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Chapter Twenty-Nine

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Kato and I turned eleven in February. As always.

I know that birthdays are a perfectly normal occurrence, but really, celebrating yet another one felt like too much for me. Our family was safe and sound, and Shisui-sensei had promised to give us most of the day off. I didn't want anything more.

That was fine with him, Daddy said. We could pick a restaurant and reserve one of the private rooms. A quiet family dinner, he said, sounded perfect.

Or not, since he led us into an ambush.

"Surprise!" the people crowded into the room called with varying levels of enthusiasm. They smiled at us. Some of them laughed at Kato's and my startled expressions. After all, neither of us had noticed the genjutsu hiding eleven people from our senses. It had been masterful. It had been released with perfect timing, too.

I hadn't sensed the genjutsu, but I'd certainly noticed the backlash when it had been released. No wonder people were laughing—with the hit to my inner ear, I must have looked like I was about to pass out. Was Kato affected? I glanced at him and barely avoided Shisui's sharp glance. No, Kato was fine. As usual, I was being too sensitive over an issue that no one else had even noticed.

Don't let your hearing affect you, I snapped even as the heartbeats in the room registered to match what I was seeing.

Naruto, of course, took center stage—laughing loudly and simultaneously doing his level best to tell me every detail of his involvement in this get-together. Still, there were better things to occupy myself with than Naruto, who actually kept up company with me. For instance, I hadn't seen Asuma since I'd been a toddler. I'm sure there was a story behind that. Not that I'd ever hear it in person.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura were camped out at one side of the private room's large table. Shikamaru and Chōji were also seated, the former looking as if he regretted coming. Chōji, of course, was cracking down on some of his ever-present chips. Their sensei Asuma stood leaning against a wall. He was an observant fellow, and I didn't doubt that he'd moved there just to be kind. After all, the room didn't contain only ninjas.

My sealmaking friend, Isami was perched at the emptier end of the table, smiling uncomfortably at me. That was interesting. Isami didn't really know me as Kana very well. She'd traveled with us to Kiri, and I suppose there had been a few interactions in the years following, but none of it was powerful enough to bring her into a roomful of ninja. Hm.

Two of Kato's friends from his class in the Academy had come, too (they were good friends, heckling him about getting out of a major test instead of being bitter at his promotion). And finally, Shisui and Yakumo were standing by the door.

Most of the merry band were my friends, in some sense of the word. I glanced over the room again and let my eyes settle on my father, who was rubbing the back of his neck. He was also directing one of his "I see into your soul" looks at me. I shook my head. The backlash had passed, and so had my initial dismay. I didn't mind the party. Either that or Naruto's sometimes mindless background chatter was growing on me, just like I know it was starting to on Kakashi.

As we grow up, our lives are often full of perfect moments. It's only when we realize that we've already begun to lose them that we begin treating them with the tenderness they deserve.

This gathering—a calm before the storm—was it. There was no telling when (or if) Daddy's team would travel to Wave Country. Even if they didn't end up taking that mission, Konoha was still hosting a chūnin exam over the month of July. That was common knowledge. Kato had written a countdown on the calendar in our room just in case he forgot how many days he had free before our mother would arrive.

I thought of this scene as nostalgia, but Kato grabbed my wrist and yanked me down next to Isami. "Let's eat!" he said. "I'm starved."

Naruto thought this was a great suggestion and boy it was too bad this wasn't ramen but curry was probably okay—well, not his choice, but rice was good, right?—and maybe he could ask the waiter for some ramen wait what do you mean they only sell rice curry how barbaric was that? They must not have—

"Shut up, dobe," Sasuke hissed. "You're being too loud. She doesn't care anyway."

I rolled my eyes at this and focused on Isami. She, I knew, only had a few minutes before her next shift. I asked her how she was doing and heard all about her wedding plans again and that it was strange, after working with Naruto she was more comfortable around the ninja race. Who knew she'd have more ninja friends than her fiancé, Suzume, and me?

She gave me a little box with a few seals, some of which she'd made herself, and I thanked her. I'd probably give some of them back to her later to save time. If I ever needed seals on a mission, I could just write some. I'd had plenty of practice.

Isami wasn't the only one who'd brought a gift. Everyone had brought something, even if Yakumo's gift was more of a backhanded insult. Naruto gave me cup ramen with an instant cooking seal, Sakura had a small book on the nervous system (spot on, Sakura), Shika gave me a random pebble "for my goldfish," Chōji gave me a recipe I'd once asked him for. . . .

