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Chapter Fifteen - Waves

I find myself in our dining room, sitting across from an eerily silent Naruto and a concerned looking Kayana.

Gathering my courage, I take a deep breath and say, "So. I'll explain the situation and then I'll try to answer any questions that you guys have."

Looking down at the table, I speak, telling of my death and reincarnation. Explaining my knowledge of the future and actions throughout the past.

Kayana leaps over the table, hugging me while in tears as Naruto just mumbles, "Holy shit. That explains so much. I've always wondered why you knew so much about me and even things about my past that I didn't know."

Shocked, I look between them and ask, "You guys aren't afraid? Not worried that I've been manipulating you for my own benefit? I know what happens in the future and I could use that knowledge against you, for my own benefit at any time without you even knowing!"

Naruto just glares at me and says, "Afraid? You saved me from a life of loneliness and hate. I can see the way that the civilians look at me because of the Nine-Tails and I can easily imagine how my life would be if I didn't meet you. So no, I'm not afraid... I'm pissed off. You've been bearing this burden alone, not telling us anything at all. It finally makes sense to me why you train so hard, why you act strangely when certain people are around, why you sometimes do weird things. I can finally see, and I hate you've been doing it alone!"

Looking away, I mumble, "Gramps knows. He's known since we were three."

Somehow managing to look angrier, he responds. "I've known that he knows. It never made sense why he let us live by ourselves so young, or why he listens to what you say. At least not until now. It doesn't matter if he knows! He isn't the point! We live with you! We're on your team, which I'm pretty sure you arranged a long time ago. We're your friends! You're my best friend. My family… You don't let us bear our burdens alone. You don't have to bear yours alone."

Kayana nods her head and squeaks out between tears. "He's right… You saved me… Saved both of us… We could never be afraid of you."

Trying to prevent tears from coming to my own eyes, I say, "It's not a burden I can share. If I give out too much information, events could change too wildly for me to be able to predict. They could become worse than they would have been to start with. That's not even counting the things that I've already changed."

Naruto just smiles and says, "Then don't tell us what will happen. Just tell us what we need to do."

Kayana nods and says, "Right! We trust you."

Smiling, tears of joy running down my face, I simply nod, unable to respond.

Unfortunately, the remainder of our D-rank mission days lacked the excitement of our first mission. We spent several days painting fences, finding missing people, removing cats from trees, and all sorts of other mundane tasks that were assigned to the Genin to build a rapport with the civilians of the village.

Only our dedication and increase in the amount of training we did was able to keep us from losing our minds.

All things, good or bad, must come to an end, however.

"C'mon Gramps! All we've had are these lame missions! Give us something good! Something important!" Naruto exclaims when the Hokage looks for another D-rank to assign us.

He looks us over, one by one, before raising an eyebrow questioningly at Kakashi.

Kakashi just sighs. "They're ready for a C-rank. They know what D-rank missions mean to the village. I've surprisingly not had a single complaint until now. Only diligent work."

Giving us another once over, the Hokage smiles and says, "Very well. I'll give you a C-rank mission. An escort mission."

Jumping, Naruto exclaims, "Yahoo! Who is it? A Princess? The Daimyo?"

Chuckling, Hiruzen says, "Control yourself. We'll do introductions right now." He then calls out to his assistant. "Please send him in."

The smell of alcohol hits us as the office door opens, revealing a grey haired, bearded man, with glasses. Wearing a sleeveless black shirt, checkerboard pants, with a towel around his neck. A bottle of booze in his hand.

He takes a drink from the bottle in his hands before saying, "What's going on with this joke? A bunch of wet-nosed brats? Are you sure you're even ninja? Especially the midget in the orange. He looks like an imbecile."

Shockingly, Naruto only cocks his head to the side, not responding.

Failing to get a rise out of Naruto, the man continues with a grave face. "My name is Tazuna, a bridge builder of great renown… Until I'm safely building my next bridge in my home country, your job is to protect me, even at the cost of your lives!"

Still getting only blank stares in response, he takes another swig, before stumbling out of the office, "We leave tomorrow morning at 8."

Kakashi then claps and says, "Alright. Go home, pack everything you'll need for an extended trip out of the village. Plan for several weeks. Dismissed!"

Outside the office, I call to Kakashi before he leaves. "Sensei, I just finished an upgrade to our seals last night. I designed one for you as well if you want it."

He nods excitedly and says. "God, I thought you'd never ask."

Chuckling, I grab his wrists and apply the seals. "Alright, you're set. All the functions are controlled with mental commands."

I grab onto Naruto and Kayana, teleporting us home with the Flying Thunder God as his eyes start widening, processing my words.

The next morning, we met Kakashi and an already drunk Tazuna at the village gates.

"Woohoo! Road trip! Finally leaving the village!" Naruto exclaims as we pass through the gates and head off towards the Land of Waves.

Tazuna grumbles, drinking from another bottle of booze. "Am I really expected to entrust my life to this idiot?"

Kakashi sighs and responds. "He may not look it, but he's one of the strongest among the Genin ranks. Stronger even than some higher ranked ninja… The same applies to the other two."

Getting a raised eyebrow from Tazuna, he continues. "I'm an elite anyway, so you have nothing to worry about. Not that we'll be facing any enemy ninja on a C-rank mission. The most we'll see are bandits, which these three are more than capable of handling."

