A/N: The last two chapters have been a bit light on the Naruto/Satsuki interactions, so I'm gonna change that. This whole arc will center around their time with one another. Shikamaru will still get scenes, but with...somebody else for the most part, shall we say

Time for Chapter 6

Enjoy!


Satsuki stared up at the moon silently as the night wore on. The air was fairly warm, if a bit dry, and there were no sounds other than those of the nature around her. The fire she and Naruto had gathered wood for had fizzled out hours ago, and the remainder of her team had retired for the day soon after the death of the embers. As such, she had been sitting by her lonesome for quite some time. She minded it little, as it gave her a much needed break to think.

Much had transpired throughout the day, and there were a variety of things to mull over. Her first true brush with legitimate danger, the revelation that she would be partaking in an intensely perilous mission, and her first time outside of the village were all compelling enough on their own, but when put together, they made for quite the mix of emotions. She was neither afraid nor completely fearless. Excited nor apprehensive. If anything, she was simply calm. Her emotions had smoothed themselves out.

Her proudest achievement that day had been her repelling of the Demon Brothers during their attempted assault on Naruto. The reflexes she had worked so hard to perfect had indeed done their job, and her body had been strong enough to defend a comrade from harm. Though she would never admit it out loud, especially not to his face, Satsuki found herself to be relieved that her quick action had likely saved Naruto's life. Irritating though he could be at times, the last thing he deserved was to be killed.

'I can't be there to bail you out every time. Sharpen up.' she silently projected to her teammate, who she assumed to be sleeping. She then shook her head and tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her left ear.

'You aren't weak. I know you aren't. You just need to pay better attention. A lot better attention.' she thought to herself tiredly. Despite her pride in her saving of the blonde, the humbling reality remained that Kakashi had indeed been the only reason the cell had survived at all. Without him, they'd have been chopped to bits and slain. The world was far from kind, and Satsuki knew it all too well, but the truth of her own helplessness in the face of mere chunin was a difficult pill to swallow.

"I'm not gonna die out here. No way in hell." she muttered to no-one in particular. A slight stirring sound then caught her attention and drew her gaze over her own shoulder. Standing just outside the tent in which he had been resting was Naruto. He hardly looked tired, which implied that he had never fallen asleep.

"Having a little self-talk? I can respect that." he said as he made his way over to the opposite side of the dead fire. Had she been any less exhausted, Satsuki would have immediately countered with a stinging retort of some kind, but when she tried to do so, she found that she simply did not have the energy. Instead, she simply shrugged.

"Not much else to do. It's not like I can really go for a walk." she said honestly. Naruto nodded and sat himself down across from her. Surprisingly, he said nothing. He sat in silence, staring straight ahead of himself, right through her. When his state of inertia lasted a bit longer than was comfortable, the Uchiha girl spoke up.

"What's on your mind?" she asked. Naruto snapped from his trance and made brief eye contact before looking elsewhere once again.

"I'm just...thinking. About all of this. We're really out in the world, doing a job. It's a weird feeling. I thought I'd be more excited about it than I am." he replied with surprising openness. Satsuki absently flicked at the hair that hung near her eyes as she processed his response.

"I guess I know what you mean. It's a whole lot less heroic-feeling than it's advertised as. I'm definitely not bored like I was before, but I still feel like a grunt. Like I'm being used for something." she said. Her teammate shifted in place and scratched his cheek to ward off a mosquito that had been pestering him.

"We're always gonna be grunts as long as we're a part of a village. We're working for something bigger than just us. That's the way I see it, anyway." he said. Satsuki pondered his reasoning for a few moments. It was a fairly logical way to view the situation in which they found themselves, all things considered.

"That makes some sense. I don't know, though. I feel like I could be doing better things with my time than lead around a double-crossing alcoholic. Even if we're working to save an entire country's economy, I really don't care about it any more than Kakashi seems to." she said slowly. Naruto flicked at a pile of pebbles at his feet as the night grew a bit colder around them.

"Like what? It's not like we're strong enough to do much more than this. You don't strike me as the type to settle down and start a business, or anything like that. If you want to be a ninja, you've gotta take things slow unless you have a death wish." he pointed out. Satsuki began to argue against his points, but soon stopped when she realized that he was right.

'Since when are you insightful?' she questioned within her mind, studying Naruto carefully as he subconsciously fidgeted with his clothing and the ground around him. He was certainly smarter than he usually let on.

"Tell me something, Naruto." she began, catching his attention and drawing his gaze away from the earth and up to her.

"What's up?" he pressed curiously. Satsuki straightened her posture and turned to face him more fully as she prepared to ask a question that had been bouncing around in her mind for nearly all of the time she'd been aware of his existence.

"Did you ever have parents? Or a family in general?" she asked carefully, well aware that she was treading onto incredibly person ground with a person she hadn't been particularly pleasant with. Naruto's response was instant, and it sounded robotic.

"Nope. Not in a way that matters. I probably had parents, since I was born, but I never knew them. I don't even know what they look like or who they were." he said shortly. Sensing that his mood had dipped, the raven-haired girl promptly ran her mouth long before considering her words.

"Hey, maybe they got one look at you and figured you'd be too much work." she suggested in an attempt at humor. Her teammate's expression momentarily flared to life with indignant offense that poorly veiled clear damage to his feelings. Instantly, Satsuki mentally kicked herself for the horrid blunder.

"Sorry, terrible joke." she apologized quietly, hanging her head so as to avert her eyes as she spoke. Naruto let out a long sigh and stared up at the dark sky.

"It's fine. I've heard worse. Who knows? You could be right. Kids are a lot of work from what I've heard." he said dismissively. Despite his nonchalance, Satsuki's guilt only increased. She had stung him. They pair then lapsed into silence for a number of minutes.

