Team seven were making good progress towards Nami, after their meeting with the hokage, they set off to their homes to pack for the trip, and slept, they set out in the morning and a day and then some into their trip they were left with just a few hours until they were to reach Nami. Sakura was walking to the left of Tazuna, Chizuru to the right, Kakashi in the back, and Hinata walked a little bit ahead. They were all idly talking, having just finished another team-building exercise in the form of tossing a much much smaller rubber ball between the four of them, and decided to take it easy for the rest of the trip. Kakashi minutely stiffened when a puddle came into view on the road ahead, and signed to his students to be wary. Chizuru and Sakura noticed him signing and Chizuru decided to get Hinata's attention.
"Hey Tazuna." Chizuru began and watched as he turned toward her, "Are there any shinobi in Nami?"
"I doubt there would be, we don't have a shinobi village in our country like you do in Hi no Kuni, but we get the occasional shinobi passing through." He explained.
Chizuru watched as Hinata looked back to give Tazuna a thoughtful look when he explained, and signed the same caution Kakashi did to her. Hinata's eyes widened a tiny bit, but she seemingly took a deep breath and calmed her nerves. The group finally passed the puddle and made it all of ten steps past when suddenly two shinobi leapt out of it. The two were linked together via a bladed chain, and wore Kiri headbands. One of the newly revealed Kiri-nin leapt over the other, and launched himself to the side of the group, while whipping his chain in a certain way. After the Kiri-nin landed, he pulled the chain tight, along with the other, and team seven watched as Kakashi became entangled by the bladed chain, and subsequently ripped apart with a spew of gore.
"One down." One of the Kiri-nin said in a gruff voice.
After a brief moment of shock, the remaining members of team seven leapt into action, Sakura stayed back and drew a kunai to protect the bridge builder, while Chizuru and Hinata rushed forward. Hinata activated her byakugan, and threw a shuriken at the bladed chain which caught it and slammed it, and stuck it against a tree, Chizuru followed up by launching a kunai at the shuriken and stuck the chain even further to the tree by lodging the kunai in the shuriken's open middle. The two then threw themselves at the Kiri-nin and engaged in taijutsu with the now stuck shinobi. Hinata quickly disabled her opponent with her juken after jabbing all of the Kiri-nin's tenketsu. Chizuru similarly began her taijutsu bought with the other Kiri-nin and began to kick and punch her way though his defenses. After a rough kick to his chest which sent him stumbling toward the tree, he growled in frustration, and released himself from the chain, before launching himself at Sakura and Tazuna. Sakura froze as he neared, and she seemingly couldn't react when the Kiri-nin leapt over her to get to the bridge builder. The Kiri-nin slashed the bridge builder's neck, and blinked in confusion when instead of blood coming from the wound, the bridge builder and the pinkette disappeared completely. His shock was short lived as a swarm of kunai and shuriken flew in from all sides and forced him to leap to the only spot that was free, which just so happened to be in the range of Hinata's juken. Kakashi rejoined the group after Hinata disabled the second Kiri-nin and Sakura and Tazuna came out from behind the tree they were hiding behind.
"Good work everyone." Kakashi congratulated.
"What?" Tazuna yelled questioningly, "You were killed! I saw it! How did you live?"
"Kawarimi." Kakashi said simply while pointing at the broken pieces of wood that laid where his 'torn up body' once did.
"Huh." Tazuna said simply.
"Anyways, good work out there girls, Sakura you did well to hide yourself and the client while Hinata and Chizuru distracted the shinobi, nice job with the bunshin as well. Chizuru, you did a great job with distracting the Kiri-nin long enough to make sure Sakura could hide safely, but it seems you will need to work on your taijutsu style if you want to do that again, it was rather lacking." Kakashi explained, then turned toward Hinata, "And Hinata, well done, if it weren't for you, I may have needed to step in to finish things, you did amazingly well disabling the two Kiri-nin. All three of you were fantastic in the last act with forcing the Kiri-nin to leap towards Hinata." He finished.
