They were on a boat, that was the first thing Naruto noticed. The lack of balance, however slight, proved the theory even without the smell of the sea assaulting his nose. The waves hitting against the boat wasn't clear, but for someone looking for the sounds they were obvious. They had blindfolded his attractive female persona which hadn't done much to remove his vision as his henge was slightly taller than himself and his actual eyes were in fact slightly below where the illusion's were.
There had been some fuss about his plan which he didn't really understand, Sasuke and Sakura both claimed that his disguise would fall apart as soon as they tried to touch him, but he had passed through their inspection without any trouble. Maybe he was just better than Sasuke and Sakura thought he was, which was slightly insulting even if it was forgivable.
When the blindfold was removed he found himself in a small cabin with three other girls all of a similar age to the illusion he was appropriating and of a similar appearance as well. Gato apparently liked young blondes with great assets, who would've guessed?
Unlike Naruto the other girls appeared nervous, something he realized quickly enough to imitate before anyone grew suspicious. They didn't talk, barely even looking at each other. It made Naruto wonder if they had been kidnapped, but no it was clear not, there was nothing showing that they had been restrained, no rope marks around the wrists and their hands were well kept, showing no sign of struggle. Nonetheless it was clear they weren't there for the pay. Naruto could only hope that he was helping them by taking Gato down.
Each of the girls had a shift, two for the night and two for the day, one of whom took care of food and comfort and the other involved in a more physical sense. That was the part he hadn't planned. The good thing was that it wouldn't be his turn for that for another twenty four hours, which was hopefully plenty of time to find out something useful.
Serving Gato was exhausting and slightly gross. As if massaging his feet wasn't bad enough the way he looked at Naruto made him feel dirty and he had to keep on reminding himself that it was his disguise that was being looked at, not his true self. If he never used this henge again after this mission it would be too soon.
After the night was over and the other two girls took over, Naruto moved to the boat's deck and leaned on one of the railings to stare out at the sea and try to get a headway of where they were. There wasn't any land immediately in sight but that didn't mean anything, especially with the mists that consumed the shores. He didn't expect to see anything until noon at least.
One of the guards suddenly started approaching Naruto with an inquisitive look on his face, putting Naruto on guard. He hoped that he was allowed to be up on deck, otherwise the mission would become so much harder. The guard didn't tell Naruto off however, instead he offered Naruto a cigarette.
"First night's always the hardest," he said, trying for a friendly smile. It wasn't friendly in the slightest, but at least he tried.
Naruto nodded solemnly, taking the cigarette without fuss and altering the henge to allow the cigarette access to his mouth. Just like with the alcohol, his first puff sent him into a coughing fit, making him double over. The guard jumped back in concern but quickly realized it was just the cigarette and calmed down.
"You'll get used to them quickly," he affirmed.
Naruto didn't believe him but the thought was nice. This was his chance to collect information though and he couldn't waste his time thinking about how nice everyone was. "It'll probably get better once we're off this ship," he said, raising the pitch of his voice slightly, even though it wasn't necessarily needed as his voice hadn't cracked yet. He feigned a lurch of his stomach and altered his illusion's face to take on a slightly green pallor as he eyed the sea. "Why are we on a boat anyways? Doesn't Master Gato have a nice big mansion that he lives in?"
The guard chuckled at Naruto's apparent seasickness. "He does, but Gato is being hunted by ninja right now so we're going to a different hideout while we wait for his head."
Naruto feigned another heave and regained himself. "A ninja?" he asked, sounding surprised. "Why is a ninja trying to kill Master Gato?"
The guard shrugged. "The stuck up trash was asking for a lot of money and Gato didn't want to pay him, so Gato decided to kill him."
This was it, Naruto knew it. He altered his face to pale quickly and made his eyes look like they were watering, his actual eyes doing similar as he tried to sell it and he channeled Hinata to the best of his ability. "M. . .Master G. . .Gato tried to k . . .kill him because he didn't want to pay him?" he asked, shock clear on his face.
