"Why do you train?" Haku asked

"Well, I want to get stronger!" Naruto exclaimed.

"What for?"

"To become the best Ninja in my village!"

"Is that for the sake of somebody? Or is it for your own sake?"

"Huh?" Naruto made a squinted, confused face. He trained because that's what Ninjas did. Well, that and so he could beat Sasuke. Why else would he train?

Haku laughed. It wasn't every day that someone made such a funny face in Haku's presence.

"What's so funny!?"

Instead of answering, Haku asked another question, "Do you have somebody precious in your life?"

"Precious?"

"What is it that you want to say, sis?" This random lady was making no sense.

Haku didn't answer for a while and only stared at him. Naruto got uncomfortable with the silence. 'What is she trying to say?' he wondered.

"When a person has something precious they want to protect, that's when they truly become strong."

"True Strength?"

"Yes, true strength."

"Well… Gama-chan is precious to me, but Gama-chan is strong and smart enough that she never needs my help. In fact, it's normally me who needs all the help I can get."

"Well, nobody can truly beat everything on their own. Eventually, this Gama-chan will need your help, and you'll need to be there by her side to protect her." Haku wondered if maybe giving the blond kid a prep talk wasn't such a good idea. He was Master Zabuza's enemy after all.

I'll definitely be there to help her out! Gama-chan is always by my side after all!" the kid exclaimed as he put his hand into a pocket.

The wording of his reply, and his actions, made Haku panic. Was the blond kid about to pull a Kunai out to attack? Was there someone else in the surrounding? Someone who had stayed nearby undetected? Haku cursed silently. It was time to go, Master Zabuza needed his tool alive after all.

Naruto, not noticing his companion's sudden distress, continued his actions and… pulled out a toad?

'No,' Haku thought, "it's a wallet shaped like a toad." Was that where the Leaf Ninja stored his poisons? Or maybe it held a telecommunications device to let his teammates know to attack if his teammates were hiding nearby undetected.

And then the kid did something random and totally unforeseen. He kissed the wallet. "Gama-chan has been with me through the highs and lows of my life! Why she even helped me take down the Hokage! Although, he was weakened by the Oiroke no Jutsu before Gama-chan helped. But it was ultimately her that took him down!"

This kid had taken the Hokage down!? Upon close inspection, Haku couldn't see any signs of him lying. Fear, intense fear was suddenly felt by Haku. This kid may have been hiding his true strength earlier!

And judging by how he seemed to think of the Toad-Wallet as a strong being, the blond was insane, or at the very least somewhat mentally deranged.

Haku couldn't move. Body paralyzed with fear, all the poor Ice Release user could do was remember a lesson that Master Zabuza had stressed the importance of.

(Flashback: Zabuza's lesson)

"Haku, this is the most important thing I will ever teach you. It's not about techniques, or who to trust. It's not about poisons or anything like that. BUT you have to listen closely." He paused to take a breath and looked at his little tool to see if there were going to be any questions and if the proper amount of attention was being given at this VERY important lesson.

Giving a nod upon seeing Haku's look of utmost focus, not that Zabuza expected anything less from his little tool, he continued, "There are many kinds of crazy people out there; crazy tyrants, crazy Daimyos, crazy Samurais—albeit, that last one is rare. Those people don't really matter."

"The kind of crazy people that do matter, are crazy Ninjas. Now, I know what you may be thinking, I wear cow-patterned pants and walk around shirtless, and heck, I shave my eyebrow—if only because the hair on the other one doesn't grow—so that's as crazy as it gets, but that is nowhere near crazy. Trust me, I'd know." He paused here and got an empty look in his eyes, as if he wasn't looking at Haku, but something far beyond. He shuddered for a second and got a concerned look from Haku.

He ignored the look and shook his head, seemingly in an attempt to forget whatever it was that he had remembered.

"Look, you'll just know when you have come across a crazy Ninja. If they are like me then that's just somewhat normal. They'll be unique, special, even for a Ninja. When you meet one, for the love of all that is unholy and bloody, don't engage them. In fact, try not to fight even if they start the fight. Just run, or walk away." He had an incredibly scared look on his face— which Haku could see even though most of his face was covered in bandages—as he tried to make sure his little 'tool' could fully comprehend what he was trying to convey.

