This took much longer than expected. Alas, 2020 finally got its licks in. Again, thank you to everyone who leave reviews here! I also post to AO3 and reply to reviews there! Much thanks to the wonderful Tavina and effervescent Zingenmir for beta-reading.

The fact that my head had very suddenly stopped throbbing was what made me realize it was this bullshit again. The fact I was standing on a foggy shoreline, with the rest of— no, with— Team Seven and Tazuna was a distant second.

I could vaguely make out that there was a smattering of buildings up past the beach. Out on the water there were small boats with nets cast out over their sides, barely visible, and there were some here on the sand, away from the tide. Some were ramshackle, others carefully taken care of, but all of them were on the old side, as far as I could tell. The overwhelming scent of fish— fresh, slightly old, and rotten— hung in the air. This was some sort of fishing village, then.

I wasn't sure I was willing to miraculously not feel the hangover if this was the result. I wasn't even sure how that would work, anyways. The smell was nearly bad enough to make taking the hangover worth it entirely on its own.

At least I wasn't the only one suffering from the odor. Sakura looked slightly green, and looking at Kakashi, I suspected he was actually breathing through his mouth instead, not that it was easy to tell. Naruto seemed entirely unaffected, which was a mild kind of horrifying on its own. Tazuna didn't seem to have a problem with it, but Wave's status as an island nation probably played into that.

"Your friend will be taking us across today?" Kakashi asked.

"Yesterday was too clear, but this is the right sort of weather," Tazuna answered.

"For what? Getting lost?" Naruto mimed looking around. "I thought this sorta weather was supposed to be dangerous? You can't see anything!"

"That's the point," Tazuna said, staring at the blond.

Sakura gave Tazuna a concerned look. Between Kakashi and now this, she was probably losing whatever faith she might have ever had in the belief adults were responsible. She'd probably be better off without it.

Eventually, a small boat emerged from the low fog, with only one figure visible in it. Tazuna looked tense, until it got closer and he was able to identify the man sitting at its rear, who waved at him. To my surprise, he was steering the boat towards the shore. At the absolute last moment, he cut the engine and tilted the propeller up out of the water, before he hopped out and pushed the boat further out of the water.

"Sorry about the wait, the engine was acting up," he said to Tazuna, before giving us a look over. Under his sugegasa, his narrow face looked tired. "These are the ninja you hired?" He sounded a bit dubious, which made sense considering that Kakashi was the only obvious adult, the other two were twelve, and my unconscious had decided that for this slow descent into insanity it only made sense for me to also look like a twelve year old.

"They're able to handle it," Tazuna said, which was a far cry from what I remembered from the series at this point.

"If you say so." He scratched the back of his head, and adjusted the hat. "I'm Kaji," he said, introducing himself. He didn't seem to be in the mood for making this longer than it needed to be, since he immediately followed it up with: "Get in, and I'll launch."

Sakura's eyebrows furrowed together for a moment at stepping into the water— for good reason, given the occasional dead fish floating on the surf and onto the sand— but to my surprise, she was the first one to get into the boat, beating Kakashi. When he tried to pat her on the head in praise, she smacked his hand away.

I joined them next, and Tazuna followed after me.

Naruto was still on the shore, giving the water an askance look. I suddenly realized that at no point had he ever stood on any of the beach that was wet from the waves coming in.

"Naruto, hurry up!" Sakura shouted, as she unslung her backpack. She looked at Kakashi. "I thought the Uzumaki were originally from Whirlpool? Wasn't it an island?" She turned her attention back on Naruto. "Your ancestors lived on the ocean! Hurry up!"

Kakashi tried to disguise what was a painfully obvious wince as a smile. It seemed to have worked on Sakura, because she didn't seem to catch it. "Ah, yes, but you have to remember, Naruto was born in Konoha and is an orphan…"

Sakura didn't have any time for Kakashi's logic. She just glared at Naruto more. "Just get in the boat already!"

Naruto looked horrified. "But Sakura! FISH POOP IN THAT WATER! And there's a dead one right there!" There was indeed a dead fish floating on the water very close to the boat. Was this really what he had been thinking the whole time?

Kaji sighed.

Kakashi looked between the two genin, got out of the boat, walked over to where Naruto was standing, and, against all protests, tucked him into an under arm carry, before depositing Naruto in the front and getting back into the boat.

With a firm shove, the boat glided into deeper waters, and in a practiced move the man gracefully pulled himself over the side and on board, only the hem of his shorts damp from the water. He pushed off further with his oar, before lowering the propeller again and starting the engine.

"You're an Uzumaki? I thought they were supposed to have red hair," Kaji commented, once he settled into a comfortable position.