The guard raised his hands, taken aback. "No don't worry. He's not going to kill you, just stuck up ninja."
Naruto activated the henge wetworks, thus raising the stakes. "How do you know?" he sobbed. "Maybe he's just going to kill you so that he doesn't have to pay you either."
The guard shook his head hurriedly. "No trust me, Gato will pay me and you. For him our wages are barely peanuts."
Naruto rubbed his eyes that now looked puffy and sniffed before taking a drag from the cigarette. "How do you know he's as rich as he says. Maybe he's just having us all on? Maybe we're the butt of a big joke," he sniffled bitterly.
The guard looked at Naruto's henge, looked around suspiciously then leaned in close. "I'll tell you a secret, but you can't tell any of the others."
Naruto nodded hurriedly, not looking in his direction.
"I've seen Gato's fortune and it's more money than you'll see in your life," he muttered.
Naruto looked at him with a scandalized expression. "How do I know that you're not lying?" he asked.
The guard frowned. "You don't. But if you don't see it in three days I'll eat my own pants."
Naruto took this as the moment to giggle and cover his mouth then wipe away the tears. "That's an interesting image. At least now I have something to look forward to." He flicked the cigarette into the sea as he'd seen the lord Hokage's son do on multiple occasions, the flicking that is, not into the sea, nodded to the guard and headed back inside to seek some food, all the henge alterations were making him hungry.
(O_O)
When the night came, Naruto had a plan to get out of doing anything compromising. Step one, get Gato drunk by swapping out what Gato regularly drank for the strong stuff. Step two, enclose both himself and Gato in a room. Step three, place a knockout tag on Gato's forehead before he realized what was happening. Step four, sound effects. If there was one thing the academy's in depth sex ed was good for it was knowing everything a ninja needed to. . .reproduce the action enough to fool others. Step five was the hard part though and that was waking up in Gato's bed and convincing him that stuff happened the night before. Naruto had considered just leaving in the morning before Gato woke, but that could raise suspicion. Instead he had decided that he would make the room a mess and pretend to sleep in an odd crevice of Gato's bedroom, waking up groggily and feigning a headache so that nobody would bother him.
On the first day he didn't even need to go that far as the day shift came in to take over from him before Gato woke. Two days later and Gato did wake up but had too much of a headache to react and when Naruto pretended his awakening from the corner where he had a blanket strewn over himself, Gato barely took notice.
As far as personalities went Gato's was inherently selfish and vile, he spoke openly to his guards of what he did with all of the women which was a big reason Naruto's cover hadn't been blown as all the guards would approach Gato the next morning to mention the many sound effects Naruto had intimated during the night. Gato had no choice but to pretend he knew what they were talking about so as not to look foolish in front of his own employees. He ate, slept and drank like a man possessed and seemed to enjoy life far too much for what was considered safe. Then it was the end of the third day and Naruto saw land for the first time out of the entire journey.
As the days had passed, the mist grew thicker and thicker until it felt like Naruto was suffocating. Although he saw land on the third day he only managed to see it when the boat was within one hundred meters of it and when he did see it he had to wonder if he was just imagining things. The beach was completely different from that of the Land of Waves and the air smelled coppery, almost like blood. The realization dawned on him quickly that a three day boat ride from the Land of Waves could only mean they weren't in the Land of Waves anymore. Judging by the mist there weren't many other options. They were in the infamous Hidden Mist if Naruto's intuition was right. No wonder they had come here, it was the perfect place to escape from a missing nin, Zabuza and the demon brothers wouldn't dare show their faces here. It looked like he was on his own. With a despairing sigh he realized that team seven had been separated on their first mission and it wasn't looking good. He could only hope for a better track record in the future if he ever made it out of this one alive.