"You see, here's a little thing most Ninjas and people never find out. All strong Ninjas are insane."

Madara in the Pure World, Pain, and several Akatsuki members sneeze at that exact moment, with a certain puppet user wondering how it was possible for a puppet's body to sneeze.

"It's not known why, but some think that only the insane can train hard enough to become that strong, or you simply become mad when you get that strong. Maybe the power gets to you, I don't know. What I do know, is that I will never mess with an insane Ninja if I can help it. If you are lucky, then it might be one who is about to become strong, but even then, do not, I repeat, DO NOT engage."

Young, impressionable Haku had taken the lesson to heart.

"Do you understand, Haku?" Zabuza asked, making sure to check for deceit in his 'tool's' eyes, as this was one lesson, that if not learnt, could lead to a very humiliating and painful death for him; for the both of them.

"Yes, Master." Young, impressionable Haku had learnt the lesson as Zabuza intended.

(Flashback end)

'He's insane!' Haku thought, fearfully.

This changed everything. Haku could only hope that the blond kid—Naruto, was it?— hadn't noticed the hand that had neared his neck when Haku was choosing whether to kill him or wake him up.

Now, how to get out of here before the Blond's intentions became nefarious?

"—Neh, Sis?" Haku noticed the end of whatever it is that the kid said.

This was very, very bad. Ignoring the kid in that moment of fright could very well be the mistake to end it all for Haku.

'Think, Haku! Think! You haven't gotten this far with Master Zabuza just because of physical strength and Bloodline ability. Your mind had just as much to do with it!'

"Um, yes?" Alright then, so the self-motivation was useless if that's how useless the end result was going to be.

"I knew you'd agree with me!" Alright then, apparently the self-motivation was worth it since the blond seemed much happier now. Now, how to get out of this situation in one piece?

Just because the blond was happy now did not mean he wouldn't switch moods in one second. Master Zabuza had told of the insane mood changes these people had in a small period of time, and the blond had already displayed the ability to go from happy, to confused, to somewhat annoyed, to even happier than before in their small interaction.

(Haku, First Person POV [no clue what POV it was before])

'Get your act together, Haku!' My hands trembled, imperceptible to the common eye, but obvious to the trained eye of a Shinobi. I looked at the kid in front of me, but he didn't seem to notice.

'He's faking it!' my mind yelled… at my mind? Great, now I am losing my mind. Although, it wouldn't be a bad thing then, would it? 'Master Zabuza did say insane Shinobi make for the best of Shinobi. Would I not make for a better tool if I were to go insane too?'

'No! Bad Haku!' the more sensible part of my brain yelled. 'That's just what he wants you to do. Clearly, the kid is a master manipulator.'

I realized I had blanked out, so I quickly focused to see if I had missed out on anything else he had asked… only to realize he wasn't in front of me anymore!

I quickly got up and turned around, ready to get into a defensive stance, only to see the kid running around while repeatedly kissing his Toad-Wallet.

"Did he sneak past me, or was I just that out of it?" Haku muttered lowly. 'No, even when I don't focus, I can subconsciously sense things better than most people can when actively sensing, and looking at things. He must be very skilled to get past my sense.'

'Although, I was very distracted…'

He seemed to still be running around while complimenting his wallet. Is this my chance to get away? I slowly got up and tried to walk away slowly to avoid getting his attention.

"Oh hey, Sis!" He suddenly appeared in front of me. In my panic at his sudden appearance, I said the first thing that came to mind.

"My name is Haku, and I am a boy." I closed my eyes in the hopes that the clearly insane Ninja—because what ninja wears that much orange?—was still in his chipper mood. When nothing happened, I opened my eyes. He had his mouth open; some might even say it was comically wide open, along with his wide-open eyes.

He seemed in shock. I quickly took my chance.

"I have to go now. Sorry!" I said loudly, with a hint of nervousness, and bowed. My long hair blocked my view of him, so I could only hope he wouldn't take my moment of blindness and attack.

I quickly then walked away while he stood in that same position, still as a statue.

(Naruto POV)

The world stood still. I was in shock. This possibly matched the time when Stupid-Mizuki told me about the Kyūbi.

The only girl that I have ever seen that's more beautiful than Sakura, and it turns out that she's A BOYYYY!?

I stood there for who knows how long.

