AN: again, crack but it's safe for your health.

I think.

Tazuna's home was a small but comfortable house where his daughter and grandson were living with him. The family of three was situated near the biggest village in Wave. The shinobis had to go through it to reach the house. Once again, all could see the cruelty of Gato and his goons, who were constantly harassing the villagers.

"You work for charming people," said Naruto to Zabuza, who shrugged.

"A man has to eat, boy. I've been raised as a killer, that's the one thing I know how to do. So that's what I do."

The blond turned to face the missing-nin from Kiri. "Have you envisioned a professional reconversion?"

"I don't think I have any skill that would translate in any other line of work."

Naruto sighed. "Fair enough." The boy slowed his walk slightly to put himself at the same level as Zabuza. "If you don't mind me asking, what did you need the money for?"

For the first time since their meeting, something that wasn't anger or disdain painted itself on the missing-nin' brow and the tall man frowned. After a few long seconds of consideration, Zabuza started to answer in a perfectly neutral tone of voice.

"Kiri is plunged in a civil war. The islands of the Land of Water have always been populated by countless bloodlines, which held power. After the Third War, those clans were weak and many thought it was the perfect occasion to ensure it would stay that way. So Kirigakure started to welcome all bloodline holders, ninja or not. It was a boon for the village, which had been greatly weakened by the war: all those new potential recruits, all gifted with incredible capacities."

"That didn't turn as planned."

Zabuza shook his head. "No. Once trained, all those dear bloodline holders decided it would be nice to take revenge against all those who had attacked them when they were vulnerable. It started to create tension inside Kiri, a division between those who supported the bloodlines in their revenge and those who opposed them." The missing-nin sighed minutely.

"What happened then?" asked Sakura in a soft whisper.

"The new Mizukage enforced a cease-fire. For a time, it went alright, until he flipped his lid. He ordered the slaughter of all bloodline holders within Kiri and the Land of Water. Many among the troops refused and the war began anew. That's when I slashed my headband." Zabuza explained with a shrug of his shoulders.

"An irrepressible need for freedom or you actually have a soft heart behind all this grim and dark appearance?"

"I will find a way to murder you, boy, if you don't shut the fuck up."

"I see, I see, denial… Typical tsundere," whispered Naruto while shaking his head.

Before the missing-nin could lunge at the Uzumaki, Tazuna interrupted them. "We're home," announced the architect.

In front of them was a two-storey house that Naruto could only describe as homey, with various decoration on its front walls - a fishing net, seashells, a few flowers. The old man knocked and the door was opened by a young, brown-haired woman who was maybe in her thirty. The worried frown she was sporting immediately melted as soon as she saw her father.

"Oh dad! Thanks to the Kamis you're back safe!" She hugged Tazuna without hesitation, despite the fact the old man reeked of cheap alcohol. After a second, the woman separated from her father and eyed the six shinobis who had held a respectful distance. A bit of worry immediately appeared again on her face. "W-who are these people?"

"Don't worry," answered Tazuna. "They are the shinobi who are escorting me."

Zabuza snorted, Naruto coughed, Sakura cleared her throat, Sasuke grimaced. Kakashi was too occupied with his book to react and Haku was too polite to.

"They will stay here for a couple of days until the bridge is finished."

"Yeah, about that," interjected Kakashi. "I think we will need to discuss a bit about what exactly we are going to do."

Tazuna nodded. "Of course, of course. Please, make yourself at home."

Night had fallen upon the little house. Seeing as it was still the home of only three people, the shinobi were all camping outside.

Team seven, plus Zabuza and Haku, were gathered around a fire and eating a few grilled fishes with some rice.

"You know," began Zabuza, "you're awfully trusting to bring me so close to my target. I could kill him before any of you could stop me."

"Nah," drawled Naruto with a shake of his head, which caused a vein to pulse on the missing-nin's forehead. "You shook on it and you don't want to die so I doubt that. Plus, you're actually not good enough."

Someone noisily breathed a mouthful of air through their teeth. "Ouch. Burned," whispered Kakashi.

"You want to bet on it, boy?" Zabuza asked, his nostrils flaring and his brow twisted in a furrow, the vein on his temple bulging from anger.

"Yeah sure," answered the Uzumaki with a shrug. "I give you the entire night, go at it for real. If the old man is still alive tomorrow when he wakes up, that's your loss. Me versus you, my team doesn't help neither does your companion."

"You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"Honestly you don't know shit about me either so that's fine. What do you propose for the price?"