"Thank you sensei." They all said, while bowing slightly and blushing at the praise.
"Now, Tazuna." Kakashi began, his voice taking on a new tone, "We need to talk about a few things."
"I'm sorry!" Tazuna blurted out. "If I'd known I would be assigned a team with children on it I wouldn't have come to Konoha with my mission!"
"So, you knew you'd be hunted by ninja, and lied about it to our hokage?" Kakashi asked, "If you had told him the truth, I'm sure whatever reason you had to lie could have easily have been solved."
"But we don't have the kind of money for anything higher than C-rank! Please, our nation is so poor can you please please please continue the mission?" Tazuna begged.
"Not until we know every variable." Kakashi said, "Explain."
"Okay okay!" Tazuna began, "About a year ago a man by the name of Gato came to Nami in what we though was a business venture. He began setting up shop there, and not even two months in he had bought out every business dealing with transportation on the island. We thought he would be a boon to the economy, and the daimyo was especially ecstatic to have such a man doing business on the island. Everything changed though once he took control of the ports. It started with him taxing us more and more for foreign goods, and once we stopped buying foreign foods in favor of fishing, and foreign clothes and jewelry in favor of homemade alternatives, he began sicking his guards on us. It started slow, with his goons beginning to demand money in return for their protection, and slowly grew to them being the ones we needed protection from." Tazuna explained.
"Suddenly, we lost all contact with the daimyo..." Tazuna furthered, "And the goons started doubling every day, until finally they began making examples out of those who didn't follow orders..." He trailed off.
"This Gato, could he be the Gato?" Kakashi asked.
"If by the Gato you mean the one that is one of the richest men in the world, then yes, that would be him..." Tazuna confirmed.
"I see... Go on." Kakashi nudged.
"The taxes the goons demanded for protection grew, and soon, when people couldn't pay with ryo, they began taking people as compensation... Men, women, and children all disappeared over the course of a few months, all that remains are those that had more ryo saved up then others, and those who are much better at running than others. Our old, our sick, and our disabled were the first to... Well... Go... Then our women were taken, and our children were taken, and soon, even our men were carted off. We believe he's putting them up for auction elsewhere, as a part of a massive human trafficking ring. But what's worse, is that that's not the only morally awful deed he's doing. He's been using us to grow and produce drugs for him to trade off, and has been using those same drugs to sedate our people. We no longer grow our own food, and rely on what few fisherman remain to catch our meals, forage in the forest for anything we can get our hands on, or we give an arm and a leg to get food from Gato... That's why I'm building a bridge... To free my people... But..." He again trailed off as his eyes misted over, and tears began to fall.
"Well, I can't risk the safety of my genin for my own wishes, so I have to consult them as to what they want to do, but I'm really sorry to hear what has happened to your country." Kakashi sighed, then turned toward his students, who were all looking at the bridge builder, teary-eyed from the story.
"We'll help out any way we can!" Chizuru shouted voice filled with sadness.
"Right!" Hinata and Sakura called out as well.
"Alright then Tazuna. Looks like you've got guards for the rest of the trip, and even for the rest of the time it takes to build your bridge." Kakashi said.
"Really?" Tazuna sniffled, then brightened at Kakashi's nod. "Oh thank you shinobi-san! Thank you all!"
"Maa, no need to mention it..." Kakashi muttered, while scratching the back of his head in embarrassment, before coughing into his fist. "Now, I need to send a message to update the hokage on the situation as well as get some anbu to take these two away to t&i for further questioning once I'm done with getting information out of them." Kakashi explained.
The group had found a fisherman in a town on the shore facing Nami that was more than willing to take them across, as he once lived in Nami, and wanted so badly for it to prosper like it once had. They arrived on the other side of the channel not long after getting on the boat, and had even passed under the massive bridge Tazuna was building. After leaving the boat the group began to make their way to Tazuna's house, they were on edge due to a steady mist that began to roll in, and none were calmed when Tazuna shakily said that mist like this was common here. They were about an hour away when suddenly a spike of chakra led Chizuru to toss a kunai into a bush not far in front of them. The group cautiously moved forward and peered into the bushes, only to find a very frightened white rabbit shaking beside the kunai that lodged itself into the ground.