"Red hair?" Naruto screwed his eyes upwards and tugged on a hank of hair, as though he could actually get a look at it.

"You like to wear orange. You'd look awful with red hair," I pointed out. I set my— Sasuke's?— bag down next to me.

"You'd look awful with red hair!" he shot back. It didn't even make sense as far as retorts went, but I couldn't tell if that was due to the change in dynamics or because he was busy thinking about something else. "I wonder if one of my parents had red hair," Naruto actually said out loud while he dropped his backpack onto the deck. Something else, then. He and Sakura were too busy looking out at the mist-covered ocean to see the fleeting look of wished-for death cross what was visible of Kakashi's face.

He let the moment pass, but eventually he must have recovered, because he turned his attention back to the client. "Tazuna-san, you mentioned your bridge is supposed to help Wave get out from under Gato's power. How long do you think it will be until it's complete?"

"If we can keep working on it without interruption, about a month, maybe a month and a half if the weather works against us," Tazuna answered. "Most of the span leading from Fire is finished. It starts from that village we waited at."

Sakura turned, looking surprised. "It was that close? We didn't even see it!"

"That's because of the fog," Kakashi said, trying to sound lazy. "Water might be known for having constant cover year round, but Fire's eastern coast is heavily blanketed from late spring through the summer because of warm air drifting over the ocean. Starting it from our side wouldn't just help avoid the need to ship in resources, but would have ended up useful in evading Gato's attention until now. His company doesn't have any stakes in Fire yet." He fixed his eye on Tazuna.

"I avoided starting it on the Wave side until I had no choice," he answered. "While it wasn't intended, it worked out when Gato finally took over all of the ports and shipping companies."

Kaji spoke up. "Tazuna-san asked the village elders here on the shore of Fire for permission to use their village as the connection to Wave. They agreed. Between the third shinobi war and Uzushio getting destroyed, it's been slowly dying." He didn't sound grim so much as resigned. "There hasn't been enough trade to sustain it, so people keep leaving. You might be able to live off of fish alone, but if you can't sell anything you can't exactly pay taxes or replace things that wear out if you can't make them yourself. Since construction started, it's kept more people employed from there since before I can remember. If the bridge works out, it won't just help Wave, but them too."

"Couldn't they just do different things besides just fish?" Sakura asked. "Wouldn't that work?"

He shook his head. "It isn't that easy. A village grows into having all of those different things because there's demand in the first place. You can't just take a man and tell him he's a full time carpenter now, when there's nothing to build."

"Oh," she went, looking very thoughtful. "I guess that makes sense."

"As shinobi, we're tools," Kakashi told her. "We might be able to be the solution to some problems, but we can't fix everything in this world. It would be like trying to use a kunai to build a house." He was right that you couldn't throw ninja at every problem and expect it to be solved— military force rarely made anything better, after all— but a kunai wouldn't be the absolute worst option, would it? I barely resisted the urge to say something.

Unexpectedly, Kakashi met my eyes. "I'm sure you're trying to figure out how to prove my analogy wrong but please don't," he said, with what I could only call badly faked amusement. His eye closed, wrinkled into a forced smile. "The last time you did it sent us in a circular argument."

"I got a headache from that one," Sakura grumbled. "I didn't know Naruto could argue for that long, and he didn't even know what he was arguing about."

I simmered in this unexpected callout from my subconscious instead of responding to either of them.

For some time, impossible to tell without being able to track the sun or a watch, the only sounds were the motor running and the occasional choppy wave slapping against the boat's hull. It was interrupted by the boat suddenly rocking side to side, a loud 'PLUNK', and then splashing.

"Ah!"

While we were distracted, Naruto had somehow gone over the side.

Sakura gasped. "Naruto!"

Kakashi sighed, and, casually hooking his legs under the bench he was seated on, leaned over the side and fished Naruto out one-handed. He dropped the now-soaked blond into the middle of the boat.

Naruto sputtered and gagged, doing his best to get the seawater out of his mouth before he blew his nose. "I hate the ocean!" As if to punctuate this statement, when he unzipped his now sodden jacket, some slimy looking kelp and a small silvery fish dropped to the deck. He stared at it in shock before he made a horrified sound of disgust.

Kaji looked at Naruto and then gave Kakashi an unsure look. "Are you sure he's an Uzumaki?" Trying to combine his understanding of what the Uzumaki had a reputation for and where they used to live with the blond boy who was trying to help the fish out of the boat without touching it in any way was probably a difficult mental exercise.

It looked like that vague micro-expression I had categorized as 'I wish for death' was going to become a regular part of Kakashi's repertoire, because he was wearing it again. "Fairly sure, yes."