Zabuza glared at the genin. "If I kill the target, you don't pursue us before five full days after I got the money from that fat fuck Gato."

"Alright, if I win, you go eliminate Gato yourself. That'll be less work and we'll go back to Konoha sooner." Naruto stated. "Also, Haku needs to admit she is a girl." The blond added after a second of thought.

"What? Never!" Haku immediately protested. "I. Am. A. Boy!"

Zabuza eyed his companion for a few seconds before turning back to face Naruto. "Alright, deal."

Naruto and the missing-nin shook hands as Haku was producing a strangled outcry of indignation.

"When is the go?"

Naruto shrugged. "It has already started."

In a flash, the missing-nin flickered away from the campfire and somersaulted to the branch of a tree where he immediately started weaving through hand signs. Almost instantaneously, a thick fog came to darken the falling night. Soon, the shinobi could see no further than the length of their nose.

"Fuck!" Kakashi exclaimed, "I can't read my book!"

"Hum, sensei?"

"Yes, Sakura?"

"Does… Does Naruto truly-"

"Yeah, don't worry Sakura. Naruto is very good at stealth. Very good."

"I wouldn't underestimate my master's kirigakure no jutsu. Zabuza-sama has mastered the silent killing technique to an extent never seen before."

Suddenly, there was a smacking sound, the meaty echo of flesh meeting flesh. A thud followed soon after and then, they could hear someone struggling with something and whispering, so low they could not even recognize the voice.

Bit by bit, however, the fog started to dissipate and soon, the scene was revealed for all to see.

Knocked out and tied up, Zabuza was being used as a seat for Naruto, who was still eating some leftover fish. The sight made Haku gasp, Sakura cheer and Sasuke sigh.

"You know," said the last Uchiha. "I almost wanted to see you fail. That would have meant there was something you aren't quite good at. Or at least not better than an A-rank shinobi. How are you so good?"

Naruto smiled. "I was taught by a very efficient teacher. Kakashi is excellent, after all."

Sasuke sputtered. "Y-you were taught by sensei? Why hasn't he taught us the same?!" The Uchiha protested.

"Mah, mah, Sasuke. I taught stealth to Naruto before we were even a team. And I didn't teach you because you weren't interested. All you are asking me to teach you are new jutsus this, new jutsus that."

Sasuke became red and apparently wanted to scream something but it stayed strangled in his throat. With a sigh, the Uchiha eventually shook his head. "Urgh." He said with all the dignity he was capable of.

Naruto stepped lightly over to the dark-haired boy and started poking him on his cheek. "Who's gonna ask Kakashi-sensei for stealth lessons, huh, who's gonna ask, huh?"

"Naruto, don't embarrass Sasuke needlessly. Sasuke, you need to realize a ninja's strength is not all jutsu. I know what you plan to do and jutsus alone will not bring you victory. Misdirection, planning, stealth, trap, and whatnot: you'll need all that to defeat your target."

With a whirl of his head, Sasuke tried - in vain - to bite Naruto's finger off before he sighed again. "I guess I was being an idiot, huh?"

"Focus is good but too much and it becomes tunnel vision, which is bad."

The Uchiha nodded. "I want to become as good as Naruto." He declared.

The blond smirked. "Oh really?"

Sasuke glared at the Uzumaki. "You don't think I'm capable of that?"

"Oh, nonono, no, I totally believe in you Sasuke. You don't seem to realize it yourself but you're talented. No, I just can't wait to see you go through what I went through."

"Bring it on, I'm not afraid."

Naruto smirk turned into an evil grin. "Alright then. First step."

Sasuke's glare hardened. "I'm ready."

"Get nacked."

"Oy!"

"Alright, now that Zabuza is gone to deal with Gato and that Sasuke is trying to escape our notice - Sakura stop drooling all over and trying to spot him please -, we can begin an interesting little exercise," Kakashi said as the sun was now high enough in the sky that the missing-nin had lost his bet without question.

"What have you got for us, sensei?" Naruto asked before throwing an annoyed glance at Sakura. "Bubblegum, keep at it and we will have a taijutsu match for the entire day."

Sakura paled - which replaced the dusting of pink she had on her cheeks - and coughed before she straightened herself. "Hum, Yes! Sorry sensei!"

"Glad to see you're with us. Today, I'll test your affinity. I'll test Sasuke's once he is done with his stealth exercise for the day."

"Affinity?" The pink-haired girl asked.

