Alright, take me to my home," he stated and the group of shinobi with Tazuna included made their way down a trail that led into a small patch of woods.

It wasn't five minutes into their journey when the young blonde threw a kunai into a tree almost killing a small white rabbit in the process. Naruto ran up to the poor creature and tried to comfort it while Sakura came up to her baka and proceeded to give him another love tap for scaring her to death when she noticed the color of its fur. She knelt down and whispered into Naruto's ear,

"I think you may have been right Naruto, white rabbits don't exist is this region this time of year, it may have been used for a substitution," Sakura explained to him. Naruto nodded and both teens proceeded on their journey with a new sense of worry that someone was watching them.

That sense of worry would be validated when their entire group saw a massive sword coming towards forcing them to duck for cover. The group managed to regain their composure and that's when they saw him standing in a tree. He had gray skin, no eyebrows, and black hair, with a mask covering his mouth in his hand was that massive blade that almost split their group in two.

Kakashi looked at the man and recognized him instantly,

"Zabuza Momochi also known as the Demon of the Hidden Mist,"
Kakashi started with an unreadable look on his face.