Asuma and Shisui left after Isami did, and Yakumo pleaded a headache just a minute after that. Kato's Academy friends had likewise gone home for the evening. The rest of us ordered our food and resigned ourselves to Daddy's occasional interpolative comments. When the meal was over, Daddy actually paid for everyone's meals. Either he'd agreed to an impressively one-sided deal or his team had some serious blackmail. Final well-wishes and goodbyes were exchanged, and then my family headed home.

The only glitch was that Sasuke slipped a scroll to me under the table at one point and Daddy noticed. So much for the Uchiha poker face. Daddy teased me about the exchange the whole way home, enough that when we walked in the door I pulled the brown paper off of the scroll and threw the wrapping right at his face. He laughed about that as I pulled the string away from not a scroll, but a roll of rice paper.

"I never miss at point-blank," I muttered.

"You never miss the obvious?"

"I thought we didn't play word games on birthdays."

I unrolled the paper, and like I'd predicted but not expected, it was calligraphy. Huh, you'd think more people would give me things like this.

I've dealt so much in writing that it was the script I noticed first, not the word itself. Since handwriting is such a personal form of expression, every handwritten word in every language carries with it a sense of individuality. Whoever had coaxed this word onto the paper had left signs of his or her identity behind. It wasn't a hand I recognized, and it was too well-crafted to be Sasuke's.

But all of those thoughts flashed through my head for barely a few seconds before I read the kanji. "Peace."

"That's interesting," Daddy commented.

Kato, who'd been thumbing through the book Sakura had given us, glanced over. "Wouldn't 'listen' be a better choice?"

Daddy smiled. "Oh, I don't know, peace isn't such a bad thing. It's the best time to raise a family." When I didn't respond, he graced me with his troll smile. "What a nice sentiment. Don't you think so, Kato?"

"Um." Kato observed the challenge in my eyes and backed down. "I choose life, thanks."

I wrapped the rice paper back around itself as gently as I could. "Would you mind if I hang it in our room, Kato?"

"No, go ahead. . . ."

"How sweet," Daddy teased. He chuckled.

That did it.

I marched right up to his smug, masked face, every inch of my four foot eight frame poised in a way only Shisui's training could make possible. I glared up at my oh-so-mature father. "I challenge you to a duel," I said, regrettably aware that this was like a kitten attacking a large dog.

"Hm, I think I have some time free tomorrow morning before I meet with my team. Actually, make that afternoon. I'll have to eat a big breakfast."

"Perfect—you just ate." I grabbed his sleeve and pulled his unresisting body towards the front door. "Kato, you coming?"

"We're just going to lose," he said dryly, but he followed me like the game little brother he was. Of course we were going to lose—winning wasn't the point. Well, maybe if we could get Daddy to replicate the bell test Naruto had told us about.

Hatake family spars operated above such silly notions as winning. Only a kill strike could win a spar. Needless to say, Kato and I had an impressive losing streak. And of course, since Daddy was willing to handicap himself for the sake of training but not willing to dumb down a mock fight for his kids, we had no hope of winning.

Kato and I exchanged glances before we took to the rooftops. We nodded. This wasn't so much a promise to try to beat the odds as a formal agreement that the techniques we were just now learning weren't going to make an appearance. We would save them for later. Next year, perhaps. No point letting Daddy catch on just yet.

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Team Kakashi left Konoha once.

They returned a few days later from their extended fruit-harvesting mission. Daddy was teaching them to tree-walk.

I had not, of course, expected them to disappear without warning. I made the mistake of mentioning this thought to my father. He was kind enough to fill me in on the basics of confidentiality and the somewhat more subjective teacher-student clause. It simply wasn't professional to tell another jōnin about your own jōnin-sensei's methods. Which meant I needed to grow up and stop complaining about Shisui.

I wasn't old enough to be professional, I protested.

I was a genin, Daddy said, and that was that.

While I mourned the end of my second childhood, Shisui decided that it was high time to drive his team to the ground. He called it training. The rest of us called it any number of descriptions.

Yakumo and I were assigned genjutsu after genjutsu. While a few of them were designed for offense, most of them seemed simple and obsolete—baby steps, we described them to each other. It was Yakumo's opinion that learning genjutsu from the ground up was stupid and unnecessary. Shisui, of course, presented us with one of the few non-dangerous-to-learn B-ranked techniques and challenged us to use it successfully. Yakumo barely managed it after a few days of constant work. I didn't even try until the day she pulled it off, since I'd embraced the idea of perfecting the basics of the genjutsu arts. I decided not to tell her that.

