It's still dark when Kakashi perches on Iruka's window frame, maybe an hour or so before sunrise, but the kitchen light is on so he lets himself in, unsurprised to find the Chunin's bed unoccupied. He knocks softly on the wall in respect to the hour.
"Come on in!" Iruka calls from kitchen.
Kakashi slips inside and finds he's caught the academy sensei in the middle of his morning routine, a set of senbon and a couple of kunai set out on the table next to a roll of limb wrap, a kettle boiling merrily away on the stove. Iruka is in the process of tying up his hair, his flak jacket draped over a kitchen chair.
"Morning." Kakashi greets, lingering in the doorway.
"Morning. Tea?" Iruka asks back.
"If it's not too much trouble."
Iruka turns to the cabinet and pulls out a tin before fishing in the cabinets for mugs. "You're welcome to a rice ball if you'd like one." Iruka offers, a little too cheery.
Kakashi takes a seat at the table and helps himself to a salmon one while the Chunin's back is turned, humming in thanks.
"I wasn't actually expecting you to be up this early." Kakashi says after he's finished, and when Iruka turns around his smile is week at best. "Did something happen?" he asks.
Iruka rubs his temple with a knuckle, letting his smile fall to a frown. "Someone tried to take a kinjutsu scroll from the archives last night. Got caught by the chakra alarms. I have to go in early to help sort the whole mess out." Iruka grumbles.
Kakashi tilts his head to the side in confusion. "Why you? Surely the on duty Anbu can handle it, let you sleep."
Iruka sighs heavily and sets one of the steaming mugs in front of Kakashi, curling a hand around his own cup. "It's not that simple. The offender was a teacher."
"Who?"
Iruka grits his teeth. "Mizuki."
Kakashi sucks a sympathetic breath between his teeth, but Iruka glares at him before he can say anything.
"Don't start. I should have seen it coming. His behavior has been off for months." Iruka chides himself, grabbing a roll of limb wrap and setting about looping it over his shins, tucking senbon into the folds.
"You two were friends as kids though, right?" Kakashi says, taking a sip from his tea while Iruka is preoccupied with the wrappings.
"We grew pretty far apart as we got older." Iruka explains. "I don't think he ever got over the fact that I'm not attracted to him, or–" he stalls, waving his hand absently like he's searching for an appropriate word.
"People in general?" Kakashi finishes.
"Exactly." he affirms, reaching for a few freshly sharpened kunai and slipping them into the pouch on his thigh. "Anyway, what brings you here so early? I doubt your Genin will appreciate the pre-dawn wake-up call. I know for a fact that a certain Uchiha doesn't take that very well."
"I am perfectly aware of Sasuke's tendencies to react violently to specific… surprises."
That startles a laugh out of Iruka. "You are such an ass, you know that?"
"I probably have bruises somewhere to prove it."
Iruka snorts at that, but his mood seems to have improved already. "So what are you up for, if not to torture your Genin?" he asks.
Kakashi hums. "Just… finishing my morning routine early. The brats have their first C-rank in a few hours. I figured I'd get a head start."
The fact is that Kakashi hadn't slept much last night at all, wondering if this decision was the right one. It's not as though he's that worried about the mission, C-ranks can be arduous, but there's usually no real combat involved with anyone but common bandits. The issue is he knows that this is the end of harmless D-rank missions for good– once his brats know what an actual mission feels like, they're not likely to want to do anything else.
There goes all his free time.
"Normally I'd say it's too early to send a team so green on a difficult mission so soon, but I'm not actually worried." Iruka says easily. "It's well within their abilities, and if anything does go wrong, there's no one I'd trust to protect them more than you."
Of all the responses Kakashi had expected, Iruka's easy acceptance had not been on the list– Umino Iruka is usually a champion angry worrier, and Kakashi had been counting on a lecture at least.
"Well." Kakashi drawls, carefully not acknowledging the last part of Iruka's statement. "That was less violent than I expected."
Iruka throws a shuriken at him to make up for it.
Later, when Kakashi pauses at the threshold of another window, a smaller window, he'll wonder at the small something growing in his chest, wonder at the new warmth creeping through his cold bones.
Naruto's apartment is even smaller than he thought, nothing more than a triad of small rooms; a main area that is both bedroom and living space, with only a bed, nightstand, small shelf, and closet within, a short hallway leading to a tiny square kitchen and a shut door that likely leads to the only bathroom. It's hardly enough room for one person, let alone the three Genin sleeping curled together like a mismatched family of alleycats, tucked under each other for warmth. Their heads are pillowed on travel packs and each other, limbs flung and folded haphazardly.
Sakura is still in civilian pajamas, a telltale redness to the corners of her eyes and her nose that says she's been crying. As if in response to her vulnerability, Sasuke and Naruto are curled around her like barriers against an invisible threat, lying opposite directions like a symbol for balance. Like Yin and Yang.
These kids are something else.
Naruto wakes when Sakura's knee lodges particularly painfully in the small of his back, blinking his eyes open to grey predawn light. His stomach rumbles.
~Breakfast time, kit. Also, your sensei came by while you were snoozing and left something on the table.~ Kurama tells him absently, yawning widely.
"Kakashi-sensei was here?" He asks, rolling to his feet and extracting himself from the nest of limbs on the floor.