"Oh no!" Chizuru said while bending down to pick the rabbit up. "I'm so sorry little one! I didn't mean to scare you!"
"Chizuru it's okay, I'm sure one of us would have done the same thing if you hadn't done it first..." Hinata tried to comfort.
Kakashi on the other hand seemed to be lost in thought when suddenly his gut seemingly dropped lower than before.
"Everyone duck!" Kakashi screamed.
The shinobi quickly fell to the floor, while Hinata pulled Tazuna down with them. Not even a second later, a massive cleaver slashed overhead, and cut through the area the group was just standing. They shakily got up, kunai drawn, and Kakashi narrowed his eyes at the figure that crouched upon the blade that was now lodged into the tree next to the bush the rabbit was in.
"Zabuza Momochi, the Kirigakure no Kijin." Kakashi growled out.
"Sharingan no Kakashi. An honor to know such a famous ninja knows my legacy too." The newly revealed Kiri-nin, Zabuza, said.
"Kids, stay back, this man is too dangerous for you to deal with, I'll take him on, you just have to protect Tazuna." Kakashi ordered.
The genin nodded at him while Kakashi turned back to Zabuza.
"We shouldn't waste any time, and just get this over with." Kakashi drawled out lazily.
"You dare mock me?" Zabuza asked, then laughed menacingly. "I'll tell you what, I'll leave you and your genin be if you pass over the bridge builder. I have no quarrel with any of you, only him." Zabuza offered.
"I'm afraid I can't do that. He has a job to do, and so do we." Kakashi said.
"Have it your way." Zabuza said while shrugging, "I hope you know your student's deaths will be on your hands then."
Kakashi narrowed his only revealed eye. Before launching a hail of kunai at the Kiri-nin.
"Getting straight into it I see." Zabuza joked, while dodging the kunai.
The two threw themselves at eachother after Zabuza pulled his blade out of the tree, the Kiri-nin slashed horizontally towards Kakashi, to which the white haired man bent backwards out of the blade's way, and pulled out a kunai to stab Zabuza with. Zabuza deftly dodged the strike and the two pulled away from eachother. Eyeing one another for an opening, Kakashi moved first. He tossed the kunai in his hand directly at the Kiri-nin, while pulling two handfuls of shuriken from his weapons pouch. He threw them to the sides of the Kiri-nin forcing him to move backwards instead of to the side, and then launched himself forwards ready to slash Zabuza with another kunai. Zabuza reacted in kind by bringing his blade above his head and slamming it down on Kakashi's kunai as the Konoha-nin was forced to parry the strike. The two were locked together until Zabuza, having enough of the stalemate, kicked Kakashi away.
"You're going to need to do better than that if you wish to win, sharingan no Kakashi." Zabuza teased.
"I see, you leave me no choice... Well, it's your funeral." Kakashi relented, and pulled his hitai-ate up, revealing his sharingan.
The two flew at eachother again, this time Kakashi anticipating Zabuza's moves, and sliding behind the Kiri-nin when an upwards vertical slash nearly bisected him. Kakashi slashed at Zabuza and nicked his shoulder with the kunai before leaping away as another horizontal slash was sent his way. The two again paused to measure eachother up, before launching once more into combat. From the sidelines the three genin were enamored by the combat, and were seemingly too into it to be guarding their client, this notion was dispelled however, when a mizu bunshin leapt from the trees above them to slash at the bridge builder, and got immediately dispelled into water when a trap Chizuru set up sprung, launching kunai at it from below. Zabuza noticed this and grumbled, when suddenly he noticed an opening. Kakashi also watch the bunshin's attack and was slightly distracted, so Zabuza capitalized on this and rushed to Kakashi's side while launching shuriken at the Konoha-nin. Kakashi reacted almost too late, and deflected the shuriken with his own, before he lunged at Zabuza. He parried another vertical slash, and used his momentum to launch a kick into the Kiri-nin's gut, which made Zabuza fly backwards and eventually end up on the beach next to the channel team seven just traversed.