"Chakra affinity to be exact. It tells you what element your chakra is naturally attuned with. This makes learning the jutsus from this specific element a little bit easier than the rest."

Naruto nodded excitedly. "Cool, cool, how do we do that?"

Kakashi produced two sheets of blank paper with a twirl of his wrist and a "tadda". "This is chakra paper. Channel some chakra inside and the reaction will tell you all you need to know about your affinity."

Naruto snatched one and a second later, the piece of paper was shredded to pieces.

"Strong wind affinity. Good. Your turn Sakura," said Kakashi while presenting the remaining paper to the girl.

Sakura took the sheet gingerly and channelled her chakra inside. The paper was immediately reduced to dust.

"Earth. Interesting. Sasuke is by blood either fire or lightning, even though it's rarer within the Uchiha line. We can work with that. Fire is versatile for offence and defence, lightning has a strong attack power and can be used to immobilize an enemy. Wind is the strongest attacking element and good for crowd control while earth is excellent for defence and crown control. That's rather balanced I'd say."

"So, what's the deal now, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto questioned, eager to learn something new."

Kakashi hummed for a second. "Well, normally, I'd begin by teaching you a jutsu of your element to help you familiarize yourself with it but I think this team is advanced enough for to attack the second step as well."

"The second step?"

"What we call nature transformation."

After an entire day of trying his hand at nature transformation, even Naruto was tired. Nature transformation was hard and normally a jonin-level skill meant to bolster all jutsus of the element corresponding to the nature transformation. The Uzumaki had worked alone on the task, not using any clone for now as he wanted to get a feel of the problem.

And he had concluded he wasn't particularly good at ninjutsu.

He wasn't bad by any mean and it wasn't a problem and he would totally do this nature transformation stuff but it wasn't his thing, really. Stealth had come to him naturally. He had gotten very good in a month time because he had used clones, yes, but mainly because it felt easy. Like putting on a glove. It was the same for taijutsu: Naruto was good at taijutsu because he had worked countless hours with countless shadow clones to accelerate his training but it had been easy to learn in the first place.

Ninjutsu was something he was completely average in. At least subtle ninjustu was. Learning shadow clones had been easy enough given it was basically a matter of putting chakra into the jutsu. Load and load of chakra, moulded in a very easy and straightforward way.

That was good. It meant he had a challenge ahead of him. Life wouldn't be half as fun without the challenge.

The blond was pulled out of his musing by a returning Tazuna, escorted by Haku and a shadow clone of Naruto. The original grinned at the sight of Zabuza's apprentice.

"Soooooo," began the Uzumaki. "How is it going, Totally-a-boy?"

Haku, dressed in a pink kimono, shot him a glare. Now that her chest binding had been removed, her chest was visible under the soft fabric. Her long black hair was done in a ponytail that was folded on itself and held in place by senbon.

"If my master had not ordered against it, I'd kill you." The Kunoichi spat.

"Oh, alright, alright, I just think you're a cute girl and it would be a shame to hide yourself."

"I don't need to be cute to serve my master! A tool doesn't need to be cute!" She barked back harshly.

That made Naruto recoil. "Okayyyy?" He drawled, following the silhouette of Haku as she retreated to the tents Zabuza and her were occupying. "A tool?" The blond whispered with a frown.

All six shinobis were seated at Tazuna's table. It was a large oaken table and ten people could comfortably sit around it. In the kitchen, his daughter Tsunami was finishing to cook.

"Inari!" Tazuna suddenly called. "Come down please, we're eating."

A few seconds later, a pair of dragging feet was heard coming from the staircase. A sullen boy appeared in the dining room, who glared at all present around the table. Without a word, Inari took a seat.

"So, I would like to thank you all for being here. Thanks to all of you, the construction of the bridge-"

"The bridge!" Naruto exclaimed suddenly, his fist impacting his left palm and standing up abruptly. "Ha ha! That's right, the bridge! … The bridge? … What was with this bridge again?" He asked to himself, his eyes wide and lost.

A few seconds escaped and the Uzumaki sat back down with a whine. "Kakashi-sensei, do you know how annoying it is to have something nagging you really hard and you can't find even find what it is?!"

"I know Naruto, calm down. Sorry for my student Tazuna, please continue."

Tazuna threw a glance at Naruto but seeing as the boy was apparently lost in thoughts, continued his little speech. "As I was saying, the construction will now go smoothly thanks to you being here. I expect to finish the work in a week of time. I truly thank you, you're the saviours of Wave." And having said that, the architect rose his glass full of some transparent alcohol and downed it in a single gulp. "Ahhhh, that hit the spot."

