Wave Arc: VI

We trained the next day. No watch, no guard duty, we weren't even training near the river - we were in the forest again, in another clearing. Kakashi stayed with us long enough in the morning to take us there and set up who was working with who and what on, but vanished shortly after. I wasn't sure if he was patrolling again, or investigating Gato - which he must've done at some point before if he knew that Haku and Zabuza were going to be betrayed. Maybe he was back by the bridge, keeping an eye on Tazuna and his crew. Or maybe he'd meant it when he told Zabuza that our mission was finished. He hadn't said anything to Tazuna either way, unless he'd done it when we weren't there, and none of us really wanted to ask.

As for Tazuna himself, he - and his crew, once they'd woken up from their senbon induced bouts of unconsciousness - were taking the whole experience as a massive boost in morale. Something about Gato showing he was scared by making a move on them, combined with the fact that they'd all survived and only lost a few tools and an easily repairable section of bridge in the process. Tazuna had been practically bouncing at breakfast as he'd recounted to a dubious Inari how the village was all but saved and there was nothing Gato could do if they all banded together. His optimism was sweet, even if the reasoning behind it was naive.

But for us: we trained. The dogs stayed; I don't know where they slept overnight or what they ate, but they were there when we left the house in the morning and five of them came with us to the forest clearing. The sixth, a bandaged greyhound called Uhei, didn't join us; he was either guarding the house or hanging back to run patrols with Kakashi, but I wasn't sure which.

"Taijutsu," Kakashi said to Naruto. "No clones, no weapons. Your movements need to be sharper and more precise, and you need to be able to do your katas faster and without having to think about the positions." He showed him a different set of katas to practice from the ones he was currently using, told him that the dogs knew the moves and would correct him if he was wrong, and moved on.

To Sakura: "Strength training. You're putting more chakra behind your punches than your muscles can cope with, it's why they keep hurting. Focus on your core muscles today and practice using your whole body to power your attacks rather than just your arms. You can train your upper body tomorrow once your shoulders have recovered." Again, he demonstrated for her, and cautioned her to cycle between exercises to avoid overstraining any one area.

And to me: "Kunai and close combat. You rely too much on shuriken; they aren't suited to be a contact weapon. Improve your deflections, and stop letting people disarm you - or get used to hiding weapons in places other than your pouch." The style he wanted me to learn was fast and vicious, with almost no blocking compared to the academy basic and a much heavier focus on ending a fight in as few moves as possible.

And… that was it. For the whole day, we ran drills, tightening the fundamentals of the new forms we were taught and letting the entire world narrow down to the next movement, the next step, the next duck and stab and parry and strike.

It was almost meditative, so much so that it took me a moment to blink out of it when Pakkun called a break for lunch.

"Walk," he commanded, gesturing us to take a lap round the clearing. "You can eat when you've cooled off."

"Walking?" Naruto complained, falling obediently into line behind Sakura. "This is the worst training session ever. Hey, hey we should spar after lunch, right?"

"No sparring! You need to improve, so you'll improve. It's how training works."

"Yeah," Naruto reasoned, "but we can also improve with sparring. And not be bored. It's training, but better."

"The variety would be good, Pakkun-san," Sakura added. The pug wrinkled his nose.

"I'm a dog," he reminded her. "I'm not a san. Only cats and people need titles to feel important."

"Except people are important if they're someone's banana," Naruto said happily, making grabby hands at Bull for his bento. It wasn't quite the take-home message I'd meant to give him yesterday, but a lot of things happened that I didn't mean so I didn't correct him. "C'mon, sparring. It's good. It's fun. I promise to just use taijutsu so it's still training."

"No sparring. But," Pakkun relented, "we can do a different form of training if you're bored."

The other two perked up, even if Sakura was less obvious about it. So, I noticed, did the dogs. Shiba, a grey dog who wasn't a shiba inu despite her name, started grinning, tongue lolling out her mouth and tail quivering with suppressed wags. She barked a one-word question.

"Yes," Pakkun said, nodding sagely. "Puppies, today you learn how to fetch."

And with that ominous prediction hanging over us, he left us to enjoy the next ten minutes of our lunch break and wonder among ourselves what, exactly, a game of fetch with a pack of ninja dogs would entail.

.