"Wrong move." The Kiri-nin chided.
He got to his feet and began to flash through some hand seals, before releasing a powerful Suiton: Suiryudan no Jutsu toward Kakashi. Kakashi was forced to dodge, and only barely did so thanks to his sharingan's ability to read hand seals quicker. Kakashi ran through some hand seals of his own before releasing a fireball from his mouth in the form of a Gokakyu no Jutsu the Kiri-nin summoned a few mizu bunshin and they all leapt out of the way of the attack. The bunshin charged Kakashi while Zabuza himself strengthened his Kirigakure no Jutsu which thickened the fog tremendously. Kakashi had some trouble finding the mizu bunshin, but they had no trouble finding him. He was attacked on all sides from the five summoned bunshin and only barely was he able to dispel them all without getting slashed. He ran out onto the water to finish Zabuza, when suddenly the Kiri-nin was behind him. He parried another strike made by the Kubikiribocho, and leapt backwards. The two stood on the water's surface for a moment studying one another, before rushing at one another again. Kakashi attempted to slide behind the Kiri-nin like before when an upwards vertical slash was made, but this time when he slashed at the enemy shinobi, Zabuza dispelled into water. Eyes widening for a moment, Kakashi was forced to parry another slash when suddenly the Kiri-nin lunged at him with his fist. What Kakashi failed to realize was that Zabuza had completed a series of hand seals moments before and when the punch was revealed to be a feint, he wasn't able to react when the water below him surged upwards to encompass him. Zabuza laughed darkly at his apparent victory, before looking down at Kakashi.
"You failed. I am now free to do to your students as I please, order them to stand down, or run, if you want, just know they will die if they stand between me and my paycheck." Zabuza explained.
"Kids! Get out of here!" Kakashi called out, "I can't escape from this! And he's too far out of your league to fight on your own! Leave now or you'll die!" He finished.
"No way Kakashi-sensei!" Chizuru yelled, "We will not leave you behind!"
"Right!" Hinata and Sakura agreed.
The three ignored Kakashi's calls of protest as they quickly came up with a plan, and no sooner than they did, did a mizu bunshin try to cut them in half. The bunshin's blade seemingly collided with thin air, before the entire clone was thrown back and dispelled. Kakashi realized Chizuru had put a barrier up and thanked kami for her prowess in fuinjutsu. The two other genin stood on guard around Tazuna, while Chizuru grabbed and unfolded a fuma shuriken from within her cloak. She got into a proper throwing stance, and launched the object at Zabuza at an insane speed. The Kiri-nin watched as it neared him and moved his head to the side as it passed him. What he wasn't prepared for however was for the shuriken to poof into a Chizuru-bunshin, and launch a kick at the back of his head. The kick destabilized him just enough so that he released his Suiro no Jutsu and subsequently, Kakashi. The Kiri-nin had no time to react as Kakashi released a volley of shuriken at his back, all of which slashed wounds into it, but none stuck. Zabuza only barely parried a strike from the Konoha-nin when he lunged in with a kunai, and again the two had to leap away from one another. Zabuza was fed up at this point and decided to release another Suiryudan no Jutsu at Kakashi, but Kakashi, with his sharingan active, copied the jutsu and released one at the exact same time as the Kiri-nin. The two attacks bashed into one another, but Kakashi's proved stronger, as his raced past the now massive spray of water and towards Zabuza. Zabuza attempted to dodge the attack but was swept up in it and launched back to the shoreline. Kakashi flashed through a final set of hand seals as he prepared to end the fight, and formed a Chidori in his right hand. He launched himself toward the now recovering Kiri-nin and prepared to end his life, when suddenly a few senbon flew out of a nearby tree and lodged themselves into the Kiri-nin's neck. Killing him instantly. Kakashi slid to a halt, and released his jutsu before walking up to the Kiri-nin and checking his pulse.