"You're all gonna die." A young voice suddenly cut through the joyous mood, freezing all the guests present.

Inari glared at all the shinobi. "You're all gonna die fighting Gato. You're no heroes and Gato is going to kill you."

"I killed Gato this morning kiddo," informed Zabuza with a shrug. "Scared his men real good too."

"You should just go home and leave us alone," continued the boy as if he hadn't heard. "You know nothing of suffering and-" The boy suddenly lost his voice.

Everyone around the table was looking at him and Sasuke was counting on his fingers.

"And you killed Gato!?"

"Yeah, yeah, you're welcome, brat," interrupted Zabuza who gestured towards Naruto who was still deep in thoughts. "It's thanks to this other brat, you know. My target was a different one before he came and…"

"And beat your ass so hard you had to kill Gato for him," completed Kakashi.

"I'm gonna kill you, Hatake."

"My cute student is going to protect me, you won't get past him! Or did you forget yesterday evening already?"

Zabuza growled, ground his teeth harshly and exhaled noisily by his nose before Tsunami rasped him on the head with a wooden spoon.

"No fighting around the table. You're grown men, behave as such. Now let's eat. Thanks for killing Gato by the way," said the dark-haired woman with a wink and a sweet smile addressed to Zabuza.

Who coughed quite violently.

Haku, as for her, was glaring at Tsunami.

"Oh, oh?" Sakura giggled before she elbowed Naruto and whispered for the boy attention. "Look at that, you idiot."

Naruto glanced about and suddenly grinned. "You're thinking what I'm thinking?"

Sakura nodded once. "Hell yes."

Sasuke eyed both his teammates before he decided not to get involved. That would be way, way too troublesome. Plus, he had his stealth training to work on, he'd be too busy to play with the two of them.

Dinner was a happy affair, with Inari even crying in thanks and hugging Zabuza, who was composing a picture somewhere between discomfort and murderous intentions. The missing-nin kept being served more food by Tsunami who was sitting next to the man. Tazuna kept laughing, from happiness at first then from too much alcohol. The only one who looked sour was Haku, who rapidly excused herself.

Naruto immediately followed after the girl, as she looked angry enough to attack the house in a fit.

Night had fallen and the Uzumaki took a second to admire the twinkling stars in the dark sky. Taking a deep breath, the boy zeroed his attention on the girl, who was sitting next to the remnants of their campfire of the day before, visibly sulking. The blond, without too much hesitation, took a seat next to her.

"What do you want?" bit out Haku immediately.

"Whoa, peace, I just want to speak to you a little," Naruto answered with both hands raised in an appeasing motion.

"I don't! Go away!"

"Really? Because I think you need to speak to someone."

"Leave me alone."

"You're rather feisty for a tool," noted Naruto in a neutral tone.

This caused Haku to choke on her mounting anger. The blond boy looked at her intently and suddenly, the girl had the feeling that the Uzumaki was piercing her with his two blue eyes.

"So, what's the deal with that?"

"With what?" Haku answered grudgingly.

"With this "I'm a tool" thing you have going on? Where does it come from?"

After a few seconds of silence and seeing that Haku would not answer him, Naruto hummed. "You know, I'm supposed to be a tool too," began the blond. The Uzumaki felt the surprise of the girl sitting next to him and soldiered on. "I'm not well-liked in my village, for something I didn't even do. When it was time to choose if it'd become a ninja, though, the Hokage suddenly showed great interest in me, because of this thing. I wasn't given much of a choice. Like a tool I suppose. Tools don't choose what they do or who they serve. They are used."

Naruto focused his gaze sideways and saw that Haku was looking at him intently, with something akin to understanding shining in her eyes. The blond boy smiled crookedly. "Sounds familiar?"

Haku nodded slowly. "Yeah," she muttered, looking down. "I… Zabuza-sama found me when no-one wanted me." The black-haired girl looked up at the night sky before her gaze trailed from the stars to Naruto. "He is the reason I exist. He gave meaning to my existence. That's why I serve him. I'm his tool."

"I see. I guess where we are different is that I decided I'd cut my master. I pushed back, got some stuff out of it because, in the end, I'm human too."

"I desire nothing, Uzumaki-san."

Naruto cocked an eyebrow, a crooked grin stealing itself on his face. "Oh really? Are you sure of that?"