What did this mean!?

'Oh my Ramen, my head hurts…'

"Now I miss Ramen… I haven't had some in more than a day," I muttered, as I tried to lick the Ramen stain on Gama-chan from a few years back.

I was clearly going through minor withdrawal symptoms, but there was no one around to tell me that.

"If that kid hadn't pissed me off then I wouldn't have trained to the point of falling asleep and being woken up by that pretty lady." Because I refuse to believe that she was a boy.

'Because of Stupid-Inari, I now have to deal with the headache from trying to figure out if she was joking or not.'

"She had to be, right?" I questioned out loud. There was no way she was a boy!

I stood there for hours, but then—

Hark! A wild flashback has appeared!

(Konoha, Hokage tower. The night Gama-chan 'beat' the Hokage)

Naruto had been caught red-handed with the Scroll of Seals, and by "Gramps Hokage" of all people. He only had one thing that could have possibly helped.

Putting his hands into the "Reverse Ram" handsign as he had many times before, he yelled, "Oiroke no Jutsu!"

The predicted cloud of smoke occurred, along with his form changing to a much more voluptuous and skin revealing one. What wasn't expected was the lack of a body, or twos, worth of blood leaking from "Gramps Hokage's" nostrils.

Naruto could only panic at what he presumed was the first time his technique had failed to work on a grown-up. What he didn't realize was that the Hokage had been so stunned at the sight of his technique, that it hadn't quite hit what his eyes had seen.

So, he went to plan B. There was no plan B.

He predictably panicked and, upon doing so, dispelled his technique. He tried to throw the nearest thing he could grab in the hopes that it would somehow make a difference.

Remarkably, when his coin-filled, heavy wallet hit the Hokage—smack dab on the center of his forehead, regardless of the fact that Naruto was supposed to have very poor aim, as evidenced by his Academy results—he went down like a cardboard cutout. Thus leaving Naruto in what would look like a very incriminating scene to any outsider to view the room he was in. Thankfully, no one did come to the room, oddly enough, despite the fact that the Hokage was supposed to have guards around at all times.

At first, he thought the Hokage was faking it, but after getting close, it did, indeed, look like he was passed out and wouldn't be getting up anytime soon. He was even bleeding bucket amounts of blood from his nostrils.

Because, what Naruto was unaware of was that his earlier technique had worked, there was just a bit of a… delay, before its results. Young, oblivious Naruto, however, did not know this, and thus believed that Gama-chan had managed to do what his technique had failed to do: somehow beat the Hokage.

This would be the start of many misunderstandings, coincidences, and moments where his opponents would curse the existence of toads.

(Flashback End)

(Events happening in several other places later on because of Naruto's fixation with Toads)

"We need to confiscate that damn wallet of his without him finding out we did it," the Hokage told his greatest asset.

"Meow?"

"The brat can't be crazy, Haku. I fought him. I think I'd know if h—why are you looking at me like that? I am not in denial!" An eyebrow-less man and his tool argued.

(In an Indescribable Place)

"Minato?"

"Hmm?"

"When, and where, did he get that wallet? Because I think I have watched him all his life, and I can't remember when he got it."

"Oh, well, he got it when… um… from…. That's odd, I don't remember either."

The man's companion's hair started to rise up in an unnatural fashion, and he suddenly knew that was the wrong answer to give. "WELL START LOOKING FOR ANSWERS! OR DO YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT I DID TO YOU WHEN WE FIRST DIED!?"

"The Nine-Tails host appears to have gotten possession of a unique wallet," spoke a half black, half white, creature.

"Zetsu, how is this relevant to us capturing a Jinchūriki?"

An intense wind passes, blowing an astounding amount of water from the floor away with it.

'I sense a disturbance in the force,' a halved-being thought. 'Or rather it is a previous disturbance growing stronger.'

'No matter, it is inconsequential to me currently.' and with that, the being went into a slumber; waiting for a time when it could escape.

(Back at Tazuna's House, Naruto POV)

The first thing I did upon coming back was to hit the little runt on the head with Gama-chan.

Sure, Sakura may have hit me back for it, but it was worth seeing him stay quiet for once. 'Gama-chan really is awesome dattebayo!'

If I knew that's what it took to shut him up, I would have done it when I first met him.