"He's dead." Kakashi sighed in relief. "Whoever did this, you should come out now."
"That would be me." An effeminate voice called down from a tree.
A Kiri-nin, wearing a green haori and hunter-nin mask, leapt down next to Zabuza and picked up his sword, before holstering it behind their back. they looked at Kakashi before seemingly smiling behind their mask.
"Thank you Konoha-nin. I have been hunting this criminal down for quite a while, now I can finally return with his head to Kirigakure. I will be taking his corpse away for now, so that your genin do not have to see the process." The hunter-nin explained.
Kakashi nodded at the hunter-nin before covering his sharingan back up, and heading for his team. When they converged, they all silently shared a moment, before heading toward Tazuna's again. Once there, they were greeted by Tsunami, Tazuna's daughter, and were allowed to stay for as long as it took for the bridge to get finished. Kakashi was about to respond when the events from earlier caught up with him, and he collapsed to the floor.
"Kakashi-sensei!" His genin yelled.
Hinata activated her byakugan as quick as she could, and sighed in relief before informing her teammates that he was okay, just suffering from chakra exhaustion. They carried Kakashi to one of the spare bedrooms with the guidance of Tsunami, before helping the woman make dinner, and going to sleep.
Kakashi rose from his laying position and sat up, the towel on his forehead dropping into his lap as he did so. He looked around the room he found himself in, and snapped his head to the door that was opening. When he saw that it was Sakura entering the room, he relaxed.
"Kakashi-sensei! You're awake!" Sakura called out, which led to Hinata and Chizuru bursting through the door behind her.
"Kakashi-sensei!" They greeted.
"Yo." He said lazily, "How long have I been out?"
"Only since yesterday, it's just past noon now." Sakura answered.
"How are you feeling sensei?" Hinata asked.
"Better, but still awful." He explained. "It's a good thing you're all here though, 'cause I have something to tell you."
"What is it sensei?" Chizuru asked.
"I don't think Zabuza is dead." He said bluntly.
"What!?" The three genin called out.
"But sensei! You said he was dead! You even checked yourself!" Chizuru shouted.
"I did. But that was before I put two and two together, you see, senbon are hardly a weapon in the sense that a shuriken or a kunai is, its practically impossible to kill someone with, let alone a jonin-level shinobi." He explained, "That coupled with the fact that the hunter-nin took the body away from the place of death, rather than telling you guys to turn away, leads me to believe that Zabuza is alive and well, and that the hunter-nin was an accomplice." Kakashi finished.
"Wait so... We'll have to fight him again!? And you're in no shape to fight, so it'll only be us..." Chizuru complained.
"True, I'm not in any shape to fight, right now that is. However, I believe that we have about a week before Zabuza recovers from both the fight, and the near-death state the hunter-nin put him in. And by then, I'll be back to full strength. For now though, I'll have to train you guys even harder than before." He explained.
"How? You're still injured, you shouldn't even get out of bed!" Sakura tried to reason with him.
"It's alright, I'll just need some crutches, and I'll be more than fine pointing out what you have to do, it's not like I have to join your training." He waved off their concerns.
"If you say so..." Sakura said.
"Right, now can one of you please get me some crutches, its time to train!" Kakashi said jovially.
The four trudged out into the forest surrounding Tazuna's house, and immediately set themselves into their stretches. After about twenty minutes of pre-training warmups Kakashi called them together to explain what they would be doing.
"Alright everyone, today we are going to do tree walking exercises." He began then saw Hinata raise her hand.
"Um Kakashi-sensei... Chizuru and I have already mastered the tree walking exercise..." She mumbled.
"Yeah! And the water walking too!" Chizuru added.
"Really? Well, what about you Sakura?" Kakashi asked.
"Huh? Oh, well I also learned those... I kinda was forced to learn them when hanging out with Ino during the times her father was training her." She said then shrugged.