~About a half an hour ago.~ Kurama affirms. ~Sneaky little shit, that one. I almost didn't notice him.~
Naruto wanders over to the kitchen table, and sure enough there's a note and a plastic grocery bag resting there that definitely hadn't been there before they'd passed out, and Naruto rubs his eyes, squinting down at the sharp scratchy writing.
Meet me at the mission desk by 9:30. Your assignment is an escort mission across country borders, expected one week in length. Pack accordingly.
Naruto; pack lunches may not consist of instant ramen. I'm expecting down time during the journey, so don't forget any study materials or jutsu you three may want to work on. Sasuke; remember the equipment for kenjutsu practice and check that Naruto does not pack any instant ramen. Sakura; the change of clothes is for you, make sure the boys don't forget anything important and that everyone has their emergency supplies.
The note is signed with a Henohenomoheji, an arrangement of hiragana characters made to look like the faces school kids put on scarecrows. The play on Kakashi's name, scarecrow, makes Naruto roll his eyes. He peeks into the bag, noting the dark clothing inside and then promptly leaving it alone– it's for Sakura, he's not going to dig through it.
He takes a quick shower and then starts breakfast, counting on the smell of rice and salmon to wake his teammates before too long. While he works he goes over supplies in his head, trying to remember if he has the scroll for that bone repair jutsu Sakura had been working on or if she took it home with her.
Sasuke is up first, and comes into the kitchen rubbing the skin over his hip. "She kicks in her sleep." He mutters crossly.
"I noticed." Naruto responds with a sympathetic wince. He goes back to the fish searing away in the pan, and Sasuke checks the rice and stirs the miso pot without being asked. They work in companionable silence for a while and Sakura must well and truly be out of it, because even when breakfast is finished and the smell is rich throughout the entire apartment, Sakura still doesn't stir. Last night must have taken more out of her than he thought.
"Is there some kind of rule against ninja punching civilians?" he asks absently.
Sasuke hums as they sit down, taking a bite of his breakfast before he bothers answering. "The actual law is long and unnecessarily complicated, but it pretty much amounts to 'don't'." he drawls, but the low-key frustration in his eyes tells him Sasuke understands where he's coming from. That's the thing about Sasuke– his eyes usually say what the rest of his face doesn't give away.
~Hey kit.~ Kurama calls, when he's most of the way through his meal. ~When you're done, we need to talk.~
Naruto pauses with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. Kurama's tone is soft and serious and sets Naruto's gut on rolling into knots. He has a feeling he knows what Kurama wants to talk about.
"Dobe?"
The insult-turned-nickname draws Naruto's attention immediately up and out of his own head, and his eyes meet the confused borderline concern in Sasuke's. It's a dangerous look, that one. The last time Sasuke had looked at him like that, Naruto had turned around and straight up spilled his guts about Uzushio. He suddenly has to go, has to get out of this room before those eyes coax a far more dangerous secret out of him.
He clears his throat and breaks their gazes, making a show of rubbing at his eye as he sets down his chopsticks. He's no longer hungry. "Sorry. Headache." He hedges, pushing up from the table. "I think I'm gonna go see if I can meditate it off before we go. Come get me before 9:00?"
Sasuke blinks, bemused. "Of course." he says automatically, and Naruto heads out the door before he can say anything else.
When Sakura walks into the kitchen, rubbing at slightly swollen eyes, she finds Sasuke staring at the door, her blond idiot nowhere in sight.
"Where's Naruto?" She asks, wandering into the kitchen to stand next to him.
Sasuke doesn't take his eyes off the door. "He went to go meditate." he says oddly.
That's not exactly strange– Naruto meditates a lot, it's a training habit he quickly passed to them, and useful for sorting out chakra flow and analyzing physical or mental catches. "So?" she says, because judging from the look on Sasuke's face, that's not all that happened.
"He said he had a headache." Sasuke says, again in that strangely intense tone.
"It's happened before." Sakura reasons.
"He lied."
That does catch Sakura's attention. Naruto by his very nature is the most honest person she knows. He's a terrible liar, even with stupid little white lies, so he never bothers, especially not with his friends.
"Why would he lie to you?" Sakura asks, disbelieving.
Sasuke shakes his head, looking lost. "I don't know."
When Naruto gets to the glade, he makes sure to re-energize the seals set into the trees along the space, something he hasn't needed to do in a while, and sets a chakric proximity alarm too, just in case. He can't risk someone finding him on accident.
He takes a deep breath and strips off his loose fitting overshirt, leaving him in his regular sleeveless undershirt. He takes off the wrapping on his shins and folds his pants up over his knees, slipping out of his sandals. The water of the basin is cool as he steps over it, the willow's branches sweeping past him as he makes his way to the waterfall. In a chakra enhanced leap he alights on an outcropping halfway up the cascade, clear and well worn by his presence and the presence of his friends. Here, the water crashes off the rock, sending its spray in all directions before it continues its downward journey. The stone is slick and smooth as a result, so he's careful as he settles under the rush of the water.
The roar drowns out everything outside of him until the only sounds he's aware of are the ones within– the thumping of his heart, the dull rumble of the minute movements of his muscles, and finally, the whisper of chakra through his cells. He steps back inside his head, and all other noises cut out but these.
The water of the seal space is abnormally chilly with Naruto's unease, cold against his legs as he opens his eyes. Kurama is right in front of him, something that might have startled him if Naruto hadn't sensed it already.