The other three girls were shivering as the mist clung oppressively to their skin of which more was exposed than should be for the weather. They would be taken care of though, Naruto knew this just because he knew that Gato didn't want any of them getting sick then getting him sick in turn.
The place they were taken to was a mansion indeed and Naruto was taken aback in awe by the sheer size of the building. It looked like the Hyuga compound, fortress like in build with large white walls surrounding the entire complex and in size as well. Naruto was confident that even the Hyugas would be impressed by the scale, and they weren't impressed by much. There were many more servants and guards within the walls and he saw that the trend of blonde girls didn't apply so much anymore. The guards inside the complex were different from the mercenaries that Gato had been hiring in Wave and it made sense, he would only want his most trusted employees being close to him. Unfortunately his trust included samurai and that had Naruto stressed. Upon seeing the three samurai guarding the entrance to the inner mansion Naruto felt his hackles rise inadvertently and waited for them to discover his true nature. They must not have been very experienced samurai though, because after a few minutes Naruto was pushed through the security check with nothing but an unsavory glance at his butt as he passed.
When they finally entered the mansion Naruto let out a sigh of relief that he didn't even bother to hide seeing as the other girls seemed to reflect his action almost exactly. It was a funny thought actually that maybe all the girls with him were in fact his teammates in disguises, or even better, the demon brothers and Zabuza. It was a ridiculous thought though and he stowed it away where it would never see the light of day. Now wasn't the time for contemplation, it was time for action. He had the remainder of the day to get into trouble and he wasn't willing to let it go to waste.
They were shown to their quarters and the other two girls were immediately jostled to fill the rest of the day with their duties. Naruto followed them even though it wasn't his shift, if only because he wanted to familiarize himself with the layout of the mansion. Taking one look at what the girls had to endure now that Gato wasn't on the boat told Naruto that the charade had to end that night, for good or for bad. Gato's boat hadn't been built for endless comfort and Naruto could understand why he hadn't been forced to endure anything like what he was seeing now, but there was no way his henge was going to last if he was forced to sit on Gato's lap at any point during the night. He muttered an apology under his breath to the two girls and headed off to find a new disguise.
Gato's guards weren't on their highest guard and Naruto managed to corner one as he left the bathroom, slamming a knockout tag onto his forehead, throwing him behind a crate and taking on his form. It was almost too easy. Was this how Sasuke felt all the time? If that were the case he could understand why Sasuke was always so on edge, having things go his way was oddly surreal and largely suspicious.
Finding Gato's vault wasn't as easy as Naruto had thought however and he almost immediately got lost. He had never been amazing with direction and he found himself accidentally making the same circuit of the building seven times before he realized that everything was looking far too familiar. There had to be a better way to find it, right?
"Gato wants this put in the vault," Naruto said, approaching one of the important looking samurai with a bag that was filled with random bits of metal and gold that Naruto had found around the mansion. He jingled it for good measure to let the samurai know that it was indeed filled with stuff.
The samurai shot him a suspicious look. "Why are you telling me? Go take it already," he said.
Naruto smiled awkwardly. "Eh, I've sort of forgotten how to get in."
"Well didn't Gato give you his key?" the samurai asked, looking much more suspicious now.
Naruto blanched, this wasn't going well. "Ah. I knew I was forgetting something."
The samurai nodded. "Go get it then."
Naruto gulped nervously. Maybe he should just ask someone else. "I would, only he's. . .busy right now. I guess I'll just drop the sack off outside the vault and ask him later," he said, turning away from the samurai and setting off in the opposite direction.
"Oy, Michirou," the samurai he had been speaking to called out.
Naruto stilled uneasily. Had he seen through his disguise? He turned to face the samurai uneasily, his eyes narrowed to slits as he smiled. "Yes?"
"Are you going to the vault or not?" he asked, indicating a door in between himself and another samurai that they had been guarding.