"Well that makes things easier." Kakashi said, then reached into one of his pockets, and pulled out four small pieces of paper. "Here, each one of you take one of these. These are chakra induction papers, they can tell us what your nature affinities are. If it crumples you have a lightning affinity, if it cuts itself in half, you have a wind affinity, and so on and so forth. All you have to do is channel some chakra into the paper and," He channeled chakra into the remaining paper to which it crumpled. "Hinata, how about you go first?"
Hinata nodded and channeled some chakra into her paper, which began damp, then dried and turned to dust.
"Two affinities? That's rare, it seems as you have both a water and earth affinity." Kakashi explained. "Sakura?"
Sakura did the same thing and the paper only dried and turned to dust.
"An earth affinity, nice to see you both have that in common. Now Chizuru, care to make it three for three?" He asked.
Chizuru smiled at him, then channeled chakra into her own paper, and watched as it split into three parts, one lit on fire, one crumpled, and one turned black.
"Uh... Kakashi-sensei I think my paper's broken..." Chizuru complained.
"I... I think so too... Here try again." He said while pulling out another one.
She pumped her chakra into it again, and the same thing happened, it split into three, one lit on fire, one crumpled, and the other turned black.
"Am I doing it wrong?" She asked dejectedly.
"N-no. I'm sure you're doing it right... Just... Try one more time." Kakashi said while passing her yet another one.
She did it again, and again the same thing happened. Kakashi grabbed his head in astonishment. Four affinities? FOUR AFFINITIES!? One of them an unknown, most likely a kekkei genkai. But what type of kekkei genkai turns the paper black, wait, it's not just black, it's wet too, ink? Is that ink? Wait a minute...
"Hinata activate your byakugan." He ordered, to which she did. "Now, tell me, what does the black paper look like."
"It has a sorta glow to it, like it's infused with chakra, but its wet?" Hinata explained.
"Good, now what does this look like?" Kakashi asked while unsealing some chakra ink.
"The exact same sensei." Hinata confirmed.
"Alright. Chizuru, it seems as though you not only have four affinities, but one of them is a new kekkei genkai. You seemingly have the ability to morph your chakra into chakra ink, meaning theoretically you can make seals just by pumping chakra into something." Kakashi explained, "The closest thing to this that I know of to this is the Kuchiyose no Jutsu but that requires both blood and chakra, as well as a contract, or an overly specific and complicated sealing matrix, like the yondaime's hiraishin, to preform."
"Is that a good thing? Wait, what are the other three?" Chizuru asked.
"Yes, its a very good thing, fuinjutsu masters would figuratively and, in some cases, literally kill for such a kekkei genkai. And the other three affinities are lighting, wind, and fire." Kakashi answered.
"A new kekkei genkai... Huh. I guess that means I get to name it doesn't it?" Chizuru asked.
"Yep." Kakashi said while eye smiling.
"Awesome! I think I know the perfect name! We can call it fuinton!" Chizuru shouted excitedly.
"Fuinton no Chizuru, I can see it in the bingo books now." Kakashi joked, "I like it."
"Hell yeah! Hinata did you hear? We're kekkei genkai buddies!" Chizuru called out, while rushing over to hug the bluenette.
"I'm very happy for you... That is for the kekkei genkai..." Hinata mumbled while Chizuru spun her around in a massive hug.
"Okay! Now, to begin training you to use jutsu of your elemental affinities, we first have to do what is called the leaf exercise." Kakashi explained.
"Leaf exercise? Like what we did at the academy?" Chizuru questioned.
"Kinda, but no, that is a weakened form of the actual leaf exercises. These ones that I will be teaching you are much harder to do. First grab a leaf." He began, to which his students followed up by grabbing a leaf each. "Good. Now Hinata, try to soak the leaf like you did the chakra paper, Sakura, try to turn your leaf to dust, and Chizuru you have to cut your leaf in two." He finished.
His students immediately set out to do their respective leaf exercises, while Kakashi traveled back to Tazuna's house to walk him to the bridge, and take the first shift in guarding him.