Turns out: a stick, a lot of chasing, ambush attacks, and the desperate fear of realising that Bisuke and Guruko could climb trees.

.

Inari accosted me outside the bathroom again when I'd taken too long staring into space with the tap running.

"Sorry," I said, stepping aside. "All yours."

"I asked Grandpa about the sweets," he said in reply, and I blinked at him. There weren't any sweets in Wave. I hadn't had sugar in days. Why was he talking about sweets. "And he said that's the basics of it, but you haven't understood."

"I haven't?" I repeated. Inari huffed and crossed his arms, adopting a lecturing pose that looked slightly ridiculous. Particularly because the person he'd learnt it off was clearly taller than him, and the stern expression didn't translate well when he had to look up to keep eye contact with me.

"It's not about the sweets," he said. "It's about the enocomy. Enocomy is people having jobs and houses and food and shops, and if your enocomy is strong then your people are strong and that's why the bridge is important. Because heroes don't work. You need, um, sustainable trade routes to save people."

"You mean economy?" I guessed, still trying to work out how this related to me being wrong.

"And!" he continued, abandoning his old-man-teacher pose and pointing rudely at my face. "Sweets are a luxury item! People need to not be hungry first, then you can start import-ering for sweets, but if you waste all your money on mochi without leaving enough for rice you'll get sick and your mum will be sad!"

I… what? Last week Inari informed us all that there were no heroes, only people stupid enough to get themselves killed. Now there were no heroes, only rice traders?

"My mum's dead," I said uncertainly. "But thank you for the advice." I shook my head, putting his weirdness out of my mind, and started walking down the hall to dinner. "Ask Naruto about heroes. He knows more than I do."

Inari scrunched his face up into a pout and tagged along beside me, twisting a hand in the hem of my shirt and tugging until I slowed to match his pace. "I don't want to ask him," he said. "He's an idiot. Grandpa says he's not allowed to work on the bridge because he doesn't know what girders are."

"He still knows more than I do."

"Yeah, but he's an idiot. If I sit next to you will you teach me another swear word?"

"I'm not - another swear word? No. You'll get me in trouble again."

"I'll trade you for taxes? Grandpa told me all about taxes."

"That's a shit trade."

"Is shit a swear word?"

"No."

.

The lack of night watches should have been a good thing. I didn't like being up in the middle of the night, having to sleep in clothes to be ready to go at a moment's notice, staring out into the dark and trying to find the right balance of alert-not-paranoid to last for hours at a time. With Kakashi and the dogs taking charge of patrols, we were left to ourselves for the evenings. I shared a slightly more involved stretching routine with Sakura than the one she was currently using, both of us united against the unfairness of Naruto never feeling the ache after training sessions, Naruto and Sakura speculated about what the other teams were up to and whether any of them would've seen combat like we had. Some topics we carefully steered around, some we openly ignored, but overall the downtime was good. It helped. We were relaxing back into being a cohesive team again, smoothing out the tension that lingered after the bridge into something - not perfect, but. Good.

It was good.

It was also well past midnight and, for the third night in a row, I missed being on night watches. I stared at the ceiling with my thoughts in a tangled mess that I didn't want to look at and tried to run through katas to make my head be quiet. It wasn't working.

"Bet you thought you set the bar pretty low," I murmured, thinking of canon-Sasuke and the way he'd screwed up his version of the timeline. I hadn't stuck my hand through Naruto's chest yet, but that was about all I had going for me. "You probably didn't expect me to get us kicked off the team. Almost kicked off the team. Stupid civilian, making you look like an idiot because she can't ninja properly. Put herself in front of an assassination jutsu and got taken hostage twice in one day, who does that."

I bit my lip and misjudged it, breaking the skin and tasting blood. It wasn't a huge amount but I was feeling restless, so I pushed myself out of bed and padded out to the bathroom to wash it clean. Then… I don't know, I just didn't want to go back. I needed to be outside. Clear my head. Maybe do some more training, see if running through the katas in real life instead of mentally would shut down my spinning thoughts.

Bull fell in step with me halfway to the clearing we'd been using. I brushed my shoulder against his in a silent hello and kept walking. It wasn't until we reached the break in the trees and I dropped into a ready stance that I realised how unprepared I was to train; I was barefoot, had no weapon pouch and no sleeves, and my pyjamas were baggy and loose. If I did a handstand my top would end up falling over my head and probably strangle me. I could take it off, but then my flat chest would be on display with no bandages to hide it behind, and right at that moment I didn't have the energy to convince myself I was a boy or deal with the fact that I was in the wrong body.