It occurred to me that Minato's name was also ocean themed. Naruto really wasn't living up to either legacy there, where the ocean was concerned, it seemed. Then again, it wasn't like he had any experience with it until just now. Rivers were entirely different.

Sakura's patience for Naruto's fishy hangup looked ready to end. "Naruto! Stop torturing the poor fish!" There it was. She shoved him away, before picking up the desperately flopping fish and dropping it into the water. It quickly disappeared out of view.

Naruto looked at her in horror. "Sakura, you have fish hands now."

"It's just a fish! Grow up already!"

"But the fish! And the water!" I had absolutely no idea what Naruto was trying to get across.

I rubbed the back of my head. "Fish do have some pretty nasty germs that you wouldn't want to get in any cuts…"

"What? Nooooo! SENSEI!" Sakura's earlier confidence immediately melted away.

Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Kakashi probably wanted to throw me off the boat now. On the plus side, I didn't hate myself so much that getting thrown into a dream ocean should be that bad. At least I didn't think I did.

Regardless, we probably weren't making anything approaching a good impression on the sailor, between Naruto's random and hopefully short-lived brush with thalassophobia and Sakura's sudden squeamishness over gross fish germs. Admittedly, the last one was entirely my fault, but still.

Kakashi's visible eye closed for a long, pained-looking moment, before he finally opened it. "Sakura, if you're concerned about fish germs, run your hands through the water over the side without falling in. Naruto, there is nothing in the water that you should be afraid of. Sasuke, please stop talking."

Considering how little I actually said, that was unfair, but I was actually surprised he tried. We must really have had him near the breaking point. I didn't even know Kakashi was capable of being competent with pre-teens, but apparently he could be if he was desperate enough.

Sakura made a face at him, but ultimately obeyed.

Naruto, on the other hand, only gave Kakashi a suspicious look. "How do you know? There could be sea monsters or something!" The closest thing to a sea monster was sealed in his stomach right now and I was pretty sure the kyuubi had no interest in large bodies of water. At least, as far as thought exercises went, I would assume so.

"There is absolutely nothing out here," Kakashi said, in a long-suffering tone.

Eventually the conversation lapsed into a peaceful quiet, the only sound coming from the motor, until Naruto spoke up again.

"Uh… should I be feeling itchy?" There was a nervous edge to Naruto's question, straining his attempt at sounding light.

I turned to look at him: even in the relatively low light from the all of the mist, there was an almost shimmery glint to Naruto. His unexpected trip into the ocean meant that as he slowly dried off, the salt was remaining stuck to his skin and his clothes. Combined with the mist, it meant he was slowly becoming not just itchy, but sticky as well. That was probably the worst combination.

Before I could say anything, Kakashi shot a warning glance at me.

"Ma, Naruto, go sit in the front," he said, waving his fingers forward.

"Why?"

"Just do it."

I exchanged a look with Sakura, and shifted to move back. She gave me a confused look, but stayed where she was.

Naruto moved to the front of the boat, and then turned around. "Okay, now what—ggggk!" Before he could finish what he had to say, Kakashi had swamped him with a slow moving geyser of presumably fresh water, ignoring the shouts of surprise from the other adults. As far as I could tell, he was managing to make sure as little of the water as possible would end up in the boat, too. What an abuse of a jutsu.

"Is that better?" Kakashi sounded happier at least.

Naruto made a face at him, dripping onto the deck. "How's soaking me with more water gonna help!?"

"Ninja…" Kaji said quietly, shaking his head.

"You were feeling like that because of all the salt that was covering you," I answered, ignoring Kakashi. "Even with all this fog you were still drying off."

Naruto blinked. "Salt?" And then, as if on automatic, he raised his arm up and licked his wrist before he processed what he just did and what he had been thinking the whole time about the ocean. He immediately gagged and tried to desperately scrub at his tongue before he realized he was just exacerbating it all. I guess this was just inevitable from Naruto trying to think more.

This was apparently more than enough for Sakura to decide to no longer deal with any of us, since she turned her attention to the civilians. "Kaji-san, how long is it until we reach Wave?" she politely asked.

"We're almost there," the man answered.

"Really?" Sakura sounded surprised. "How can you tell?" I was impressed. The fog had only thickened as we got further away from shore.

He showed her a compass, before putting it away and placing his free hand on the fuel tank. "By going at a constant speed the way we are, and making sure we're staying on a straight course, it's easy. I know how much fuel the engine uses in these conditions, so I just have to keep an eye on the gauge if I want to keep track of time."

I guess that was one way to do it.

"We're almost close enough that I'll have to turn the motor off."

This comment attracted Naruto's attention. "Why's that?"