Naruto could have slapped himself in that moment. He should have been looking for the most guarded areas in the mansion. He let out an uneasy laugh and spun around, sending the sack over his shoulder jingling loudly. "Yeah sure. Just trying some reverse psychology," he said as way of explanation.
"From that book in the toilet?"
Naruto nodded solemnly.
"That stuff is crap you know."
Naruto nodded solemnly again, slipping past the two samurai and passing through the door behind them. Closing the door behind him Naruto let out a sigh and headed down towards the vault. So his illusion's name was Michirou, that was useful information. Hopefully he wouldn't need it for much longer.
The vault was a large metal box and Naruto wasn't entirely sure why he expected anything different. There were a few seals on the outside of the box that would be difficult to undo, but if what he understood was correct, if he got Gato's key he wouldn't need to worry about those. However he did want to be finished with the job as quickly as possible.
Finally he pulled out his sealing apparatus that had been hidden up until then by his henge and copied down the seals, making small alterations here and there to see what the purpose of the seal was. Most of them were merely reinforcement seal, however there were three which bothered him more than he would like. The first was merely just an intruder seal that would no doubt trigger an alarm if anyone entered without a key, the second was much more interesting and if Naruto understood it correctly, it prevented anything from being taken out of the vault while still permitting access. There had to be parameters to the seal of course but they weren't visible on the outside. Finally there was the entrapment seal which created a barrier for anyone trying to get into the vault to hold them there for at least twelve hours. This was going to be, as Shikamaru put it so aptly, troublesome
(O_O)
Naruto hadn't slept for three days by now and it was starting to grate on his nerves. He hadn't allowed himself the pleasure as he was worried his henge would dissipate upon falling asleep and now he was tired. Huge amounts of chakra only went so far and even then he was feeling tired all the time. He couldn't afford to have his cover blown and at the same time he would be operating under several witnesses which meant he had to be at the top of his game and the lack of sleep wasn't helping. He would have a small interval at the beginning of his work wherein he would be able to knock out both Gato and the other serving girl, allowing him to search Gato's person and retrieve the key which he could only pray would be nearby and not hidden on some island under a rock.
The two samurai that guarded Gato's room were facing outwards and while they did look inside on the rough occasion, Naruto could leave them for last. After arriving Naruto followed the other girl into a side room as she went to retrieve Gato's wine, sneaking up behind her he slipped a knockout tag onto her forehead and caught her before she fell. Laying her down out of harm's way he crept up to Gato and did the same. Finally he armed himself with two tags and left the room, knocking out the two samurai simultaneously before they could react. Dragging the two prone samurai out of sight Naruto rubbed his hands together and dropped the henge. There was no point in keeping it up now as anyone that walked in on him would immediately be able to tell that something was wrong
Gato kept his key around his neck, a large metal appendage that Naruto was surprised he hadn't noticed.
Brandishing the key in victory, he turned and let out a small cry as he bumped into one of the serving girls that wasn't on shift that night. Naruto frowned, he needed to react quickly before she screamed. He flattened his hand and sent it at the girl's neck, hard enough to silence her but not hard enough to do any permanent damage.
To his surprise however, the girl caught the hand easily and stared Naruto down. "Don't attack. It's me, Haku."
Naruto's eyes widened and he smiled, relieved. "Heh. I always knew you were a girl."
Haku pouted, dropping the henge and Naruto's hand. "Do you have the money?" she asked.
"Almost," Naruto said proudly, holding up the key. "I was just on the way to the vault and. . ." he trailed off, a look of guarded suspicion passing over his face. "Haku, what are you doing here?"
"I'm going to kill Gato, obviously," she said, calmly.
Naruto growled, taking a step back away from her. "We had a deal. We agreed," he protested, moving his body in the way to block her from access to Gato's. "No killing."
She frowned, taking a step towards Gato and finding her way blocked. "Don't be stupid. He deserves to die. If you leave him alive he'll just try to kill the bridge builder again, and that would be a shame after you've worked so hard to protect him," she said coldly.