I'd taught myself how to henge from the ground up. Having a tutor in genjutsu, frustrating as he was, was a dream come true. I still wanted to figure everything out for myself and establish as much groundwork as possible.

But since Yakumo hated busywork, I bonded with her through complaints. It was thankless work. Just not as useless as she thought.

Then there was the truly useless part of my training.

Shisui was an Uchiha, and as an Uchiha, my failure with thrown weapons was Not Acceptable. I reminded him that it wasn't really acceptable in the Hatake family, either, and that we'd progressed to treating it as a joke. It seemed the Uchiha clan wasn't one for jokes. . . .

There was one upside to that matter, though. After a few weeks, Shisui was just as frustrated as I had been once upon a time.

Our team didn't go on many missions. At first, this struck me as odd, but unfortunately, it wasn't hard to guess why. Our team wasn't strong enough.

One month into our team's formation, Yakumo could barely jog a mile.

Kato and I, in comparison, went jogging with Gai about once a month (I called it our therapy run. Gai's a great listener).

After another month, Yakumo could run that mile with the help of chakra. Jogging, she was close to managing two.

Kato and I did suicides that were half a mile long. We were eons beyond Yakumo. Kato mentioned that one day, when Yakumo was in bed with a fever. Wrong thing to say.

Daddy's team left on a C-rank escort mission while my team was out training one day. I walked into the house to find one of the younger dogs curled up on Kato's bed. It wasn't uncommon for the dogs to be used as messengers, so I woke it up without feeling suspicious.

Kato and I were on our own for a few days, the dog told me. Team Seven had received an escort mission to Wave Country. They'd be there and back in a certain number of days (I don't know why that was in the message, since trip lengths were standard Academy fare), barring complications.

Complications? How about Naruto losing his grip on the Nine Tails, Sasuke dying, Sasuke activating his Sharingan, my father nearly dying, an S-ranked missing-nin who dies for real, and a teenager my father doesn't want to kill but ends up killing anyway? No big deal. We're just lambs to the slaughter, be back soon. Not.

Suddenly, I didn't want to stay in the house any longer.

"I'll be back after supper," I told the dog. "Remind Kato that it's his turn to get groceries this week. My friend Shikamaru is coming for supper tomorrow. Oh, and—" The dog was already asleep again. I sighed.

Daddy and his team were well on their way to Wave, where all of them would come close to death.

I suppose that Daddy had been on dangerous missions for my entire life, and there was no guarantee that he wouldn't have died before now. I existed; Shisui had lived. This mission might turn out better than the one I remembered. I'd stocked their team with seals, and Daddy always carried chakra-replenishing pills. Maybe I could relax about what I remembered.

Yeah, right. Maybe I'd go find somewhere to stress eat, instead.

Training today had been exhausting enough that I didn't want to do anything involving chakra.

I had a large enough bucket list to tide me over for a while, I supposed. There were always a few thousand seals to whip up with chakra speed, and while Isami produced most of the experimental seals these days, most of her sealwork had to do with her wedding. Or I could troubleshoot my latest henge ideas, or go to the library to hunt books about scar tissue, or write the official jutsu description of my henge like Shisui kept telling me to do, or practice weapons, or befriend a civilian, or weed my herb garden, or . . . none of these sounded inviting.

I couldn't talk to Daddy. I couldn't talk to the Hokage, since our lessons had ended with my promotion. Kato didn't know enough about the world and didn't need to worry, Yakumo was too bitter to talk to me, and Shisui always twisted conversations his own way. I'd see Shika tomorrow. I couldn't talk to Pakkun because I wasn't on the contract.

I wandered Konoha and played the people-watching game that I've seen countless elite ninjas do. No Academy-age students slapped on a henge to come cheer me up. Even if one had, I probably would have passively ignored her.

I was in such a slump that I didn't even bother diagnosing my own behavior (as an aforementioned Academy student, fixing people did matter to me) and I couldn't bring myself to do more than watch the ice cream I'd bought melt. Pretty pathetic.

I left the puddle of sugary milk and resumed my new hobby of roaming Konoha's streets.