"Between the sound from the motor and the wakes we're leaving, it would make it easy for Gato's men to find us if they're out here," Kaji answered, seriously. "We need to be quiet."

Naruto cautiously moved to the back of the boat to look at the trail we were leaving behind us. "Huh," he went. "Those really are big, if you can find them. Do they last a long time?"

"Long enough to follow if you see them. I'm taking you all across as a favor. I have no interest in becoming another missing sailor after a 'friendly' visit from his thugs," Kaji said bluntly. "There's enough of those, these days." If that was the incentive to stay low, it said a lot that he was willing to take Tazuna and us across.

Naruto's eyes widened, before his expression turned serious and he balled his fists up. "We're not going to let that happen!"

"Good luck there." Kaji said it without any rancor to his voice, but it was clear he didn't believe Naruto at all.

Kakashi reached over, and gripped Naruto's head, pulling the boy back towards the bow. "Try not to make so many impossible promises, hm?" he murmured. It was quiet enough that I could barely hear it from where I was sitting, and Sakura looked like she had picked it up as well. Neither civilian— when had I started thinking of them like that?— showed any sign they had heard it.

Kaji finally cut the engine, and switched to his oar.

The new silence in the fog was eerie. I refused to think about it. While things were staying relatively true to the series, I had absolutely no interest in seeing if thinking too hard would end up with a surprise shift from weird anime dreams to horror.

Naruto had learned his lesson about not leaning too far over by now, and instead was keeping his center of balance firmly inside the boat even as he tried to peer ahead. The only thing he would find staring like that was going to be eye strain. The fog was just too thick to make anything out until it was too close. If anything, it was thicker than when we had left Fire's shore, in spite of the fact we were supposed to be nearing land.

It seemed to have put Kakashi on alert. "Get your bags ready," he told us, quietly but firmly. It wasn't a suggestion, but an order.

Naruto turned around and looked as though for a moment he was going to protest, but after looking at everyone and seeing that Sakura and I were doing what Kakashi said, visibly swallowed and pulled his bag's straps back onto his shoulders.

Sakura saw it first. "Whoa."

The bridge had very suddenly come into sight— or to be more accurate, its concrete piles. We weren't that far from it at all, probably twenty, maybe thirty feet. The bridge itself loomed high enough that its supports faded into the fog, its actual structure barely visible as a vague form above in the white-grey fog.

"I had no idea bridges could get that big," Naruto said, his voice filled with amazement.

I did, but it was strange to come to the realization that such a normal bridge to me absolutely wouldn't be to any of them. Even Kakashi was quietly looking up at it, and it probably wasn't due to his bridge-related trauma. At least, I hoped not.

"This will be my best achievement in life if I can complete it," Tazuna said. "My daughter and grandson will be able to have better futures because of it. If I don't, and Gato kills me, they'll mourn me, forever hating Konoha, and my grandson will probably not live to see adulthood." I guess he couldn't resist getting that jab of guilt inducing pressure to remind us of our job.

"I'm sure they'll be fine," Kakashi said, though he didn't sound like he was trying to be particularly reassuring.

Sakura made a face, but only after she made sure Tazuna couldn't see. It struck me that being a ninja with how it was in the series was mostly customer service. Just with added weapons.

"We're almost there," Kaji promised, after some time. "We'll be going further inland, where it isn't as open, just in case Gato's men are out here."

Land slowly came into view, hazy in the fog. Naruto leaned forward suddenly, far enough that all three of us tried to grab for him just to not have a repeat of his earlier splash. Kakashi bashed into me, and we ended up glaring at each other— insomuch that he could glare with one eye— as Sakura hauled Naruto so far back by the straps of his backpack that he rolled back onto it, leaving him flailing for a moment before he sat upright again.

"Naruto!" I was impressed at how Sakura had managed to compress shouted frustration into a conversational volume. She was taking the warning about being quiet seriously. "Are you trying to go over the side again!?"

He rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. "Eheh, no, not really. Sorry! Thanks for the save, Sakura." Naruto beamed at her.

"Eugh." Sakura rolled her eyes at him and huffed, but eventually smiled back. "Think next time, okay?" This was compounded by her looking at me and Kakashi still eying the other and then muttering something indistinct under her breath that sounded rather like 'Boys'.

That was interesting.

Land edged into view and soon, to accompany it, the fainter shape and color of trees took form in the fog, the line between land and sea broken by a series of smaller arched bridges that ran along the shore.

"Yay," said Naruto, quietly.

I snorted. Apparently he could make it clear he was happy about things without being at a dull roar.

He twisted back at me to make a face. "Hey! Don't laugh!"

I shrugged.

"Keep it down," Kakashi reminded us. At some point he had pulled his book out, in spite of being in front of clients.