Kurama's fur is bright and brilliant amber, soft looking in the sunshower light. His eyes look more and more gilded every day, a ring of rose hued gold around the edges of his irises. Even now, months and months from that terrifying rush to Uzushio, it's a relief to see his bijuu so healthy. He looks even better now than when Naruto first met him, alive and brimming with energy and chakra. When Naruto had commented on it, Kurama had merely told him it was his fault, and hadn't said anything else.
Kurama immediately tucks his nose into Naruto's chest, and Naruto presses his head against the nine-tails' muzzle for comfort. As another result of the shared seal space, the line between his emotions and Kurama's has become fuzzy and blurred, allowing them to draw and fold together when they become too strong. Kurama can sense his anxiety in the same way Naruto can sense the bijuu's frustration or unrest, and sensing the cause of these things is even easier.
Kurama knows without him saying that he's afraid, so afraid, of his friends finding out what he is. It's not that he's ashamed of Kurama in any way, or ashamed of what he is, but years and years of discrimination and hate doesn't come from nowhere, and his friends mean so much to him that the thought of them hating him for being a jinchuuriki is something he can hardly stomach thinking of. But he can't keep this secret forever, can't hide what he is from Sasuke and Sakura. He doesn't want to.
He tells Kurama as much, even though his bijuu already knows.
By the end of it he has tears in his eyes that he refuses to let fall, and the light has dimmed to a pale filter across the water. Kurama curls around him as he speaks, enclosing Naruto in a cavern made from his amber tails, forelegs looped around where he sits, nose settled past his knees.
~In my not-so-humble opinion, squirt, I don't think you have anything to worry about.~ Kurama rumbles when he's finished, lifting a claw to push some of Naruto's hair out of his eyes. It's been getting long– enough so that he can push parts of it behind his ears.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he grumbles, angrily wiping the wetness from his eyes.
Kurama chuckles a little, a sound that moves through the spaces in Naruto's chest, banishing some of the overcast. ~I never thought I'd say this, but I don't think you're giving them enough credit.~ Kurama ducks his head closer and pulls his forelegs tighter so that Naruto can feel the press of his fur, warm and supportive, against his back. ~And I do know this. If they do find out and suddenly decide to label you a monster for something you had no control over? Then they never deserved you in the first place. That's fact.~
And goddammit Naruto just stopped feeling like he was going to cry, and now fresh salt water is welling up in his eyes.
~Not only that, but if they did hate you, and you decided to run from here, off into the unknown with no one at all beside you, then know this;~ Kurama's words are iron with conviction and soft with affection, and Naruto's still not sure what he did to deserve that, to deserve a friend, a parent like Kurama, and his last sentence makes the tears spill over in earnest. ~You will have me until the end of time. No matter what.~
Naruto lets himself cry for a minute or two, but now he's laughing though the tears, and the stormy sunlight floods the seal space again in force. The water warms in a rush, swirling as if stirred by an ocean current, rushing to fill the air with warmth.
He wipes his eyes and looks up, speaking as soon as he finds his voice. "Hard to argue with that."
~I'm usually right.~ Kurama boasts. ~You should listen to me more often.~
Naruto laughs again. "I always listen to you." He counters.
Kurama smiles, fangless and soft. ~Then listen to me on this, kit. Don't worry about what your friends will think if they know. If you need me, if you need my strength to protect what's yours, promise me you won't hesitate.~
Naruto nods, looking up into the amber eyes of his bijuu. "I promise."
~Good.~ Kurama rumbles. ~On a less serious note, even if you did decide to run off into the sunset, I'm pretty sure your friends would drop what they're doing to follow you anyway.~
Naruto blinks, taken aback. "What? No way."
Kurama huffs. ~Well maybe not your Shikamaru or your Inuzuka, they have too much binding them here, but the little Genesis and the baby Uchiha? Definitely.~
"How would you know that?" Naruto asks, suspicious that Kurama might just be telling him things to make him feel better.
Kurama snorts, and the breath rustles Naruto's hair. ~Because you don't give yourself enough credit either, brat. They can't help it. It's a matter of gravity.~
Naruto makes a face. "You're talking in riddles again, Kurama."
The bijuu chuckles at that. ~It's alright kit. It's probably best you don't know, anyway.~
Kurama kicks him out not long after that, ordering him to actually meditate before their mission so that he's in top form. He opens his eyes, watching as the long seal lines on his arms and legs fade away again. After a long moment, he curls his hands together on his calves and slips into true mediation, focusing on systematically smoothing out his chakra flow.
The proximity alarm alerts him to Sasuke's presence a full half hour before Naruto expects him, startling him out of his task. The alarm is a buzz of vibration against his arm over the anchor seal he'd set there, and he deactivates it as soon as he senses that the presence is Sasuke's, clearing the chakra pattern from his skin with a swipe of his palm.
He feels instantly guilty for running off and hiding, and it occurs to him that Sasuke had probably seen through his headache ruse as soon as the lie had left his mouth. Naruto has always been a shitty liar, especially when it comes to his friends, and Sasuke knows him better than anyone.
He swallows as the Uchiha appears through the trees, making his way slowly across the grass to stand at the edge of the waterfall basin by Naruto's discarded shirt and sandals. Naruto expects the question any minute, the accusation, and steels himself for it.
It never comes.
Instead, Sasuke casts a glance down at Naruto's shirt and shoes and pulls off his own overshirt, stepping out of his sandals and onto the water, pausing to fold the hems of his pants neatly up his calves. He hops up into the outcropping and doesn't say a word other than to tell Naruto to shove the hell over.