Did sensei really have to kick me out, though? It wasn't like the stupid kid was even bleeding that badly anyways.

'Stupid, late, good for nothing, Sensei.'

It wasn't like the kid was bleeding anywhere near as much as I was when one of those... Dickson-Brothers? Doody-Brothers? Defying-Brothers?

Well, whatever they were called, it didn't matter. What did matter is that I bled so much more when one of them hurt me and then I had to try and bleed out the poison sensei said was probably on their weapons.

Sensei said I could have died because of that, and he still didn't seem to care! But he did care for that stupid Inari kid.

Maybe he is like everyone else from the village. Maybe he thinks I am the Fox too…

Unless...

Wait.

Could it be?

Yes, that makes sense. It makes complete sense as to why Kakashi-sensei treated the kid better than he treats me.

"Sensei hates toads!"

It all makes sense now!

(3rd Person POV change. Imma be honest, I think I forgot how POVs work...)

As echoes of Naruto's loud, not to mention stupid, declaration were heard, Naruto proudly continued to walk further into the forest, sure that he had discovered the root of Kakashi's 'dislike' for him.

He walked, not knowing of the odd events that had been set in motion that day, all because of his delusions in believing his toad-wallet to be some sort of higher being.

(Tree Climbing Training Day)

Annoyance.

Yes, Naruto thought, annoyance was a feeling he was VERY familiar with.

Well, his thoughts were a lot more simple in nature, but conveying them in such a sense increased the word count and, as such, could be allowed.

In fact, his annoyance was such that it radiated from him and annoyed others.

In normal words, he was making a fuss and annoying Sakura, Sasuke—who tried not to let it get to him—and Kakashi, whose inner mantras of "He's sensei's son, I can't kill him" were slowly failing him.

His lack of progress in climbing a tree without using his arms had irritated him, and then the lack of anyone from his team willing to help soured his mood even further. Sakura was done ages ago! And she still wouldn't help him but she went straight for the Uchiha Bastard, even though he didn't ask for help.

It hurt.

It really did.

It hurt even more after Kakashi ignored him continuously asking for help for literally half an hour before he could clearly not focus on that damned book of his anymore—Naruto would know, he had started using clones to multiply the amount of ranting he could do at the end—and he just looked at him before replying with a "Did you say something?"

That had hurt even more. He was definitely doing it on purpose. Then his clones dispelled and he had a headache for some reason. It caused him to feel more irritated, and that meant the others would as well. They wouldn't be happy as long as he wasn't.

"Sensei, Sensei, Sensei, Sensei, SENSEI, SENSEI—" he kept going on. He'd win. He always did when it came to stubbornness. It also helped with the word count.

And then, a miracle happened; Kakashi happened to finally crack. His carefree facade that had survived years of Gai's antics finally managed to crack because of one dumb, blond kid.

"Naruto…"

Naruto stayed silent, his normally half-dead survival instincts screaming at him, and then—

Poof

A clone faced Kakashi's unbridled wrath that day for the one second that Kakashi lost control.

And then Kakashi found a lack of an Icha Icha book on his person.

Many more clones met an unfortunate end as Kakashi went on the search for the original—whether the original Naruto or the original copy of the Icha Icha book he had, no one may ever know—leaving behind a pair of open-mouthed, very shocked Team 7 members.

(Hours and Many Clones Later)

Kakashi, book in hand, stood with an eye-smile that was stretching the usual impossibilities of eye-smiles even being possible.

Below him lay the smoking form of one Naruto Uzumaki, which… seemed to be trying to get up even then, diminishing Kakashi's mood before his body started failing him; the chakra exhaustion from the fight with Zabuza had made him unable to walk without a crutch. The chase after the Uzumaki made it even worse.

And he knew that Naruto still hadn't learned anything from the 'survival training' he had just given him.

Well, if there could be anything one could say about Kakashi, it was him being very committed to being a terrible teacher to all his students besides Sasuke—for whom he would only be a bad teacher instead of the usual terrible one. So, in his terribly chakra exhausted addled mind, he decided to try and do the absolute last option that he could think of to finally do something that could affect Naruto—well, he could threaten his Ramen privileges but even Kakashi could see how that may be going too far. His Ramen-based nightmares had been getting terrifying; he'd know, he had always been a light sleeper and had to go through night after night of increasingly terrible dreams and Naruto mumbling worse and worse things.