Naruto eyed Kakashi, stuck his tongue out at me, and turned back to watch as we approached.

Kaji oared the boat towards the bridges. "We've been lucky so far, but we'll take the route with vegetation just in case."

"Are there really other routes?" Sakura wondered.

"This side of Wave is covered with mangroves," Tazuna said, "but they aren't everywhere. It's easy to get lost in them if you aren't good with direction or familiar with the area. Gato's tried to clear some of them out, but he's found out the hard way why you shouldn't do that."

"Why's that?"

"Mangroves prevent erosion," Kakashi boredly answered. I wondered if I should point out that he hadn't been flipping pages. "I imagine if he's built anything in cleared out areas he's found the foundation washing out from under him."

"He's wasted plenty of money and resources on buildings that aren't going to last another year." Tazuna sounded affronted, but then again, he did build things. I didn't know anyone from the engineering college who would be that happy either at their work washing away so quickly.

"Ma, he really is rich, isn't he?"

"If he's so rich, why is he still making so much money? How're people not just taking it from him?" Naruto asked.

"That's called taxation," I said— at the same time as Kakashi. We stared at each other.

Sakura ignored the two of us. "Remember? If he's doing all this criminal stuff like Tazuna-san says, he's probably making a lot of money illegally, too."

I absolutely did not remember that. I could only assume that it had to do with Tazuna owning up and that it probably went the same way as the story. Hopefully. So much about these dreams was just stupid. Especially the part where I didn't even seem to get to have original jokes without them being given to Kakashi.

"Oh, yeah," Naruto said, obviously lying.

Sakura rolled her eyes.

We approached the bridge, and entered one of the tunnels. As we emerged from the other side, Naruto spoke up. "Wow."

I could see why. The village on the other side stretched out ahead, split up by clusters of mangrove trees. Every building in sight was built on the water, their connected decks several feet above the surface. I wondered if it would be the poverty or weather that contributed to their worn looks more. Some of the buildings looked rougher than others.

We went past the initial groups of buildings, and past the mangroves, until we reached more buildings that bordered actual land, somewhat secluded from the rest.

Probably to Naruto's relief, we stopped at an actual dock. "This is where I leave you. Good luck," Kaji said. He glanced at Naruto, who had immediately flung himself onto the wooden dock and was doing a small dance of happiness to himself at not being on a boat anymore, before looking at Kakashi. "And... maybe teach the kid how to sail? If you can? It's sad to lose your heritage."

Well, he wasn't wrong.

Kakashi, who was just about to step up, slumped over. Sakura shoved at him to get off the boat. The jounin rolled with it, as though the momentum from Sakura wouldn't have thrown anyone else off.

"Thank you," Tazuna told the sailor, once he was on the pier. It was probably the most sincere he had been the whole time.

Kaji gave a short wave, restarted the engine, and motored off.

"Now! Get me home safely."

I guess things really were about to kick off, weren't they?

Kakashi made bored agreements to placate him as Sakura and I watched Naruto speed off ahead of us to finally be on real ground again.

"Ugh. Naruto! Slow down!" Sakura called. "You don't have to take point all the time!"

"But it's fun!" Naruto turned around and shouted back.

"You're not a very good point if you're looking at us!" she yelled at him.

Judging from his expression, he had forgotten that. He immediately turned around, so fast it was accidentally a spin. He at least was facing the right direction when he stopped.

Naruto was taking it seriously, but not overly so. At least, I thought so. I don't think he was seeing this as some weird competition to prove his worth, at any rate, though eventually we closed the distance between us and him.

Sakura, if anything, seemed to be more nervous.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She immediately blushed. I regretted asking. "Oh!" she said, only turning more pink. "I was just thinking..." Sakura drifted off, looking the other direction. "It's nothing important."

I sighed. "Drop the false modesty. You shouldn't pretend it isn't." It was annoying enough to see in freshmen girls who were still trying to cultivate some kind of persona before they realized it had an impact on their GPA. I didn't want to suffer through more of it while asleep. "What are you thinking?"

Sakura blinked in surprise. "Oh. Uh." She obviously hadn't expected to actually have to put her thoughts into words. "It's just everything about this mission. If Gato's hiring ninja too, it means this is going to be more dangerous, isn't it? But at the same time, since Tazuna-san says this bridge wouldn't be just good for Wave, but Water and Fire too, and probably other countries, why would they work for him? Wouldn't that go against their interests, too?"

I felt a hand grip into my hair and head, and saw its match anchor onto Sakura's head. "Not all ninja are loyal to hidden villages or their countries of origin," Kakashi said, his voice coming from behind and above us. "Some are actually very short-sighted and only care about money. I approve of you trying to think over this, by the way. It's important to understand the underlying situation for more complicated missions."