Naruto paled. "You knew?"
"It wasn't that hard to figure out," Haku confirmed.
"Then why did you work with us? Why didn't you kill us?" he asked warily, taking another step back and drawing his kunai.
Haku laughed sharply, although the laugh lacked any humor. "We were planning on betraying Gato anyway, your team just pushed us up schedule. Now let me kill the ingrate," she said, taking another step.
Naruto shook his head. "I can't. There's always a third way. We can find a way to win without killing him," he protested.
"Oh yeah?" Haku asked. Stopping momentarily. "What's your plan then? How are you going to stop Gato from getting revenge on you and killing the precious bridge builder when he gets back. Do you know how many lives you're ruining by letting him live? If he dies, his entire criminal empire will collapse in minutes, no drugs, no extortion, life will be better."
Naruto shook his head. "We were going to take all his money away so that he couldn't carry on with his activities."
"Do you think this is his only vault? He probably has hundreds of these hidden all over the country. And even if you did manage to take away all his money do you think for even a second that everyone he owes money to won't turn on him in an instant. Trust me, he'll be dead within the week," Haku said.
Naruto didn't have anything to say to that. "Maybe you're right," he said weakly. "But I still can't just let you kill him."
Haku sighed. "That's a shame," she said. Her hands moved in a blur and Naruto felt himself fall before he even felt the pain of the two senbon that had made their home in his neck. He saw Haku walk past him and then everything went black.
(0_0)
Naruto awoke to the sound of screaming and bells clanging. Opening his eyes slowly he could make out flames that had apparently seized the room he was in. He rubbed his neck and was surprised to find that the holes caused by the senbon had almost fully healed, making him wonder how long he'd actually been unconscious. As he stood slowly he felt the past three days of no sleep taking their toll on him. Now wasn't a good time for this to happen, he needed a soldier pill and a food pill if he wanted to carry on as normal. Feeling around for his bag he groaned as he found it was missing. Feeling around in his pockets he groaned again as he realized that Haku had most likely taking the key along with his pack.
Feeling a wave of exhaustion he stumbled and only managed to right himself on Gato's seat. He choked back a sob as he saw the blood dribbling down from Gato's neck and the lifeless look in his eyes. Haku had apparently succeeded in her extermination of Gato, Naruto could only hope that nobody else died tonight. Speaking of which he focused now on the screaming. It was coming from the side room, no doubt it was the serving girl he had knocked out, the one he shared a shift with. Glancing in that direction Naruto could see the problem as a wall of fire threatened to consume the small side room and everything it contained. What had Haku done to cause such undue chaos?
Approaching the room he could make out the girl inside, huddled in the center of the room while the walls burned around her. Leaving no time for thought, he channeled chakra into his limbs and dove through the fire, hoping that his clothing was as fire resistant as advertised. The girl paused in her screaming momentarily but one look at Naruto's headband sent her into another screaming fit. He didn't have time for this. Pulling off his jacket he wrapped it around the girl's shoulders then picked her up high overhead and charged the wall of fire. He felt his skin burn, especially on his feet as he ran but a moment later they were safe and neither of them too burned to worry. Taking back his jacket, as it had cost him money which didn't grown on trees, he bent down to the girl and tried to calm her down. "Do you know the way out?" he asked.
She hesitated but nodded.
"Good then get out while you can and take anyone else with you."
She nodded hurriedly and stood, losing her balance momentarily before running from the room without looking back. Naruto sighed, looking at his feet, he was going to need knew footwear. He grabbed the two still unconscious samurai and dragged them out bodily. He needed to get as many people out as possible before the entire mansion erupted into a furnace. Thankfully he didn't need an advanced sense of direction to find his way out as all the servants were fleeing in one very specific direction.