It's weird and tense for about half a second, but then Naruto relaxes again, settling back into his head to resume his internal check-up. It's even easier now with the Uchiha's shoulder pressed lightly against his own– Sasuke's presence has always been a calming one, an easy match to Naruto's sometimes over-rampant energy.
When they both surface about twenty minutes later, ducking out of the falls to dry off, Naruto murmurs an apology under his breath.
Sasuke just nudges his shoulder with his own, a companionable shove that speaks volumes coming from the Uchiha. "Don't be stupid." he mutters, and they don't talk about it for the rest of the day.
In Sasuke's less than charitable opinion, Tazuna the bridge builder is a cranky senile old civilian that doesn't deserve their presence let alone their protection. He calls them children and brats and the only person in the universe that is allowed to call Sasuke a brat is Kakashi-sensei, because when he says it it's more of a teasing nickname than anything else, and the very idea that this stupid civilian think's he superior to them because of his age makes Sasuke's skin crawl.
But this is their first C-rank mission so he keeps his mouth firmly shut, teeth grit around the biting insult that wants to roll off his tongue, glaring every time the old man's eyes even drift his way.
Sakura is grumbling under her breath next to him about stupid civilian mannerisms, and an obvious twitch has started to set into her jaw every time Tazuna speaks. She looks murderous and they haven't even left the Hokage's office yet.
This is the first time he's seen Sakura in true ninja dress and he has to say it suits her; her ensemble consists of a chakra laced mesh long-sleeve under a sleeveless top of thick black material ribbed with pouches along the sides for senbon and shuriken. The top pulls low over dark Kunoichi leggings with sewn in kunai pouches below each hip, ending tucked into matching sandals with reinforced ankle straps. Kakashi's care package had also included a pair of fingerless gloves and a fitted field medic belt, lined with pouches and leather hoops meant to hold vials of medicine or poison.
But the most obvious change by far is her hair– that morning, after she'd showered and brushed out the rosy strands into a damp curtain, she'd given her long hair a lingering, calculated look, and asked Sasuke to get the scissors.
She'd had him sheer off a whole twenty centimeters.
Her hair, which now rests just past her shoulders when left free, is pulled up into a smart tail that no longer brushes her back. She'd parted it so that all her fringe fell to the right side of her face, and then braided the loose hair back in three thin plaits and tucked them into the rest of her ponytail.
Sasuke is both proud and slightly embarrassed to say that she looks more mature than both he and Naruto combined, and resolves to drag the Uzumaki equipment shopping as soon as they get back.
Speaking of Naruto, he's been surprisingly quiet after the first round of defensive growling he'd snarled in old man Tazuna's direction. As they escort the bridge builder out of the village, Naruto's glare becomes more wary than affronted.
"What's up?" Sasuke asks as they pass the outer village gate, eyeing the bridge builder to make sure they are far enough away that he can't eavesdrop.
"The old-timer is hiding something." Naruto murmurs, his nose scrunched up the way it gets when he's genuinely confused. "Not sure what though."
If Sasuke knows anything at all about Naruto it's that his instincts are usually spot on, so if he thinks there's something fishy happening, there's a good chance he's right.
Sakura slants a surreptitious glance Tazuna's way. "Should we tell Kakashi-sensei?"
Naruto shakes his head. "Nah, he probably already knows."
They spend the next few hours talking; taking turns exploring around the path and watching the bridge builder suspiciously. About halfway through the day, not long before they plan to break for lunch, Naruto's head snaps up suddenly and he casts his gaze around.
Just as Sasuke is about to ask what's wrong, he catches movement out of the corner of his eye, a shadow out of place in the trees. Sakura blinks hard a couple times as she spots a patch of water in the path, and all three them know something's wrong in under a minute.
"Kakashi-sensei." Naruto calls.
"Good senses, Naruto." Kakashi replies cheerily. "I feel a learning opportunity coming, I think. How about it? You three feel up to it?"
"Anything to break up the boredom." Sasuke drawls, keeping his senses cast wide and listening for any more signs of enemy movement.
"We can handle it." Sakura assures, stretching her arms above her head. To anyone watching it looks like an idle motion, but Sasuke knows better– the movement pulls at muscle fibers and tendons to ready them for sudden and explosive movement.
Kakashi hums idly. "I'll leave it to you then."
Old man Tazuna is staring at all four of them in obvious confusion, looking back and forth between Kakashi and the three Genin that have begun to bracket him in a subtle protective formation; Naruto and Sasuke slightly ahead on either side of him, Sakura trailing behind and making a show of skipping absently and studying passing flora.
Just because the old guy is a jerk doesn't mean they won't do their jobs.
Tazuna is aware of the fact that when he contracted this mission, low as his funds were, that he wasn't going to manage to secure very much in the way of protection.
But he'd been hoping, at least, for more than children.
Three twelve-year-old brats and their lazy sensei is what amounts to his escort, and Tazuna is going to need a lot more than luck if he's going to make it all the way to Wave like this. He's going to need a goddamn miracle.
Part way through the first day's trek though, something shifts in their demeanor.
It's something Tazuna wouldn't have noticed if he weren't sandwiched right between the kids, a tension in the air and in their small forms that hadn't been there before. He hears the blondie call out to his teacher, walking a few meters ahead of them, but can't follow the conversation they're having.