Interestingly enough, my feet led me towards the training ground Gai's team usually inhabited. It wasn't, I thought when I finally noticed where I was headed, such a bad idea. Gai really was a serious, well-spoken kind of man. If he had a minute, I knew he'd leave his team to come have a deep-voiced, serious-faced conversation with me. Uncle Gai always changed his mood to fit the occasion, after all.

But by the time my thoughts caught up with the actual input my ears were receiving, I was standing in the clearing. The only problem was that Gai was not. Or maybe that wasn't the only problem, because there was a genin in the clearing, and I'd just intruded.

Gai's team was an odd group—I think that much was obvious to anyone. Besides Gai (and that in itself is a very telling statement), there was sincere little Lee and the weaponry queen that is Tenten. It was a team designed to exude sheer camaraderie and fighting spirit. Designed? Oh, yes. The Hokage's biannual "matching game" was very deliberate. He'd put Gai, Lee, and Tenten—a girl who thought crushes were stupid—with the unreachable Neji, after all.

Hee hee and which eavesdropping young lady had helped problem solve for that particular team? Heh, heh.

Your-destiny-is-my-decision Neji stopped his whirlwind of punches to stare me down.

Bring it, I cackled. I helped pick your team—only this reminded me that my own father's team had just left for their fated mission. Resurfacing humor: good. Rubbing shoulders with grouchface: bad.

Neji's outfit was covered in dust, but his hands were clean. I don't know why that struck me. He looked somewhat worn out, which wasn't surprising either. No doubt Gai had already run the team ragged before dismissing them for some healthy rest.

Neji's health didn't exactly concern me at the moment. I was too busy wondering if I wanted to hunt down Gai.

But in the interest of acknowledging the Hyūga boy's stare, I met his eyes coolly and tipped my head to the side a bit. "Isn't that considered rude?" I asked. "I mean, we're obviously not sparring."

Neji's Byakūgan, which had very understandably been activated while he'd punched his training dummy, still didn't deactivate. Well. Pointing those things at me was a faux pas, and I didn't like him for it.

I raised an eyebrow. "It's not going to scare me away, either. I've seen veins before." He didn't really look angry or intimidating with it activated, anyway, so that was pointless. The bulging veins on his temples didn't scare me.

Side note about veins: do enough henges of older people and the Byakūgan will look tame.

When Neji didn't deactivate his Byakūgan, I took the opportunity to walk closer. He shouldn't have kept it on. His clan had rules about etiquette. On the other hand, though, here was an opportunity to observe one of the village's most distinctive kekkei genkai. Maybe I wasn't in the greatest of moods right now, but this was something I'd definitely use later.

The teenager's white eyes narrowed. "Why are you here?"

"I was looking for Uncle Gai."

Neji scoffed. "Any fool could see he's not here."

I did not take the bait.

"Why are you here?" Neji repeated. "You knew he wasn't here."

"Just because I can hear doesn't mean I'm always paying attention," I retorted. Dumb Neji. No one else at the Academy had ever confronted me about my hearing. Probably because no one else had used the Byakūgan to spy on my reactions to various noises. Why had he even cared?

"You need to pursue your destiny," Neji told me forcefully.

I huffed before he could continue. "If your Byakūgan was activated all of the time, you wouldn't keep an eye out all the time, either. I can't just devote myself to one sense."

"Then you're senseless," he muttered.

I stared at him. "Neji-san . . . did you just make a joke? I didn't realize you were capable of anything besides training." I couldn't help but grin.

"If you're going to be useless, I'm going to go train," he scowled.

I laughed. "Do you mind if I sit here and watch?"

When I heard Daddy and his team on the road to Konoha, it was like the space between us didn't even exist.

The gate guards did, of course. I ran straight to them and reminded them that authorization or not, I'd been bugging them for days and they'd better let me head out to hug my very powerful father. Fortunately, they let me go. A good thing. I don't think henging into and mimicking the chakra of the Hokage would have won me any brownie points.

I ran down the road like a genin possessed towards one of my favorite sounds in the world. Waiting by the gate had been worth it, and I'd been so selfishly worried, and from what I remembered he should be limping or something—

Oh, there he was.

Being supported by a man with a giant sword on his back.

A man who I knew was named Zabuza.

You know, the missing-nin who nearly destroys Team Seven during their first C-rank mission.

Not exactly what I'd expected.

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"Maa, what's there to tell? I already wrote it all out in the mission report."

"Daddy, I've been by your side since you got back. You passed out. And you didn't write in your sleep, because I've been right here watching you."