Sakura tried to elbow him in the gut, but he let go and stepped back out of reach before she could even wing his flak jacket. She huffed, unhappy. "Well, wouldn't it be good for them, too, if it'd make things cheaper?"

"Not everyone sees prosperity as a goal," Kakashi answered, angling to be in step next to Sakura. "For Konoha, we see it as a reward and as something that helps the village as a whole, much like Fire does. Other hidden villages aren't so lucky."

I wasn't sure whether to ignore him for being so nosy and clearly trying to fish for getting us to ask what he meant, or just to indulge him and ask, which would only reward this behavior. Either way, it was weird to think of Kakashi as the sort of person who used providing random relevant information as a social interaction. Most desperate 'gifted' kids outgrew it.

Sakura had no such compunctions. At least not anymore. "Get to the point, sensei," she demanded.

"No patience?" he asked.

"No," she said, glaring up at him.

He feigned a put-upon sigh. "Some villages rely on things like fear and desperation to keep their ninja in line. Those are the currencies of despotism."

There was no way he came up with a phrase that sounded that good on his own. I squinted at him. "Did you get that from your book?"

Kakashi ignored me; the only sign he had heard me at all was that his Icha Icha novel suddenly disappeared from view. "Villages like that only foment—" Had he forgotten he was talking to children? Probably. "— rebellion and tend to produce missing-nin in larger numbers. Like Kiri. The Demon Brothers are a product of that kind of system. They're revolutionaries. Missing-nin like that tend to work in clusters. Ideologues tend to put everyone else on edge."

"Huh," Sakura went. Her brows furrowed together. She was clearly putting a lot of thought into what he had said. I wondered how much of it she actually understood.

Naruto had wandered further ahead again, presumably from not wanting to waste any of his brain power on this conversation. I couldn't blame him; it probably would have been a slog for him to try. Even Sakura was visibly trying to put it together in a way she could understand, and she was an intelligent actual twelve— no, thirteen, something in the back of my head corrected me— year old.

In front of us, Naruto's body language shifted into something more alert; how much of it was actually conscious I didn't know, but from one moment he had gone from half-playfully ambling with his hands shoved into his pockets, to staring into the vegetation off the side of the road, to suddenly pulling a shuriken out and throwing it.

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted, when she realized what he had done. "What gives!?"

The older man looked stressed. "You're supposed to protect me! Not give me a heart attack!"

"There was something there!" he insisted.

Kakashi was already walking into the brush, not bothering with any of them. Not wanting to bother listening to the stress-induced sniping, I followed him.

This part had stayed the same. A white-furred rabbit had collapsed beneath the shuriken Naruto had thrown, shaking from fear.

Sakura and Naruto must have trailed after us, because I heard a noise of surprise from Sakura, shortly followed by Naruto scooping the rabbit up to inspect it. Both of them looked horrified at the rabbit's near-death experience. It had always struck me weird in retrospect that in the series that they had been so affected by Naruto almost killing a rabbit, considering they were supposed to be ninja, but it was very different looking at a small, innocent and very cute-looking fluffy creature that was terrified out of its mind.

Kakashi was still looking out past the road while the rabbit kept their attention absorbed on it.

His countenance changed more suddenly than Naruto's had minutes before, eye focused and everything about his body language suddenly on sharp alert. "Get down!" he demanded.

We barely had time to process it. I tackled Tazuna over, trying and failing to remember how this had gone in the show, while Naruto and Sakura dropped flat on the road only a few feet away. From the angle I was at, I couldn't see Kakashi.

Something passed above our heads, whirling.

I stood up once I no longer heard it. The other two were still on the ground. Kakashi was already standing when I looked towards him, looking up at one of the trees.

Zabuza Momochi was already standing on top of the hilt of his sword, the blade embedded in the tree, looking back and down at us, the dramatic fuck. As cool as it looked, I found myself realizing that his entrance was extremely impractical on multiple levels. Then again, he wasn't the one toting children and a civilian around, so maybe he felt like he could afford to show off.

Kakashi's expression hadn't lost the complete alertness he had displayed just moments ago, but he was a quarter of the way into his normal slouch, thumbs looped into his pockets. Were they both trying to show off? Was that what jounin did? "Ah, the Hidden Mist's missing-nin Momochi Zabuza..." He swung an arm out and back towards us, warningly. "Get back, all of you."

I looked over at Naruto and Sakura instead. The two of them had their attention entirely on Zabuza, which was fair. Sakura was frowning to herself, and Naruto actually looked focused. Zabuza's entrance had been more dramatic like this than it was in illustrated or animated form, even if it was over the top to the point of being unrealistic. There really was a serious commitment to posing going on here, for someone who was supposed to be an assassin. I wondered what it said about me that my dreams weren't even trying to bother to 'correct' that part.