He found it strange that none of Gato's loyal employees had rushed to help him but he soon found out the reason as he passed body after body, riddled with senbon like those he had been stuck with earlier. None of the wounds looked particularly fatal however and Naruto found himself roping every single downed victim together until he had a chain of samurai that he was pulling along with him. He collected Michirou from behind a box and added him to the chain as well. He was suddenly immensely thankful to Sasuke for the endless hours of training they had drilled through together as he had no doubt he wouldn't have been able to carry nearly as much as he was doing without it. He did have to make several trips but they were quick enough and after the servants saw what he was doing they helped him by keeping the exits clear of fire. By this point Naruto had already stashed away his headband as popularity for the Hidden Leaf wouldn't be a good idea in connection to the unfortunate events of the night.
Finally he was confident of having cleared the entire mansion but something niggled at the back of his mind. As he ran around checking each room he realized that there was indeed one room he hadn't checked, one he had been subconsciously avoiding, only because he was afraid of what he would find. Steeling himself he headed down to the vault and bit down on any other emotions flying around in his head. As they said in the academy, ninja don't show emotion.
Haku was calmly sitting in the center of the vault when Naruto arrived, a purple barrier had sprung up around the metal encasement and Naruto could understand why. She hadn't taken any of the precautions that any sealing student would have done and now she was stuck. If there was one advantage to what she had done it was that Naruto was now able to see inside the vault, to make out the specifications for entering and leaving without problem. The information made him frown uneasily. He checked and double checked, hoping he was reading it wrong, but it made sense. To take anything out of the vault required the action to be done with or by Gato, only Gato was a corpse upstairs. Haku eyed Naruto wearily but didn't say anything. He considered her for a moment. He could leave her but that wouldn't be good for anyone and she would probably get killed as soon as any of the samurai woke up. Groaning at his bad luck, Naruto spun in place and headed back up to Gato's rooms.
Arriving back in the room he had woken up in he was ashamed at his relief on seeing that the fire hadn't reached Gato's body yet. He grabbed the body, throwing it over his shoulders while trying to ignore the stink of blood and whatever had been in Gato's stomach while he ran down to the vault.
Haku's face twisted in surprise upon seeing Naruto, then into understanding upon seeing Gato. Naruto placed the body at the entrance and saw the barrier die down, thanking Kami that the seals hadn't relied on chakra signatures. He didn't speak to Haku as he grabbed his bag back from her and retrieved his largest sealing scroll, then piled as much gold as he could carry into it. Haku watched on in surprise before she too started helping. All the while Gato's lifeless body watched them accusatively as they worked until finally the vault was empty and Naruto was able to stash the scroll away. "You'll get this when we're safe," Naruto told her and she only nodded in agreement. There wasn't much else to say.
Naruto stared at Gato's body pityingly before sighing and heading out, Haku only a few steps behind.
(U_U)
The boat was cold and Haku was unwanted company. It didn't help that Naruto knew they had at least a three day journey until reaching Wave. At least he was able to catch up on the sleep he had missed and the food he hadn't eaten if it was any consolation.
It wasn't her fault though, it was his. He didn't want to talk to her. She had betrayed his trust, had broken her word as a ninja. Even though it hadn't specifically been her word seeing as Zabuza had been the one agreeing, but he had very little doubt that Zabuza had been the one to send her.
While he did try to avoid her at mealtimes, there were unavoidable meetings. "Why did you save me?" she asked on what should be the final day of the journey as they sat down to eat.
Naruto eyed her distastefully, shoveling some food into his mouth while she waited for an answer. "That's a stupid question," he said finally. "Your master would have killed my teammates if he realized that I let you die," he said, coldly stating the fact.
Haku winced. "He doesn't care about me that much. I'm just a tool in his eyes."
Naruto stared at her for a long while. "You don't believe that, do you?"
"Why would I say it if I didn't believe it."
"Well you people do have a tendency to say things you don't believe," Naruto said, reminding her of the broken promise.
She clammed up after that.