Kakashi feared it would get traumatising, soon.

And he was NOT going to take his student to a Yamanaka; they had wanted to get in his mind for years now to prove that he was unfit for duty, and would turn it from a session of therapy for his student to a session of therapy for him.

Back to the main topic, he decided to mess around with that wallet that Naruto seemed so fond of.

Too fond of… he shuddered. The things Naruto mumbled about that thing while he was sleeping...

"GIVE GAMA-CHAN BACK!" Welp, that settled it. He was deaf now.

In response to his students very 'appropriately volumed' request, he held it up. As high as he could.

Now, this was meant to be a jab at the kid's low self-esteem when it came to height. Unfortunately, he was too busy trying to jump up and still failing to reach it, to notice the implied insult at his height.

Honestly, it was a joke how a genin couldn't jump high enough to simply reach his upwardly outstretched arm. The report he had read on him running from Mizuki via average length tree jumping must have been fabricated, then.

Deciding to make it even worse for the kid, he decided to walk up the tree and taunt him with the fact that he couldn't get up there, only for him to follow after him… Did he mention that he did so without the use of arms?

What.

The.

Fuck?

The kid clearly couldn't even go 2 feet up before without a tree surface blowing up before, and that was WITH momentum, and, yet, here he was walking after him while whining and yelling at him to give him the wallet back.

Maybe it was a fluke?

So he went back down and started walking up another tree, all the while making sure to keep the wallet out of Naruto's arms' reach.

Sure enough, Naruto walked up that tree as well. He could simply feel Sasuke seething as Naruto just made Sakura-levels of progress in the tree walking exercise. Making a mental note to make sure to make it up to Sasuke by giving him 10 times the amount of attention he gave the rest of Team 7 combined, later, he focused back on the absurdity that was occurring in front of him.

No Jinchūriki have been able to make such progress with chakra control in such a short period of time. It was simply unreal. Especially the Nine-Tails's Jinchūriki!

In his befuddled state, he didn't even notice when Naruto took his toad themed wallet back, walking back down the tree while grumbling about stupid senseis, all the while not noticing his success in an exercise he had failed to do in all his attempts until then.

That was the day when Kakashi started believing in the fact that there was something not quite right about that wallet; like, in a supernatural/paranormal sense.

It clearly gave him the powers of chakra control needed to tree walk.

For a second he almost felt like demanding Naruto to give it to Sasuke before shaking off the odd urge.

He may also have felt the urge to clean the hand that had touched the wallet; definitely not because he believed it probably spread some bad juju on his arm.

He didn't walk, he RAN to clean his hand, forgetting all about his crutches that helped him keep walking in his exhausted state when he saw Naruto licking various Ramen stains on the wallet. He had just touched… THAT.

Whatever was infecting the kid's brain to have caused him to become like that, he DID NOT want it to get to him. The Yamanaka would surely get their hands on him, then.

Chapter end.

Man… I am still as much the failure of an author that I remembered myself being. Why can't I do crack scenes, damn it! Also… are disclaimers a thing? Nah… maybe… Nah.

So… like, 3k words of this chapter were probably written in 3 days in January and then… IDK, I probably lazed around and may have done some beta stuff. MAY. And then I just wrote, like, 800 words today and yesterday combined. I think it is the 4th of July, 12:35 AM, right now. So, yeah, if the writing gets super messed up, it is the gap between the months. If it is just messed up, then, yeah, that is just regular messed up lol. I'll regret speedrunning this author note, I can just feel it.

Also, I still don't know how to post on AO3 properly, but I am using a laptop for uploading this time, so here is hoping. First Fanfiction . net, of course.

. 2 minutes later and I have realized that Fanfiction . net is banned here and I forget that because I always have a VPN on on my phone. Awkkkkward. Guess I'll use Tor?

It's 12 hours later and I sorta failed with Tor yesterday. I do be failing everywhere. Time to try it again. ORRRRR just write some one-shot I occasionally add to that's about Kakashi's funeral. I probably forgot to add so many things to this fic lol. Tried so hard to keep Haku gender-neutral. Feel like I failed. Kinda sad I couldn't make a third word count joke in this chapter. May as well just make it the chapter title or something.