On the one hand, things were still mostly unfolding according to how the story had played out. On the other, changes were gradually accruing with each dream, to the point where each interaction was beginning to impact others. Naruto wasn't so quick to act on his impulses and was more actually sure of himself when he did. The differences in Naruto barely held a candle to Sakura, though. The mostly blind trust she had held in Kakashi and willingness to let her teammates be in charge apparently had never taken root in this dream version, because of the bell test going so off-track. She was much more willing to question things and ask to make her own decisions, instead of assuming that Kakashi actually knew best. At least I assumed that was the case, and not some kind of subconscious favoritism on my part. It made me curious about how it would continue to play out, if I kept having these dreams.

"'Sharingan'? What the hell is the 'sharingan'?" Naruto's voice interrupted my thoughts. At some point when I wasn't paying attention, Kakashi had pushed his hitai-ate up. Did I really zone out of a whole dream conversation? Again? Apparently so.

I didn't particularly feel like volunteering to explain. Not only did I not want to— even in the privacy of a dream it felt embarrassing to admit to myself I hadn't forgotten what the Sharingan was, ever since the first time I had gotten my hands on the manga— I wasn't even that sure I was up to giving an explanation that wouldn't be too in depth.

Fortunately, it seemed Zabuza was more than willing to show off his knowledge. "Heh. Your brats don't know?" His head tilted, mockingly. "I suppose it doesn't matter much, when the Uchiha clan is all but extinct."

I tried to ignore the fact that both Sakura and Naruto had swung their heads quickly to stare at me. A part of me couldn't resist letting the thought bubble up that it would actually make this harder if Zabuza thought there was a second Sharingan user involved. I did my best to squash it down.

"It's one of the three great doujutsu," Zabuza continued on, as though he hadn't noticed. He had turned to look down at Kakashi, still standing on the hilt of his sword. I seriously doubted that it had somehow passed him by, when he actually had a full view of all of us. "Immensely powerful, and it's supposed to be able to read and defeat all jutsu. Of course the scariest ability is the one he's known for best... isn't it, Copy-nin? The handbook I kept when I was part of Kiri's assassination squad had plenty of information on you. You were known for having copied over a thousand jutsu before I went rogue. How many must it be now?"

"More than enough to deal with you, I think," Kakashi answered. There was an almost deceptive sort of casualness to his tone of voice, in direct contrast to how he was standing.

"I think that's plenty of talk." Zabuza crouched.

"Wait!" Sakura shouted. "If you're a missing-nin from Kiri, why are you working for Gato?"

Naruto and I turned to stare at her. "Uh… Sakura… I dunno if right now's the time to be asking questions like that," he said, nervously. "Eheh."

Zabuza snorted. "What the fuck sort of question is that?" His attention turned towards Kakashi for a moment, one thin eyebrow visibly raised at the other jounin even from this distance, before refocusing his attention on Sakura. "I don't work under a village. I still need to eat and make money, too, little girl. Can't kill the Mizukage on an empty stomach or with an equally empty purse."

"That's not what I mean!" I was beginning to think that Sakura had lost it. "You work with the Demon Brothers too, don't you? And if you're all revolutionaries, why are you working for someone that's just going to make it harder for you?"

What. Naruto's eyes met mine. He looked completely confused.

"Ah... Sakura-chan..." Kakashi spoke up. There was a hint of strained lightness to his voice. "We aren't supposed to be encouraging revolution against foreign governments... Not like this, anyways. Please do me a favor and forget that, Tazuna-san."

Behind me, I could hear the old man swallow.

Zabuza stood back up. "What makes you think this would make things harder for me? If this bridge of his gets built, it will end up sending more trade to and from Water."

"Yes, but…" Sakura hesitated for a moment, clearly trying to decide how to phrase what she wanted to say. "Kakashi-sensei said that in places like Kiri, they don't really care about regular money. That it's fear and desperation they use as their currency, that keeps their ninja under control. Wouldn't a bridge make it harder for that to work?" She was looking increasingly more confident as she spoke, standing a little taller than she had when she first tried to stop the fight. "The man who took us across said the bridge wouldn't just help Wave, but also the coastal village in Fire we left from. If Tazuna-san's bridge is going to improve that many people's lives, wouldn't it have an impact in Kiri, too? If it's so bad there, but they know it's better elsewhere and it's easier to leave, wouldn't they? A hidden village needs people for it to be a hidden village."

Judging from the way his shoulders were slouching more and more, Kakashi hadn't expected to be dragged into this that way.