Tazuna attempts to hide his grimace by taking another swig from his drink. Not noticing Kakashi's gaze on him, he asks. "Why do none of you have any bags or gear on you? Even if ninja travel light, you still need supplies for such a long journey."

Smirking, I pull out a bag of chips from my seal and say, "Ninja magic, Old Man." Chuckling as he stumbles from the shock of seeing a bag of chips appear out of midair.

In the following silence, I decide it's time to explain to the team some of the improvements that I've recently made to our seals.

Activating a new function, I think, `It's time I explained some of the new functions I added to our seals last night.` And smirk as Naruto and Kayana jump from hearing my voice in their heads.

Continuing, I say, `I was able to link up the seals to my bloodline and essentially created a way for us to communicate telepathically, within my sensory range. All you have to do is direct your thoughts to who you want to hear them, and the seals will forward your message through me to the person or persons desired.`

Kakashi's voice sounds in our minds. `This is incredible. It's similar to some of the Yamanaka clan techniques. But appears to be more versatile.`

Mentally smiling, I send. `Thanks. I took inspiration from them when designing this function.`

Naruto then butts in. `This is really cool!` He pauses before continuing. `But is nobody going to mention whatever it is that Tazuna is clearly hiding?`

Stunned silence is our only reply, before Kayana giggles mentally and says, `Sorry Naruto. We're just surprised you noticed. Stuff like this isn't your strong suit after all.`

He just huffs out loud, crossing his arms and we continue forward in silence.

It's a few hours after lunch when the puddle in the middle of the dry road enters my senses.

Sighing, I send to Kakashi, `Sensei, there's a pair of idiots hiding in a puddle on the road around 3 miles out.`

Kakashi quickly responds. `We'll let it play out, testing Naruto and Kayana. You guard Tazuna.`

As we approach the tunnel, Naruto walks right by, oblivious. Kayana notices the puddle and seems curious, but continues on without taking any action.

Once Kakashi, walking at the rear of the group, passes the puddle, two figures wearing gas masks, with each having a large clawed gauntlet on each hand, rise out of it.

The first out of the puddle launches into the air towards Kakashi, wrapping him in a bladed chain held between their gauntlets.

Naruto and Kayana turn around just in time to see the chain pulled tight, ripping straight through a surprised Kakashi.

"SENSEI!" Naruto screams and freezes in shock as the Demon Brothers continue their assault, jumping towards him in an attempt to slice him with the chain. Seeing Naruto frozen, Kayana reacts..

She retrieves a loaded crossbow in each hand from her seals and fires them simultaneously in one smooth motion.

The bolts slam into each gauntlet, piercing through the metal, directly through a link in each chain. Effectively nailing the chain to them, knocking the attack off course in the process.

Naruto, hearing the collisions from Kayana's attacks, finally snaps out of his stupor.

Enraged, he jumps with his full strength, grabbing the chain in the middle, and dragging the two brothers further into the air with his ascent. Reaching the apex of his jump, he reorients himself and summons a shadow clone, using it to push off towards the ground. He lands and swings the chain, slamming his passengers headfirst into the ground, raising a large cloud of dust and knocking them unconscious.

Kakashi, reappearing in a puff of smoke, claps loudly and says. "That was excellent. Kayana, next time if you notice a puddle on a dry road when it hasn't rained in several days, don't just assume it's some strange natural occurrence and ignore it. Excellent reaction and exceptional shooting, though." Turning to Naruto, he continues. "Naruto… Pay attention to your surroundings. You didn't even notice the puddle. And while I didn't expect you to freeze up, you broke out of it quickly and did well." Finally, he turns to me. "Anything else you noticed?"

Shrugging, I look at Naruto. "Let me see your hand." Confused, he drops the chain and shows a lightly bleeding palm.

Sighing, I say. "Those chains were probably poisoned. We might have to cancel the mission to take you for medical treatment. For now, stay as still as possible to slow the spread."

Naruto gapes at me before he finally asks, "You two were testing us?"

Nodding, Kakashi responds. "Yep. Ayo noticed these buffoons three miles ago. Even if he didn't, that puddle was so out of place that I would have noticed right away once it came into sight."

Turning to Tazuna, he says. "Now… Tazuna, you wouldn't happen to have any idea about why we were attacked by missing ninja so close to the village, would you?"

Chuckling to myself as Tazuna grimaces but doesn't respond, I decide to speak up. "Sensei, what's the plan? We need some anesthetic to bleed the poison out of Naruto's wound, which we should probably head back to the village to have a medic look at anyway. Not to mention this is way above a C-rank mission if we're expected to fight enemy ninja."

Glancing at me, seeming to catch what I'm up to, he says. "Hmm… This is complicated. Do we go back and get medical attention for Naruto?"

Naruto, gritting his teeth and staring at his palm, takes a kunai and stabs it into his wound, drastically increasing the bleeding.

Kakashi and I simply look at Naruto as Kayana gasps and runs over to him, unsealing a first aid kit. "Naruto, what are you doing? That's too much blood!"

Naruto ignores her, still digging the kunai into the wound as he grits his teeth and says. "With this kunai, I swear to you. I will protect the old man… Sensei, Naruto Uzumaki reporting, fit for duty!"