"I'm tired," he tried.

"Then I'll go ask Sakura-san," I said. "She'll probably give me a better version, anyway."

"Better, or more subjective?"

I smiled. "I'll hear it from someone, so I may as well hear it from you."

.

The day Kakashi's team was due to arrive at their destination, he told his team to disguise themselves with henges. After all, they wouldn't want to upset any of the locals unnecessarily. Kakashi's genin accepted the order with about as much grace as they ever did. The man they were escorting—Tazuna—chose not to comment. For a talkative man, Tazuna had been remarkably quiet over the last few days.

Which wasn't suspicious at all.

After all, Tazuna had hired Kakashi's team for a simple, safe escort mission.

As the day wore on, Kakashi's gut feeling (and the justification for his so-called tyrannical training, but really, like he'd let his genin to get bored) became stronger and stronger, and by the time he found traces of a dangerous adversary, he was happy that he'd disguised himself and his team. Having a daughter who'd figured out a physical henge was pretty handy, as it happened. Even if he used the technique sparingly to keep it obscure.

Kakashi ordered his team and their employer to the ground the instant he sensed shuriken, and the mist followed a split second after that.

Blinding mist. Silent mist.

Three genin sucked in startled breaths. Kakashi wasn't as shaken. He was too busy preparing for another attack.

The Hiding in Mist technique . . . it was too bad their opponent hadn't taken the time to introduce himself. Kakashi had to actively sort through his database of Mist missing-nin while he did his best to protect his team. And their employer, but let's face it: any attachment to a man who had hidden the truth until this point was purely professional.

The ninja who'd formed the mist went straight for Tazuna. Interesting.

Kakashi engaged and knocked the other ninja away. The only way to see through the mist was with the Sharingan—something he knew from experience—and the Sharingan gave him the chance to see his opponent. More interesting.

Once the identification business was out of the way, Kakashi dropped his henge. After all, Momochi Zabuza was one of the Mizukage's more important subordinates, and Kakashi himself wasn't exactly unknown.

The only problem was that Zabuza was both hard-headed and, hm, how had Mei described him that one time? Ah, yes, a bit of a cynic. As Kakashi had suspected, the Mist ninja had rightly identified Kakashi and company as a genin team. Zabuza had seen through the children's henges and seen Konoha's symbol. But Kakashi's appearance, Zabuza said, was stretching things a bit too far.

Hatake Kakashi wouldn't take on a genin team, and certainly he'd be able to break out of a water prison with the Sharingan.

Kakashi begged to differ. The water prison jutsu wasn't a joke. Not to mention the slight problem that the Chidori wouldn't exactly form underwater.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura backed up Kakashi, especially when it became clear that Zabuza thought they were all high-level missing-nin.

Pffft.

Sakura saved Tazuna with a few fake explosive tags, Sasuke guarded his teammates' backs, and Naruto somehow disguised himself as a shuriken and slipped past Zabuza's guard.

After that, Zabuza whipped up a taxing water jutsu, and Kakashi copied it to prove that he really did have the Sharingan. And this, of course, was slightly problematic, as it meant that both the Mist and Leaf villages had been hired to support conflicting interests. It wasn't a great situation.

Both sides decided to reunite to share information to send to the respective villages, and both sides quickly split to gather said information.

Kakashi's genin were annoyed at the delay.

Their employer, on the other hand, was overjoyed at the news. Political naïvety was evidently not among his many flaws, as he, at least, knew of the many delays of bureaucratic red tape.

Kakashi settled in for a long, annoying mission.

.

The waiting period was, according to Naruto, the time Kakashi-sensei finally showed his true colors. I guess that explains why Daddy glossed over it in his own account.

Kakashi, who was the most decidedly evil sensei ever, was half-dead of chakra exhaustion and refused to get out of bed. Sakura stayed inside to help him since she seemed to like that kind of thing, but Naruto and Sasuke's pride was lacking after the fight and they went to the woods to train.

The details of their fights are hardly important.

I did not need to hear a play-by-play recap, Naruto. Ugh.

At some point, Naruto ran into his new friend Haku, who gave him advice on which herbs would be best for Kakashi, and let's just say it was a good thing Haku shared some of the herbs he himself had gathered. Because all Naruto gathered was a promise that Haku would come visit him later.