It was so stupid. Everything else that was happening, and I was still hung up on the fact that in my old life I was a girl. I'd had five years to get used to it. I should be over it by now. I was too pale, my hair was wrong, my features were all sharp angles and high cheekbones instead of the soft roundness I'd had before - hell, I didn't even have freckles anymore. That was fine. I was fine. I didn't care. Even the penis was useful sometimes. But apparently the chest was where I drew the line, despite the fact that I was twelve and wouldn't have much there anyway even if I was a girl, but it still mattered, because, because -

Fuck knows. Because I'm stupid. Because it's stupid. Because.

There was a rustle on the edge of the clearing, the sort of deliberate noise a ninja makes to let someone know they're there. I tensed, scrambling to my feet and positioning myself so Bull was at my back.

"Sorry," Haku said, stepping out from under the trees. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Haku?" I asked incredulously, dropping into a hesitant defensive position and regretting my lack of weapons even more. "What are you doing here?"

He lifted the basket he was carrying, showing the neatly bundled plants laid in it. "I was gathering some supplies," he said. "Zabuza-sama and I are leaving in the morning." I sensed someone behind me, but didn't want to risk taking my eyes off Haku. Bull didn't react, so I guessed they were one of the other dogs and ignored them.

"And what, you just came to say goodbye? We're not friends."

"No," he said wistfully. "Though I've met a lot of ninja, and they are rarely kind. Perhaps we would've been under different circumstances."

"Konoha doesn't make a habit of befriending missing nin," Kakashi said, surprising me with quite how close he was standing. Not a dog, then. Also, from the thinly veiled threat in his tone, not feeling very forgiving at the moment. Haku, to his credit, didn't seem phased by having a jounin warn him off.

"Of course," he said, dipping his head in a polite bow. "Your information was correct, Kakashi-san. Gato has no plans to pay us, and we have no plans to work for free. The bridge builder is not under threat from us."

Kakashi didn't respond. Haku smiled again, sad and somewhat rueful, and disappeared back into the trees with a last nod at me and a soundless leap.

"Kakashi-sensei?" I asked quietly when Kakashi stayed where he was. He looked down at me, then turned and started walking back to the house. I followed, Bull a comforting warmth at my side.

"Why were you out so late?"

I kept my head tilted down, watching his ankles rather than risk seeing his expression. "I couldn't sleep. I thought training would help." Thankfully, he didn't comment on my choice of training clothes. He didn't comment on anything else, in fact, until we were back at the house and he'd led us past it and down to a series of ponds that ringed the paved courtyard out the back.

"They aren't big on plants in Wave," he said. "Someone told me that the trees grew when it was much further inland, but as the sea got closer the salt poisoned the soil. Not much grows outside the forest."

I made a vague sound of acknowledgement and tried not to show how confused I was. Kakashi sat by one of the ponds and Bull stretched out next to him, flopping onto his side with a satisfied whuff. He cocked his head at me and lifted a paw invitingly until I sat down, stroking a cautious hand over his surprisingly soft fur.

"Still," Kakashi continued. "Water gardens can be just as beautiful. Maybe Tazuna will be able to repair his when the bridge is finished."

I squinted at the ponds. They were somewhat overgrown, but there was indeed a collection of smooth stones that looked deliberately placed, and some larger leaves floating on the water that might belong to lotus plants. It could, conceivably, be a garden. "I'm sure it's on his to do list," I offered uncertainly.

We lapsed back into silence. After a while I resettled myself so I was leaning more heavily against Bull to steal his warmth, shifting my hands to lazily scratch behind his ear. It wasn't quite the same as katas, but it was similar. Soothingly repetitive. Quiet.

"Do you know why I said I wouldn't allow you or Naruto to be promoted to chunin?"

I paused in my scratching, frowning at the unexpected question. "So we won't be disappointed when we aren't good enough?" I hazarded.

"You are, actually," Kakashi corrected. I frowned deeper, and he raised his eyebrow at me. "Maa, so doubtful. Your taijutsu is low to average chunin level. Your stealth is easily high chunin - I couldn't detect you after Haku sent you away at the bridge. I thought you'd gone. Your ninjutsu… I need to teach you more, but you use what you have well. It's not a question of skill."