No one spoke for some time, long enough that soon it wasn't only the breeze in the trees we heard, but the slow sound of birds resuming their activities, too. It was a bit specious.

Zabuza and his sword disappeared from the tree, and just as suddenly, we heard what could only be laughter before he dropped into a landing, right in front of Kakashi. I was vaguely aware of kunai suddenly being gripped between both my hands again, and Sakura and Naruto armed up as well, the three of us backing up to create a closer perimeter to Tazuna. It was only a half second later when Zabuza hadn't attacked that I realized that Kakashi hadn't bothered to move at all.

"You read that shit? And bring it up to children?" He was still laughing. Apparently he had recognized Sakura's butchering of Kakashi's reference for what it was. This 'rich inner life' was starting to get seriously bullshit.

"You know, you just admitted to reading them too," Kakashi answered.

"Fuck." Zabuza stopped laughing.

Naruto edged up to my side. "Psst. Hey. Sasuke," he started. It was actually in a whisper range.

"Hm?"

"Do you know what just happened? Because I don't."

I seriously hoped he was talking about Sakura's intervention working. "I'm not really sure, but it just kept us out of a serious fight," I said back, quietly. "Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth."

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"

Sakura looked at the two of us, her eyebrows crinkled together in a mix of confusion and concern, before she rolled her eyes. She ended up stomping off towards Kakashi and Zabuza, leaving the two of us to our own devices. Presumably to still guard Tazuna.

"Don't question it too hard," I explained, feeling just as confused as Naruto looked now.

Ahead, the two jounin were having, as far as I could tell, a surprisingly serious and civil conversation, considering that minutes ago they were more than ready to go at each other with the intent to kill to ensure their respective missions were accomplished. They had also stepped away to not be as easily overheard. At some point Kakashi had pushed his hitai-ate back down over his Sharingan.

I watched as Sakura approached them. The moment she was near, their attention turned towards her, and Kakashi patted her on the head again, tousling her hair. She actually tried to punch him this time. Zabuza's laugh was loud enough for us to hear from where we were when Kakashi casually side-stepped it. He reached over her head, grabbed the top handle of her gear bag, lifted it and her and turned her around, before giving her a light push to send her back.

Sakura stomped back towards us, visibly angry with both fists still clenched.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I can't believe him!" she started to vent. Sakura was looking visibly angrier with each passing second. Next to me, Naruto took a step backwards, and then another. "He said I don't need to know! And then—!" Sakura cut herself off, huffed, closed her eyes, and then breathed out. Eventually she opened them back up, smiling once again, like she hadn't come close to having a full rage meltdown. She turned towards Tazuna. "Tazuna-san, are you alright?"

Tazuna eyed her warily. "Uh, yes, thank you for asking."

A loud bird call cut through the air. I couldn't tell where it came from, or if it was even supposed to come from somewhere. Naruto twisted around, trying to figure out its origin.

"Ah!" Naruto's eyes widened, looking behind Tazuna.

I turned to see what he was looking at.

Even with my angle of view blocked when Tazuna turned as well, I could already tell who it was supposed to be from my brief glance of dark hair, a bun holder, and a green haori. He was down on one knee, head partially lowered.

"You called for me, Zabuza-sama?" a soft voice enquired.

"There's a change of plans. We're breaking our contract with Gato. Instead, we're working with Leaf-nin for the time being."

"Hello, my name is Haku." Haku stood up, and approached us. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Naruto didn't just look elated, but had the same mushy expression he sometimes still directed towards Sakura when she wasn't paying attention. Again, it grated on me that comparison came unbidden.

Any decision I could make on whether or not to tell Naruto Haku was actually a boy dropped in priority as I felt my head pulse and everything faded away.

I opened my eyes and immediately regretted it. I had forgotten to close my blinds, and my poor, hungover head got a full dose of late morning sunlight smashing through my eyes. I crammed my pillow against my face until it stopped feeling like I was being stabbed in the face. "Fuuuuck." Everything still felt like it was swimming.

I fucked up.

I slowly scooted up in bed, before turning, and with my eyes still closed, grabbed for the rod attached to the blinds and rotated it until I could no longer see the bright light through my eyelids. I flopped back over, after that.

After a few minutes passed, I grappled for my phone, and squinted at its screen. Half-blurred, I could at least make out that I had no messages or missed calls, but I was still going to have to peel myself out of the bed for my afternoon class and a meeting with my advisor.

I dry-swallowed the painkillers I had set down on the nightstand, drained the glass of water next to it, and rolled out of bed to deal with the day's self-induced suffering.

I only tripped and nearly fell over once on my way to shower, and tried to not think too much as the bathroom filled with heavy mist.