A few minutes later there's a shift in the air, a rush of motion, and suddenly the two boys in front of him are nothing but blurs. He has just enough time to recognize two extra bodies, masked dark-eyed adults, before the tiny pink haired little girl behind him grabs ahold of him by the back of his shirt and yanks him backwards like he's made nothing but of paper mache, tucking him behind her as the two boys, little more than gold and black smears in Tazuna's eyes, slam two full grown men to the ground with relative ease.
One of the enemy ninja, and they are ninja, Tazuna can see that now, swings a whip-like chain weapon high as he goes down beneath the blonde brat, arcing it towards his dark haired companion. The razor edge of the weapon never gets close to its mark though– blondie swings his arm to the side, kunai in hand, and knocks the weapon off course at it's base, pulling the end of the thing wide of the dark haired brat's back. Said brat then twists around, uses his own Kunai to loop through one of the holes in the weapon's links, and drives the bladed chain home to loop around his own assailant's neck. The other one is pinned beneath the wicked sharp edge of blondie's kunai, both arms pinned under the brats' legs.
A slow clap and a low whistle come from their sensei, who ambles over lazily. "Good job, you two. Very quick work. Sakura, would you do the honors of making sure our friends here don't go anywhere?"
Tazuna stares as the little pink haired girl chirps a happy "Sure thing, sensei!" and proceeds to pull a few lengths of rope from nowhere at all and tie two full grown and disoriented men up to a nearby tree. The dark haired boy and the blond slap palms with triumphant smirks.
Their sensei laughs. "Alright you three, settle down. Now, Naruto, you're the one that sensed them first, what method did you use?"
The golden haired brat smiles sheepishly and rubs the back of his head. "I just sensed their chakra. They weren't being very subtle about throwing it around."
Their sensei nods. "Very good. You're getting better at developing your chakra sense. Sasuke?"
The dark haired boy shrugs. "I clocked their movements outside the path."
The silver-haired Jounin hums approvingly. "Keen eyes, even though cloaking jutsu. Good. Sakura?"
"Puddle." the little girl says blithely. The Jounin laughs and both boys groan.
"How the hell did we miss that?" The blonde mutters.
"It hasn't rained in weeks." the dark haired boy agrees darkly.
Maybe Tazuna's not as down on his luck as he originally thought.
When they manage to break for lunch the Jounin sensei, Hatake Kakashi is his name, corners him just outside the clearing they've settled down in.
"I believe you and I need to have a talk, Mr. Tazuna." the man says lowly, and the intensity beneath the seemingly benign words tells Tazuna it's not actually a request.
"Yes?" he responds, trying to keep his voice steady and inflectionless. He doesn't have much experience dealing with ninja, never knew what all the fuss was about, but he's starting to see the dangerous edge to the man before him that tells him any laziness he's perceived has been a ruse.
"Those men back there were ninja from the Hidden Mist, Chunin in rank, and while I would normally be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt about whether those men were after you or not, I'm afraid in this case I must be frank."
Suddenly all pretense of pleasantry has dropped right off the man's face, his single grey eye sharpening from it's lazy curve into a gaze keen and pointed enough to cut.
"If you have willingly endangered my team by lying about the nature of this mission to the Hokage, and you continue to be silent about any dangers you are aware of, I will take my kids and leave you here in the wilderness to fend for yourself. Are we clear?"
Tazuna swallows hard, feeling sudden cold sweat bead on the back of his neck. "Y-yes."
Hatake straightens out of his space then and the facade is back, the false cheer and ease returning to his posture and what Tazuna can see of his face. "Good. Now, do you have something to tell me Mr. Tazuna?"
Team 7 spends the rest of the day playing the ninja version of capture the flag– with Kakashi as the referee and old man Tazuna as the flag. Naruto's not sure how to feel about their seemingly benign C-rank suddenly jumping to a B-rank, but he's never been one to do something halfway and the bridge builder's cause seems just enough.
They take turns playing the attackers and the defenders, and play chakra-less as per Kakashi's instructions. He wants them to save their strength in case they're attacked again, and no one argues.
"Do you three always train like this?" Old man Tazuna asks him when it's his turn to play protector, eyes and senses scanning the trees for any sign of his teammates.
"This is more like a game than actual training." Naruto admits honestly. "I'm pretty sure Kakashi-sensei is just having us do it because we tend to get into trouble when we're bored."
Tazuna looks at him oddly, but Naruto is too busy watching the trees to dissect the expression with any real focus.
Naruto calls for a break a while later, when he and Sasuke are the attackers and Sakura is the guardian, after watching Sasuke rub at his eyes for the third time in as many minutes.
"What's wrong, Jerk?" he asks as the settle to walk together, checking his friend's eyes for signs of injury. They look fine on the outside, if a little red from rubbing. "Did one of those stupid demon brothers get sand in your eyes?"
Sasuke shakes his head, pressing the heel of his palm into the orbit of his left eye. "No, it's… I think there might be something wrong with my sharingan."
That catches Naruto's full attention. "Wrong? Like how wrong?"
"Well I've been feeling it coming all week, right?"
Naruto nods; Sasuke had told him that much.
Sasuke sighs and blinks a couple times, hard. Now that Naruto looks closely his eyes do seem kind of off. Inside the normal shiny ebony of Sasuke's irises Naruto can see strange striations and reflections, wine-red flickers of light out of place with the evening sunshine.
"Everything my clan has written on the activation of the sharingan says that it's supposed to come in stages, one or two tomoe at a time until it completes at six. But according to the writings, my first couple of tomoe should have surfaced already, at least."