As far as frank appraisals went, that was the most positive I'd ever had. I wasn't counting the academy - they'd had an annoying habit of treating me as the fabled last Uchiha, I was never sure I'd actually earned my rookie of the year status. But if Kakashi had laid all of that out, it meant that it wasn't the lesson he wanted me to learn. I put it aside and tried to think through what I knew of chunin and why he thought Sakura was ready and we weren't.

Besides the obvious of me fucking up and Naruto still recovering from years of misinformation and negligence.

"Sakura's a leader," I said slowly. "She's good at making plans." He hummed, turning back to the pond. "She's good at making plans for all of us," I amended. "She thinks about the team, not just her part of what she needs to do."

"She does," he agreed. "Chunin are often asked to lead teams, even ones they aren't familiar with. She might not be as strong as you or Naruto, but she knows how to use other people's strength to complete the mission."

"Yet," I said. "She's not as strong yet. She's going to get stronger though."

"And you aren't?" I didn't have an answer to that. I think if I were following canon I'd've unlocked my sharingan and be using it to hoard jutsus, but I wasn't following canon. I wasn't even sure I wanted to, any more. "People used to be promoted much earlier," Kakashi said, moving past it. "Sometimes as young as six if they could fight well. If they were on a team they usually operated under a more experienced team leader, but a lot of them ended up on solo missions."

I turned to face him, leaning forward in interest. The war - he was talking about the war. After the war as well; Itachi had been chunin at six, hadn't he?

"The thing about solo missions is you can't screw up. The mission doesn't allow it. If you make a mistake and fix it, then you haven't screwed up. If you can't fix it, you die. No one gets a second chance. And all these chunin, when they were integrated back into normal teams, they were all the ones who'd survived. Who'd never allowed themselves to fail. They were the fastest, the strongest, the luckiest; they went so long without backup they thought they had to be invincible. Maybe not consciously, but it's impossible to survive that much from that young without it leaving a mark."

He looked at me then, and I could barely breathe under the weight of his gaze.

"Invincible people take risks. Some of them were too confident because they'd always been lucky before and it made them careless, with their lives and with their teams. Some of them were too scared. They still believed they'd die if they failed, and if every risk goes bad in the same way then there's no downside to being reckless." He paused, tilting his head. "It's surprisingly freeing, to know you won't be around to see the consequences of your mistakes."

Then, without even acknowledging that, he continued. "Once they were integrated back into teams these chunin were running easier, safer missions than they'd ever done before - and they died on them, exactly as if they'd still been on solo missions. Except now, their teams died with them. They kept dying until the Hokage passed a law raising the graduation age, because people who learn too young that they have to be invincible have a hard time unlearning it. Do you understand?"

I nodded, then stilled my head and frowned. "I - yes. But I don't think I'm invincible, that's not…?" I knew I made mistakes. Wasn't that the problem?

"Isn't it?" Kakashi asked. I frowned harder in confusion and he elaborated. "Your entire clan died and you're still here. You died, and you're still here. That's how you described it, isn't it? You died but it didn't stick. Everyone else at the academy was going home to their parents, but you looked after yourself. You were the best in class, and now you're the best on the team. I told you that your skills were easily chunin and you didn't blink, because you know it's true. Why doesn't that count?"

Because he was comparing me to kids and I was an adult. Because when I said I died and it didn't stick, I meant that literally and not in the genjutsu sense he thought. Because Itachi killed the clan but he loved me too much to hurt me. Because all these things I'd supposedly achieved, they didn't matter because I hadn't achieved them honestly. Because however strong he thought I was, I wasn't strong enough, and that was the only reason I could conceivably say out loud so that's the one I said.

"Why do you have to be?" he countered.

"Because -" I stopped, frustrated. Because I was the one who knew what was going to happen, but I couldn't say that. Because when canon got fucked, I had to be the one to fix it because it was my fault when it changed and no one else would know anything was wrong. Because.

"Everyone has to be stronger, don't they?" I snapped. "It's how you survive."

"And yet Sakura's the one who's closest to being chunin."