Naruto finished his food and set the bowl down. "I'm not happy with what you did and I definitely think you were wrong for doing it. But I understand why you did it and I'm sure if I was in your situation I would have done the same," he said finally. "So I forgive you, okay. You don't have to walk on eggshells around me."
Haku frowned. "I wasn't. . ." she started but Naruto cut her off.
"Just do me a favor," he said. "Next time you feel that you have to kill someone just stop for a minute and think if it's the best thing to do."
Haku shook her head. "I'm just a tool. It's not my choice."
Naruto growled. "Any tool can be used to kill. The academy teaches us how to kill with almost anything we can get our hands on. But how many tools can save a life, huh? If you want to be a good tool then try being more useful." Haku looked like she wanted to protest but she didn't get the chance as Naruto stood up. "Thank you for the food," he said, before storming off.
They arrived in Wave that night, both navigating to the cave that was Zabuza's hideout. They were met by relieved expressions from both Sakura and Kakashi, and stoic cold reaction from everyone else. Naruto knew they were secretly happy to see them but that it wouldn't do for their image to be beholden to their emotions.
"Gato's dead," Haku said to Zabuza before Naruto could get a word in.
Naruto scowled her way and approached Zabuza until he had to look up at the man. "You promised no one would die," he said unhappily. "You broke your word."
"Yeah," Zabuza said towering over Naruto and releasing chakra that made Naruto want to lie down and cry. "What's it to you?"
Naruto stood his ground however. "I need to know what you're going to do with the money," he said. "I can keep it a secret, we can ask everyone to leave, but you're not getting it until I know that it's not going to cause more senseless death."
"Why shouldn't I just take it off your corpse," he asked, slowly, reaching for his sword.
Naruto stared him down. "Because I don't think that you want to kill me. I don't think you want any more bloodshed." He thought for a moment. "Besides it's keyed to my chakra and you won't be able to open it if I die."
Zabuza stared at him, most likely trying to discern the truth of Naruto's words. Finally Zabuza looked up. "Everyone out," he said quietly.
Nobody moved even though they had all heard his voice clearly.
"Are all of you deaf? I said get out," Zabuza shouted this time and his teammates obeyed, the demon brothers fleeing quickly, Haku moving only a little slower. Naruto nodded to his teammates confidently and they followed until it was just Naruto and Zabuza alone.
"I figured that you were probably raising money for a revolution on Mist. Its what made most sense, but I didn't want to make any assumptions," Naruto prompted.
Zabuza's eyes widened but he nodded. "Yagura is a tyrant and a madman. I don't really understand these things but I know that he's the reason for the bloodline purges."
"Mist would be better without him," Naruto said, not so much a question but a conclusion. "And you think you'll be better? The Demon of the Hidden Mist?" Naruto asked incredulously.
"Don't speak down to me," Zabuza growled. "You don't understand anything."
Naruto leaned away from him, the fear evident on his face.
"Mei Terumi," Zabuza said finally. "She's going to make Mist a good place, and I'll make sure that she has every resource to do it."
"Do you trust her?"
"With my life."
"Are you going to keep trying even if I don't give you the money?"
"Yeah," Zabuza said determinedly.
Naruto thought about it for a moment before smiling. "I'll give you the money on one condition," he said. "You have to help with building the bridge when we retrieve Tazuna, you and all your teammates."
Zabuza stared at Naruto incredulously then broke into uncontrolled laughter, clutching at his stomach as his gravelly voice reverberated around the small cave. Haku darted inside with a guarded look on her face which quickly became confused. After calming himself Zabuza raised his head. "You kids are hilarious. It's a deal," he said, reaching out his hand to shake. Naruto took the hand in turn, then retrieved the scroll from his bag and handed it to him. Aren't you going to unlock it from your chakra?" Zabuza asked him as he stood.
Naruto turned away, hiding a smirk. "I'm a shinobi," he explained. "I lied."