~What's this about stages?~ Kurama cuts in suddenly in the back of his head. Naruto doesn't answer because Sasuke starts to speak again.
"They also say that it's supposed to burn to the surface, that the buildup is supposed to feel like fire, but all I feel is pressure."
"Really?" Sakura asks, instantly concerned. "Does it hurt?"
Sasuke shakes his head again. "That's the thing, it's supposed to, but it doesn't. It's just pressure; uncomfortable, but not painful."
"Can I see?" Sakura asks, skipping forward a few steps to walk closer beside him. "Just check if maybe it's not something else?"
Sasuke hesitates for a second, but then nods, and Sakura reaches up to start the hand signs for a simple diagnostic jutsu.
"Kurama? Do you know what's going on?"
~No, but from what I know of the sharingan, it's not supposed to occur in stages and it's definitely not supposed to cause pain.~
"So I don't need to worry or I do need to worry?"
~I'm not sure.~
Naruto resists the urge to groan.
As Zabuza peers down at the group of young ninja below him, he resists the urge to groan. Kids? Has Konoha's Fire Shadow finally gone senile? This should be a Chunin level mission at least.
He's about to drop down and get this over with, but he pauses when he catches sight of the Jounin sensei.
Oh he'd recognize that silver hair anywhere, with that masked face and that covered eye– this particular ninja has a place honor in his old Kiri Bingo Book, a monster in his own right, just like Zabuza himself.
As though summoned by the thought, the Jounin stops mid stride and looks up into the trees, eyes landing unerringly on Zabuza's cloaked form.
"Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke." the man says softly, "Defensive formation."
To their credit the brats don't hesitate, jumping into a triad around the bridge builder, kunai raised. Some part of Zabuza had hoped they'd be cowards– he really hates killing kids, Genin or otherwise.
Oh well, nothing he can do about it now. He's a tool in another's hands now, a monster on a leash. He needs the bridge builder dead– once he's finished with the copy-nin, he can make the brat's death quick.
Midway through the fight, Zabuza is forced to reassess his position.
Those are not Genin.
They can't be, not with the way they move. The dark haired one is fast enough to rival Haku, which is impressive for a ninja of any rank. The girl's raw strength had taken him completely off guard when she's not only countered his attack on the bridge builder, but also completely destroyed his footing with a chakra-enhanced strike to the ground beneath his feet.
And then there's the golden haired little shit.
Zabuza is forced to leap back from their protective formation, rubbing his jaw from where the brat had struck him. His face is numb from where the kid's fist had made contact, and the skin around the area is buzzing with some kind of chakra that keeps him from channeling any of his own energy to the skin there.
What the hell did that little peon do to me?
He doesn't have much time to think about the answer, because he quickly learns that it was a bad idea to ignore the Jounin to go straight for his target, in an effort to lure the Copy-nin into making a mistake.
He feels the cold press of a kunai against his jaw almost as soon as he leaps back to the water he'd conjured to put the terrain on his side, the icy edge of metal resting just shy of his carotid. He's already preparing for a substitution when Jounin says something he doesn't expect.
The Konoha-nin's voice drops low with dark genuine fury, so low that Zabuza himself barely hears the words even when he's the one they're directed at; "Try to touch my kids again, and I'll tear your spine out through your throat."
Zabuza knows threats. He's familiar with threats. This is not a threat.
This is a promise.
So.
Kakashi-sensei is a badass.
Naruto had known, sort of abstractly, that Kakashi was a Jounin and thus one of the top ranked ninja in the village as a result.
But knowing that and seeing his sensei match a powerful missing-nin move for move and then beat said missing-nin at his own game, is something else to see.
He watches as two jutsu roar to life at the same time, dragons formed out of roaring twisting water. But even though the hand signs had been identical and the activation perfectly mirrored, Kakashi-sensei's water dragon decimates Zabuza's, crashing faster and harder and sending the Kiri-nin staggering back.
"How is he doing that?" He asks Kurama. "All the movements were the same, why is Kakashi-sensei's stronger?"
~It's the chakra.~ Kurama answers, watching keenly through Naruto's eyes. ~I think your sensei might be a Paragon.~
"What does that mean?"
~It's a phenomenon that occurs when someone resonates very powerfully with a particular type of elemental chakra. When this occurs, said element's pathways can begin to spread to encroach on the pathways of the other elements, so that the paragon element bleeds into the whole of that person's chakra. If you look closely, you can see elements of lightning even when your sensei is working with water– the flow is faster, the strikes harder.~
Naruto does as instructed and watches, and just like Kurama says he can see the subtle change in the chakrawork, can even see the occasional spark in the rippling water.
"Whoa."
~Indeed. You father was a wind Paragon I think.~
"Is it hereditary?" Naruto asks. Being a paragon sounds awesome.
~Not as far as I know, kit. But your mother was an Anomaly and you did inherit that. It's another type of phenomenon that deals with the nature of a person's chakra composition. Your mother's chakra was extremely dense and concentrated, and yours is shaping up to be similar– though spending nine months sharing the same space with me altered it a little to be less… tame.~
"Sweet."
~Only if you can control it, brat.~ Kurama chastises lightly. ~Which you still have trouble with.~
Naruto tries not to pout.
After a particularly nasty battle, Zabuza ends up beating a hasty retreat, cradling a broken sword arm. Kakashi-sensei admits he needs a bit of a rest before they continue on, and they find sanctuary with old Tazuna's daughter and grandkid while he recovers from the slightly overzealous use of his sharingan.