Kakashi and Zabuza met in private to decide what to tell the villages, but Naruto was iffy on the details. He was more interested in Haku's visits and the backhanded compliments Zabuza paid Team Seven. Zabuza even handed out tips on how to evade the whole dying in a Hidden Mist jutsu problem. Zabuza was actually a remarkable teacher (he just called it being manipulative).

Naruto kind of liked Zabuza. Maybe. He still liked Kakashi-sensei more, though. Maybe.

.

Sakura quite liked Haku, at least once she figured out he wasn't a girl. This was important criteria. I couldn't really fault her for that opinion. The girls in her class had been unusually interested in boys, to the point where other topics were actually rare. So Sakura had been shocked to find a kindred spirit in Haku, who wasn't Naruto and wasn't Sasuke.

Haku was just as impressively well-versed in hand seals as Sakura was. Haku was quiet and kind. Haku was interested in the genjutsu arts and repaid Sakura's explanations by helping her with senbon. Haku was very, very good with senbon, which turned out to be a very, very good thing.

Team Seven waited for either a messenger hawk or a nin-dog to return with instructions from Konoha. Sakura suspected that the two jōnin's recommendations would be to let the people of the country build the bridge, but Sasuke pointed out that Gatō had a lot of money, whereas the locals were pretty poor. Well, yes, that was the point of building a bridge . . . not that Sakura would contradict her crush.

Zabuza and Haku decided to camp near the Leaf ninja after a few days. This was enough stimulation to guilt trip Kakashi into starting to train his students again. The whole thing sounded idyllic. Both groups were waiting for a respective rabbit or dog, the bridge was guarded by both groups (political immunity was really working out for the bridge builders), and friendships were forming between Konoha and Kiri.

It was a wonderful time.

Until the Akatsuki attacked.

Sakura's memories of that were a bit disjointed. Understandable enough. She had been carried the entire way back to Konoha.

.

It was when Hoshigaki Kisame struck that Kakashi realized just how amiable Zabuza was by comparison. Zabuza's warning strike hadn't been intended to incapacitate. Kisame, however, didn't follow those rules. His sword (Samehada, Zabuza called it) came within an inch of Sasuke's spine.

Thank the heavens Sasuke had been the one on guard duty, Kakashi thought.

Shut up and keep talking, I thought as he paused his narrative.

Kakashi bailed Sasuke out and began playing the my-jutsu-is-better-than-your-jutsu game, but the new contender wasn't having it. He seemed to know of the abilities of the Sharingan. Not to mention that his sword ate chakra like dango.

Zabuza arrived then.

Kisame finally stopped fighting to make the necessary small talk that is obligatory between missing-nin and their loyal counterparts. It didn't go very well. Zabuza kind of had a small grudge against the other man for betraying Kiri and taking Samehada with him. Kisame offered Zabuza a job. Zabuza took offense. Both of them reverted to swordplay. They also started listing the strengths and weaknesses of their swords.

A while in to the salutation fight, Kisame explained that he'd been hired by Gatō, and unfortunately, he'd have to kill everyone involved in the whole bridge situation. The bloodthirsty grin didn't convince anyone of his sorrow.

This was bad. Kakashi was already low on chakra thanks to Kisame's chakra-eating sword, and Zabuza seemed to be on equal ground with the missing-nin. All Kisame would have to do to tip the scales would be steal some more chakra. And once Zabuza was down, what then?

The boy Haku had proven his ability, but he would be no match for an S-ranked missing-nin. As for Kakashi's own genin. . . .

Kisame broke through Zabuza's defense and landed a solid hit. Zabuza jumped away. Kakashi leapt forward and prepared to tag-team against a missing-nin who'd already absorbed way too much chakra.

"Now hang on a minute," Daddy said. "Don't look at me like that. I was far from helpless. I could have taken him solo. I wasn't lying prone on the sidelines—I was getting the townspeople to safety."

Right, but anyway, Kakashi dragged himself out of his weakened stupor and barely avoided Haku's offensive jutsu. Oh, no wait.

Zabuza's teenaged minion's offensive jutsu, and really, Kakashi had only jumped forward to distract Kisame. Sure.

Haku trapped Kisame in a dome of ice mirrors. Evidently this was a huge thing.

Kisame didn't appreciate being trapped, so he started to merge with his sword. Which meant bad things about chakra reserves. And death. Copious amounts of it.

Zabuza saw the, ah, merger and told Sasuke and the newly-arrived Sakura to run. They didn't. When the Kiri jōnin started listing the effects of fusing with Samehada, I don't think anyone saw a point in running.