"But -" I stopped again. Sakura wasn't as strong as me individually. Kakashi wanted me to realise that she used the strengths of people around her to make up for it. That I should use the strengths of people around me and stop relying on myself. It was the same fucking teamwork lesson he'd been hammering home since the bell test, and what he didn't get was that it didn't work.

Didn't it? No. It didn't. I had too many secrets. It wasn't safe. He was talking about taking too many risks, but the irony was that by keeping it to myself I was not risking it and that was the whole point.

Wasn't it? I couldn't tell them. No one would - who tells people things like that. You sit on them, and you stress, and then you get over it and save the world.

By yourself.

Because you couldn't trust your team to keep you safe.

His hand on my head startled me out of my thoughts and I looked up at him with wide eyes. "Maa," he said. "It's normal for genin not to pass the chunin exams on their first try. It's more for practice than anything else." He smiled at me, eye dipping into the familiar crescent U. "You'll pass later, Sasuke-kun."

It felt like a peace offering, and I put my growing doubts about my choices aside and offered him a tentative smirk. "You say that now," I said, "But there's still a month to go, right? Me and Naruto could surprise you."

"Is that so? He is Konoha's number one unpredictable knucklehead, I suppose. Saa, do you want to learn a jutsu? It makes just enough light to read by, but it's a pain to hold the jutsu and the book at the same time."

"Wha - Kakashi-sensei, I'm not lighting up your porn."

Bull gave a soft bork of agreement and I snuggled back into him in satisfaction as Kakashi visibly drooped. There was still something fragile there, but… I don't know, better? Yeah, better. Still complicated, I still fucked up, but it didn't feel like I was going to get dropped from the team if I breathed wrong. Maybe Kakashi never meant to drop me. I didn't know what he'd've done if Sakura hadn't chosen to keep me.

I had a sudden image of myself as a civilian, dressed in impractical, pretty clothes, tearing out the poisons in my garden and replacing them with an unashamedly bright array of flowers. Orange ones. Pink. Red roses, with tight spirals of petals around a dark centre.

"Would you really have taken my headband?" I asked before I could stop myself, the words spilling out into the quiet calm. I froze, then forced myself not to react.

"Ah, maybe," Kakashi said, eye-smiling back at me. "You never know, it might have made you tall."

I pulled a face, allowing myself to relax again. "Yeah, laugh it up," I grumbled. "Like your dream was any better." I tried to think what he'd said back at the introduction on the academy roof, then frowned when I remembered. "You didn't even have one," I accused. "At least tall is better than that."

"I didn't, did I?" he mused. "Well. If your dream is to be tall then I guess mine must be to be short."

"Sensei."

"Just you wait, Sasuke. One day I'll be shorter than all three of my cute little genin. It's my new life ambition."

"Sensei no."

"Maa, you wouldn't deny old sensei his dream, would you?"

"I wouldn't be the one denying it. People don't grow down."

"I could try," he said cheerfully, and I huffed, but this time when I leaned back against Bull and occupied my hands with providing belly rubs, my thoughts were steady.

I wasn't going to be like his too-young chunin. I had a team, we were going to get stronger together, and even if I kept the most dangerous of my secrets to myself I wasn't going to try and save the world on my own. I'd be better than that.

.

Gato's death was announced the next day. Wave celebrated. People cheered in the streets. Inari followed through on his threat to teach me about taxes and forced me to sit and listen while he recounted how reinvestment in infrastructure would ensure a fair distribution of wealth - or something along those lines; he still wasn't sure on some of the words.

What he was sure on was that the money Gato had extorted from Wave rightfully belonged to the people and not to the remaining few thugs hanging round his property. Tazuna apparently had plans to develop the road network once the bridge was finished, so that heavily laden carts and wagons could reach the various shops and businesses they needed to get to without needing to be unloaded first.

"And," he told me later, barely remembering to hang back a safe distance while I went through my katas, "And Grandpa said Gato had so much money that we could even put up a memorial in the town square, right, for my dad and for everyone who didn't give up and all the people Gato hurt so that they can see that we beat him and he'd teach me how to carve some of the names in the stone, how cool is that?"

"Very cool," I agreed absently, trying to use my chakra to work a shuriken free from the tree it was stuck in on the other side of the clearing. I'd put the wire aside for now, but I'd discovered - annoyingly - that if I added just a bit of water into the kawarimi tendrils I reached out with, it enhanced the solidity of the chakra enough that I could almost use it as an extra hand.