And speaking of sharingan…
"How're your eyes?" Naruto asks Sasuke over the dinner Tsunami-san had graciously offered them, speaking lowly.
"Even closer to the surface than before." Sasuke says, pressing a knuckle over the bridge of his nose. "And still no burning."
"Maybe that's a good thing." Naruto says softly, trying to tread lightly on the sensitive subject that is Sasuke's clan. Unfortunately for both of them, Naruto's not exactly good at sensitive.
"An entire legacy of clan elder teachings says otherwise." Sasuke grumbles.
"Who says a bunch of old guys know everything?"
"Naruto." Sasuke warns, and Naruto sighs.
"Look, all I'm saying as that you're a hell of a lot stronger and smarter than a bunch of over privileged old geezers. Who's to say they're right about anything? Maybe they've been wrong for years and you're the first person to get it right?"
Sasuke sits there frozen as Naruto finishes his mini-rant, expression unusually slack and eyes a little wider than usual. Then he seems to shake himself out of it, going back to his food with more zeal than before.
"Hurry and finish eating, idiot." He says instead of responding to Naruto's statement. "We're sparing after this."
Tsunami watches the two ninja boys leave after they finish their food, blinking at them as they slide past her and make their way outside.
When she asks their young Kunoichi teammate about it, the girl gives her a carefree smile.
"Oh, don't worry about them." she says easily. "They tend to fight when they're stressed."
Tsunami casts a worried glance outside, but that just makes the young woman laugh. "Oh no, not like that. They just spar, train against one another, that sort of thing." she assures.
Tsunami nods, and starts to clear the boys' abandoned dishes. Ninja sure are strange.
Zabuza wakes to Haku reapplying bandages and salve to the cuts on his arms and sides, working around the sling to get at the nastiest of the kunai slashes, courtesy of his own idiocy underestimating Sharingan Kakashi's black haired brat. The bones in his forearm are mostly healed thanks to Haku's attentive medical ninjutsu, so the bandaging of his other wounds is his apprentice's version of restless busy work.
"We're going after them again tomorrow." Zabuza says without pretense.
Haku nods, ever obedient. "Of course. Can't let the whip-master get impatient, can we?"
The passive aggressive jab causes Zabuza to tick up an eyebrow. "That's enough, Haku."
The boy purses his lips, which on him is a sign of extreme distaste. "Gatou is a common thug. We've been reduced to serving tyrants. Have we fallen so far?"
Zabuza says nothing for a while. Secretly he agrees with Haku's stance, but this is the safest option for them right now. Gatou's influence is enough to keep even the most irritating of Kiri hunter-nin at bay, and Zabuza plans on exhausting that protection for as long as possible. He remembers the look on the Copy-nin's face, the controlled yet feral fury that rose to the surface when Zabuza had directly threatened the Genin, and can't help but think of Haku.
He hadn't expected that protective drive to strike him as deep as it did.
"It's the best option we have right at the moment." Zabuza insists, hoping he's making the right choice. "Now, when we go after the bridge builder, I need you to be cautious. The Copy-nin's brats are a lot stronger than they look, and you can't afford to underestimate them."
Haku snorts. "I think I can handle the Genin."
"I'm dead serious, Haku." Zabuza growls lowly.
His apprentice pauses at his tone. "I'll bring my best paralytic then." he concedes. "You'll be careful against Hatake? It would be a shame if you died on me now."
Despite the careless lilt to the words, Zabuza can sense Haku's worry is real. It takes a powerful ninja to overwhelm one of Kiri's seven swordsmen, and Zabuza plans on taking their next confrontation much more seriously.
"That's a given." He tells Haku. "Just make sure I can swing my sword with both hands."
When they head off to the bridge to defend the old man from the likely imminent attack, Naruto volunteers to stay behind and protect Tazuna's family from Gatou's thugs. Sasuke is far from happy about it, in fact he wants to grab Naruto by his stupid collar and drag him with them whether he likes it or not, but Naruto had bonded with the little twerp Inari sometime when Sasuke wasn't looking and he cannot, in good conscience, leave Tazuna's admittedly tolerable family to fend for themselves.
He and Naruto almost get into an argument about it anyway, but Sakura, always the reasonable one, grabs him by the back of his collar, and tells Naruto to be careful or he'll regret it.
As soon as they get to the bridge, he instantly regrets not dragging Naruto with them by his ears. He feels abruptly and alarmingly exposed, like he's suddenly been deprived of his hearing or his peripheral vision, like he's missing a limb instead of missing a teammate.
By the look on Sakura's face she feels the same way, nervous and antsy in a like she hasn't been since they first started training as a team. She has a triad of senbon tucked between the knuckles on one hand and is flipping a shuriken with the other, a nervous habit she doesn't normally indulge in.
Sasuke has been compulsively checking his weapons about once every five to ten minutes, trying not to look as paranoid as he feels. It only now occurs to him that Naruto is very much the center cog that their team dynamic hinges around, that while Sakura and Sasuke are capable of working well together, it's nothing compared to the force they become when all three of them are present.
He just hopes the idiot gets here before that crazy swordsman Zabuza shows up.
He is, of course, not that lucky.
Sakura is the best defender they have, so she stays with Tazuna while Kakashi deals with Zabuza and Sasuke deals with a new player on the field– Haku, Zabuza's apprentice. Things are going fine right up until Haku makes use of a strange and powerful Kekkei Genkai, that boxes him in away from where Sakura can get to him in an emergency.