But there's always an exception to the rule.

And Naruto, who'd stayed in the village to help rebuild someone's house, came tearing down the bridge and ran straight into Haku's dome.

Kakashi stared.

Sakura screamed.

Sasuke followed the idiotic boy to certain death.

This was by far the part of the story I most wanted to hear, but not even Sakura was willing to share the details with me. Had Naruto gone into Tailed Beast Mode? Had Sasuke activated his Sharingan? How come Sasuke had been battered, but Sakura was the one to end up in the hospital? What had Daddy done to collapse of chakra exhaustion again? No, wait, I knew that one. Some people just have a hero complex.

The classified part of the fight ran its course, and not long after that, someone new entered the scene.

"Oh, dear, it looks like it's come to a standstill."

The various conscious people looked up to find Gatō and a large army of men. "I thought I'd come watch," he explained. "After all, this is going to be very profitable for me."

At first, Gatō had been furious that his investment in one of the ninja villages had been lost. He wasn't a fool. He knew that the conflict of interest would give the bridge time to be built, and that a loyal ninja from Kiri wouldn't kill a team from Konoha. So he searched the black market for someone powerful, and he found the Akatsuki. They were cheap—not that that mattered. Anyone who didn't get finished off in this fight would be finished off by Gatō's men. "Tragic, really. It's too bad peace can be so fragile. Besides, at the worst I won't have to pay Kiri for an uncompleted mission. And at the best, well, there's nothing as profitable as a war. But don't let me stop you."

Kisame, who I'm willing to bet had some vested interest in killing my father's team by this point, snarled. "Don't worry," he said, or something to that end. No one really paid attention to him, because . . . oh, come on, Daddy. Really. These pauses are no fun at all.

"And then what?" I prodded him.

He smiled lazily.

"And then your boyfriend showed up."

Wait, what?

Wait.

Right, so as Daddy's story went, Uchiha Itachi suddenly ran up out of nowhere and slit Gatō's throat. "Fool," Itachi told the corpse. He wiped his kunai on his cloak and turned to face Kisame.

I was a bit less monosyllabic. "Dad, he is not—"

Daddy smiled carelessly. "Isn't he? He said to say hi to you, at which point Sasuke attacked—"

"Aren't you getting ahead of yourself?" I cut in dryly.

Gatō's men decided to kill anyone who opposed them and then loot the town. Kisame opposed this quite viciously. Itachi stepped forward and didn't say something to the effect of "Little Brother, how are you going to kill me if you don't step up your game?"

Itachi actually said something about me to Sasuke (Naruto later confirmed this) and Sasuke made it about three feet before collapsing unconscious. Itachi then informed Kisame that they had somewhere else to be (yeah, like opening Gatō's safe) and the two of them left.

"That's lucky," I said.

But Daddy's thoughts were elsewhere. He squinted at me. "Did I call Itachi your boyfriend? Sasuke-kun put up quite a fight for you."

My eyes narrowed. "Get a hobby, Dad; that's not funny."

He snickered. "Oh? Says who?"

"Not. Funny."

.

.

~This was a long chapter to tackle without a beta. It's not quite up to par (pacing issues), and I've been working on it for almost two months now. Gross. I guess this means I'm kind of in the market for a beta again, if someone's interested. I'd like someone who thinks this chapter could be improved upon, please! :D Bleh. This was not the chapter I wanted to tackle by myself. :/

So, how about that always-included first important mission to Wave? Or the point-of-view-switcharoo as I've been calling it. Surprise! I hope it wasn't too painful to read.

Many thanks to all of my reviewers, and here are my replies to the anonymous readers: Gogglegirl (Why, thank you!), Guest (Woot!), Guest (I'm not planning on it, but it might come up at some point. I don't think anyone's really asked that, so I haven't thought about it very much. What do you think should happen?), Guest (Okay, so that's the literal meaning. Pretty funny. (: Do you guys use the word at all, then? Glad you're amused. Good old trolls), and Guest (Aw, maybe more people will start writing this genre. Thanks for what you said!)

Once again, my thanks to all of you readers and reviewers. We've almost reached 700 reviews, and that's pretty cool. Nearly 700 comments I've replied to. :D Don't worry, no matter how many reviews there are, I still plan to respond to all of them. You're all my buddies! (:

~Posted 7-28-17. This chapter's bonus content might be a prior confrontation with Neji. I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks for sticking around, guys! See you later.