A clumsy, fingerless hand with the grip strength of a geriatric pheasant, but. You know. A hand.

"You're not listening."

I buried a grimace. It was good, I reminded myself, that Inari had come out of his shell. Still, though. I hadn't got any better with kids.

"You convinced the village to rise up against the thugs and take back everything Gato took from you," I dutifully recited. "Kakashi let you borrow the dogs and everything was amazing and when you grow up you're going to make sure no one ever attacks the village again."

Ninja situational awareness. It had many uses.

"Yeah but you weren't listening properly."

The shuriken came loose and drifted erratically back towards my hand. "I'm busy," I told him bluntly. "Go bother someone else, I have to train."

"You're always training though, and you're not even going to be here for long." He sounded almost back to his previous levels of pouty at that, and I spared a frustrated glance over at where he was sitting next to Bull. Naruto and Sakura were on the other side of the training field, running through a Pakkun-supervised taijutsu spar, and Kakashi was, presumably, out patrolling while Tazuna's crew put the finishing touches on the bridge.

"I have to train," I explained, trying to leave as little room for argument as possible. "I'm a ninja, I need to be able to protect people."

"Grandpa wouldn't make you be a ninja," he said sulkily. "You could stay and protect people by reducing unemploryment."

"Yeah, well." I shrugged, awkward but unmoving. "The world doesn't work like that. Are you going to let me practice or are you going to go home and keep whining out of earshot?"

He glowered at me but sunk stubbornly down until he was practically on the floor he was slouching that much. Behind him, Bull gave an amused whuff and resettled himself to be a comfier pillow.

"Good enough," I muttered, and turned back to my shurikens.

.

Of course, given that we were now on an extended training mission as per Kakashi's ground rules after the debacle at the bridge, it was entirely coincidence that we set off for home the day after the bridge itself was done. Sheer lucky happenstance. What mysterious ways the universe works in. Why Tazuna was trying to credit us by naming the bridge after us, I honestly couldn't say.

"The Great Ninja Battle Bridge!" he proclaimed cheerfully.

"Saa, that's bad luck, isn't it?" Kakashi said, awkwardly scratching his cheek through his mask. "You don't want to scare people away from it."

"Something this grand needs a name to live up to," Tazuna protested. "But if you don't like Battle Bridge… The Awesome Sharingan no Kakashi Bridge of Doom!"

You could literally see Kakashi shrivel up and die inside.

"Dog Bridge," Pakkun suggested.

"Konoha Bridge, believe it!"

"But it's not in Konoha. And it doesn't lead to Konoha. It's in Wave."

"The Seven Bridge?" Sakura suggested. "Seven is our team, and it's also a lucky number."

"The Lucky Seven Bridge," Tazuna repeated with a satisfied huff. "For the lucky Team Seven who saw it be built. Wave will never forget what you did! You'll be heroes here, for as long as the bridge stands!" He beamed at all of us, so infectiously positive that both Sakura and Naruto stood straighter and even Kakashi stopped trying to fade through the floor.

I resettled my bag on my shoulders and gave a noncommittal hn of acknowledgement. Tazuna's views of what made a hero clearly didn't match up with mine. Looking away from him though made my gaze land on Inari, whose eyes were shining as he tried not to cry.

I felt a brief stab of guilt. He'd never got the talk he needed from Naruto, had he? Though he'd been doing better recently, probably in reaction to Tazuna's incessessant cheer at the bridge's progress. I waved hesitantly as everyone said their goodbyes and watched him wave back with far too much enthusiasm, and hoped that Tazuna would be enough for him.

"Alright," Kakashi said once we were on the road. "It took us five days to get here, travelling with a civilian and sticking to known roads. How long does it take us to get back?"

"Three?" Naruto guessed. Sakura paused, working through her calculations, then nodded in confirmation.

"Maa, that's pretty slow," Kakashi said. "Maybe you need a better incentive… Shiba?"

The grey dog practically vibrated to attention. "Oh god," I said, as both Sakura and Naruto sprang forward into a sprint with wide eyes.

"Fetch," Kakashi finished gleefully, and I kawarimid with the furthest rock I could find and left the other two in the dust. Those who abandoned their team were less than trash but Shiba was vicious.