The stupid Demon Mirrors are a pain. He's only barely managed to avoid the masked ninja's senbon so far because he's faster than Haku, but Haku is capable of reforming the ice mirrors nearly as fast as Sasuke can melt them down with fire jutsu. If only he could activate his own Kekkei Genkai…
But his sharingan have been playing hide and seek with him since the fight began. One minute they'll be so close to the surface of his eyes he can practically feel them bleeding into his irises, and the next the feeling will return to nothing but pressure, lurking behind his pupils. It's like he's missing something, some kind of catalyst to push his bloodline limit into existence.
He sends a wind jutsu at the masked ninja to knock him off course, but he just slips right into another mirror, vanishing before rematerializing at Sasuke's 10:00, hurling another round of senbon too fast for him to dodge this time.
There's a crash, a blur of motion, and Naruto is suddenly there, catching the senbon in the shoulder before flicking his hands through half a dozen signs.
"Fuuton: Violent Gale!"
A curl of wind fashions itself into a whip and cracks hard against an entire row of Haku's demon mirrors, sending them crashing apart and forcing the masked ninja to retreat temporarily.
"About goddamn time, idiot." Sasuke huffs.
Naruto chuckles, grunting as he pulls the senbon out of his arm. "Sorry I'm late, jerk."
Haku's mirrors are already reforming from the blow, and Sasuke wonders how the hell that guy has any chakra left.
Then Naruto suddenly stumbles, swaying uncertainly, and Sasuke grabs his arm without hesitation. Naruto touches a hand to the wounds on his shoulder. "Shit." He mutters. "Poison, fast-acting paralytic…"
Sasuke grabs Naruto around the middle and hauls him sideways, out of the way of another cascade of senbon. Sasuke can see it now that he cares to look, a thin film around the steel needles that shimmers in a rainbow spectrum like spilled oil.
Haku throws again and again Sasuke leaps sideways with Naruto pressed against his side, and he can't let this happen, can't let Naruto die for protecting him like the idiot he is–
And there. Right there. That's the catalyst.
Chakra roars like a let dam in his blood, surging to fill the veins and arteries and nerves of his eyes, pressing, changing, spreading through the tissue and setting the cells alight with power. He can feel nerves realigning, new chakra pathways blooming out from his optic nerves, can feel a new complex in his eyes rotating with fervor, and can feel the hard dark formation of the tomoe.
Sasuke's sharingan eyes surface fully formed, all six tomoe spinning in sync, and Sasuke can suddenly see absolutely everything. He can see the chakra radiating off the Demon Mirrors, cyan blue and pulsing like a heartbeat– can see that the pulse matches Haku's heartbeat, and can see the ties of chakra linking into the masked ninja's form. He can track Haku now no matter how fast he tries to move, and everything slows down. Time crawls like it's being dragged through mud, and as each second passes Sasuke can analyze the way Haku's muscles tense and pull, can see each move before he even makes it.
Sasuke ducks forwards, back, and even as his body tires his mind remains as sharp as a guillotine, dodging senbon by inches. And when he's no longer strong enough to dodge them completely, he catches them and throws them back, pulling them from the air like they're moving through molasses.
But he slows, falters, his body failing him, and takes two senbon in the upper chest.
Naruto wasn't kidding about it being fast acting.
It shoots through his system, forcing muscles to contract against his will, and he trips, stumbles, falls to his knees. Naruto hits the ground on his other side, and Sasuke can't tell if he's conscious or not, but he can see his heart beating and that's something of a small comfort.
As Sasuke lists to the side, it takes him a minute to realize why the fall isn't as jarring as he expects it to be.
Naruto's arm catches him around the shoulders, tense and shaking but somehow still strong enough to hold his weight.
It's only been a few seconds and Sasuke can't even muster the energy to clench his hand into a fist, how the hell is Naruto moving?
Haku is saying something, about weapons and tools and how they're all monsters in human skin anyway, why hate the leash?
Suddenly the tremors in Naruto's arms vanish. Slowly, carefully, he lets Sasuke's back rest against the ground, and though Naruto isn't looking at him, Sasuke can see something in his face, in his eyes.
Something animal.
"You keep calling yourself a weapon." Naruto says slowly. He's disturbingly, unnaturally calm, a soft rumbling tremble in his voice that cloaks something dark and terrible. "You keep calling yourself a monster." The word is spat with a disdain Sasuke didn't think Naruto capable of, and then he's suddenly standing, no trace of tremble or strain in his form as he plants himself firmly between Haku and Sasuke.
There's something roiling underneath Naruto skin, something wrathful that starts to burn away the fabric of his shirt at his arms, rising like miasma to eat away at the fabric, burning through all but the reenforced undershirt as it rises over his torso.
Chakra.
So dense and darkly powerful that Sasuke doesn't need his sharingan to see it.
As the power rises in intensity dark markings roll across Naruto's now exposed arms, long lines framed by strange symbols that trace from the backs of Naruto's hands all the way up to his neck. As he watches the power starts to literally change him– his nails elongate into curved and wicked looking claws, his eyes sharpen and become ringed with black, and the odd whisker marks on his cheeks draw clear back to his jaw.
"You want a monster?" Naruto says with supreme and deadly calm, his voice dipping to an octave so low it shouldn't be obtainable with a human throat. "I'll show you the meaning of the word."