Haku shuddered and recoiled a bit. "Yes."

"A shame. I'm quite sure I could help you convince Zabuza to be a little nicer to you. He did ask me to free you when we first met each other after all. He must value you."

Haku shook her head wildly, her eyes widened by a storm of emotions. "No, my only worth is how I serve him." She protested.

"So you say but then you would have failed your purpose that day I dealt with you two. Following your logic, would he still keep you around?" Naruto nudged the girl's nose too fast for her to avoid it. "You're human too, someone who saved your life might be noble but you're allowed to be happy as well."

The girl had nothing to answer to that so Naruto got up and stretched and smiled wickedly. "Plus, if you were a tool, you wouldn't be jealous of Tsunami like that!" He exclaimed with mirth.

"What!?"

Naruto was already running.

A week was enough for the bridge to be finished. The entire population of Wave was meanwhile informed of the death of Gato and at the end of the week, countless people were gathered in Tazuna's town to celebrate the newly found freedom of their country.

The party lasted for the entire night and at one point, Naruto discovered he couldn't get drunk or at least, not drunk enough to roll underneath a table as the rest of the party-goers had. It spurred a vague feeling of regret to well up inside him but a very drunk Haku kissed him at this moment so all was good. The rest happened in a blur.

When it came time for team seven to leave, some guy decided to throw a party again for those everyone in Wave called their "Saviors" and so, another night of drunken excess was had. Things happened, the kind of thing that gossip would sell their mothers to know, the kind of thing that only very drunk people participate in and then forget out of retrospective shame and brain damage. Only Naruto remembered everything but said nothing.

Good blackmail material it was, that was for sure.

Ultimately, the bridge was christened "The Great Naruto and Zabuza Bridge" by Tazuna but as it was judged too much of a mouthful, the people of Wave simply took to call it "The Bridge". There was only one such bridge in all Wave anyway so confusion wasn't possible.

Tazuna swore he would build a second bridge if only to force people to use the proper name.

Back on the road, team seven was leisurely walking towards Konoha. Naruto had his little notebook out and was jotting down his observations on it. Kakashi was nursing his migraine by reading his porn book and Sasuke and Sakura were having alcohol-fuelled regrets.

"Phew," said Naruto suddenly. "What an adventure that was! I hope all C-ranks we do turn into something amazing like this one!"

No one was fit enough to provide a proper answer and so all Naruto heard were groans that would have signified anything.

"I still can't believe Zabuza married Tsunami though." The blond scratched the back of his head. "I think we went a little too hard there, Sakura."

The girl exclaimed her satisfaction loudly with a fist pump before turning green and moaning about alcohol and nausea. Sasuke, who was helping the girl walk despite his own troubles, carefully edged away.

"Haku got a father and a mother back so that's good I guess."

Kakashi suddenly giggle. "Yeah, about Haku, Naruto, I could swear I saw you two-"

Naruto whirled around and in a flash, was in front of his sensei. "You. Saw. Nothing." The blond threatened. "That's between me and her."

"Oh oh oh," burped Sakura, "so there is something going on!"

Sasuke nodded drunkenly. "Yup, yup, I saw them. Good for you Naruto, she is a bombshell."

Naruto groaned. "Alright guys, let's stop there. I'm not seeing her again anytime soon and I'd have to fight Zabuza to the death to do anything. And that would not go well with Haku."

Sakura giggled. "Oh, poor Naruto. You need to do that the proper way and all, with flowers, chocolate, stuff like that!"

The blond sighed. "Not. Anytime. Soon, I said."

"Alright, alright, buzzkill." The pink-haired girl conceded. "Still, if you want to know how to woo a girl, you know who to ask!"

Naruto smiled wryly. "Yeah, thanks. I'll wait for you to be sober though. Anyways, this mission was full of surprises."

"Yes, and what a bridge." Sasuke nodded, as much to himself as to his team. "Impressive stuff, this bridge."

Naruto abruptly stopped in his tracks. The bridge! That damnable bridge! Now he knew what was wrong with it. The blond readied himself to call his teammates' attention on the matter before hesitation halted him. A few seconds of thinking later and he shrugged.

"Bah, it isn't that important," muttered the Uzumaki.

AN: And I'm done with Wave. It's probably not my best chapter but it's Wave. Everyone wants to be done with Wave. Leave a review if you get behind the most improbable ship of all time: Zabuza x Tsunami. That, I'm sure, is something never seen before.