"I'd ask about your family, but...that's probably not a good idea, is it?" Naruto mused aloud to end the streak. The Uchiha girl shook her head and drew her knees up to her chin.

"If you want a free shot at hurting my feelings, go right ahead. It's not like you don't deserve to get it back." she said. The blonde shook his head and rubbed one of his eyes to clear the sleep from it.

"That's not a good way to look at things, I don't think. Constantly trying to get back at people for stuff only hurts yourself. I'll pass." he replied. Though it had not been intentional, her teammate's conviction to avoid vindictiveness hit far too close to home for Satsuki. As such, her response came out more meekly than she ever would have willingly allowed.

"Easy for you to say." she practically whispered. If he had heard her, he chose not to acknowledge it. Another spell of silent void passed over them.

"Why do you say my name the way you do?" her teammate asked after several more minutes. Satsuki furrowed her brow and looked at him directly for the first time in quite a stretch.

"What do you mean? I say your name normally." she asked skeptically. Naruto stopped tracing his finger through the dirt and made eye-contact with her, tilting his head off to one side as he did so.

"No, you don't. Kakashi-sensei and Shikamaru both just say it kinda quickly. You annunciate it differently. You really draw out the 'U', and you say the 'R' weird." he said. Satsuki quickly muttered his name under her breath, and compared it to the ways in which she had heard other people say the blonde's name a number of times and found that he was correct. For reasons she couldn't pin down, her face heated up.

"I mean...does it bother you?" she asked. Much to her surprising relief, Naruto shook his head and crossed his legs to make himself more comfortable.

"Not really. Just a thing I noticed. Do I say your name right?" he asked as a counter. Satsuki briefly ran his pronunciation of her name through her mind.

"Yeah, I think so. It's pretty easy. My name is boring." she said simply. Interestingly, Naruto seemed to prepare himself to say something in response to her characterization of her name as 'boring', but quickly pulled back and remained quiet.

No more was said between them that night, but both remained seated around the remnants of the fire until the sun came up.


"It won't be long now. Once we reach the river a few miles down, we'll essentially be home free."

Kakashi suppressed the urge to heave a sigh of relief. Three days of uneventful, mundane travel had a way of wearing on a man's psyche, especially with a group of bickering teenagers and an unpleasant drunk for companions. The speed of their travel had increased substantially once the Jonin had resolved to simply carry Tazuna on his back in order to allow his cell to run rather than walk, but the journey had still been dull and slow. Luckily, they now found themselves at the precipice of the final stretch.

"Naruto, Satsuki, Shikamaru! Hurry it up!" he called back to his genin, who had begun to lag behind in the wake of the torrid pace Kakashi had set. Though they were clearly tired, the junior members of Team Seven did as they had been instructed and increased their speed to level themselves with Kakashi and Tazuna.

"Can the three of you walk on water yet?" Kakashi asked once they caught up, hoping against hope that the answer would be 'yes'. The responses were mixed. Shikamaru gave an affirmative nod, Satsuki made a 'so-so' motion with her hand, and Naruto flatly shook his head.

"They covered it in the academy, like, once, and it was two years ago. I managed to do it back then, but I tried it again last weekend, and I got dunked." the blonde admitted, clearly somewhat embarrassed by his lack of competency in the field. Satsuki scratched the back of her head and pursed her lips.

"I was decent at it the last time I did it, but that was last year." she said with very little certainty. Kakashi sighed and looked to Shikamaru, who was the only one of the three who appeared to be unfazed by the water they were bound to face up ahead.

"I'm guessing that your family has had you walking on water for a while now, right?" he inquired. The Nara gave a nod and rolled one of his shoulders as they sprinted along across the terrain below them.

"Yeah, it's second nature to me now. I can probably manage carrying Satsuki if need be, but Naruto is definitely too heavy." he said. The blonde prickled slightly at his teammate.

"Oh, come on. I'm not that heavy." he grumbled irritatedly. Shikamaru shrugged and gave him a bored look over his shoulder.

"No, but you and Satsuki put together would be hell to haul around. I'm the opposite of athletic." he reasoned. Kakashi's eye twitched slightly as his genin once again broke out into a pointless, drawn out argument over the athleticism required to carry two average-sized teenagers a total of just under fifty feet.

'If they don't shut up in the next mile and a half, I'll throw them across the water by their necks. Shikamaru included.' he thought to himself tiredly. Eventually, after another ten painstaking minutes, the shore of the river came into view, just as Tazuna had predicted it would. It looked fairly wide, but the opposite end was in sight at the end of the plane of Kakashi's vision. Once they reached the edge of the water, the Jonin stopped running, which prompted his students to do the same.

"Have you three worked out who carries who?" he asked, well aware of the response he was likely to receive. Satsuki turned up her nose and scoffed.

"I'd rather not be carried at all. I'll take my chances in the water if I have to." she said in standoffish fashion. Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"There was a rumour back in the academy that you couldn't swim. I'm guessing you've fixed that, then?" he asked. The raven-haired girl immediately tensed and put on a look of disdain.

"Yeah, I can...swim now. I like the water, actually." she said in a blatantly dishonest tone. Before either Naruto nor Shikamaru could heckle her and prolong the meaningless debate, Kakashi dropped Tazuna from his back roughly.

"What the hell was that for?!" the old man demanded as the silver-haired Ninja strolled over to his genin. Then, without warning, he scooped up both Naruto and Satsuki, slinging them over either one of his shoulders.

"Couldn't you have asked first?" Naruto complained as he squirmed. Kakashi paid the complaint no heed, and ignored Satsuki's attempts to shift her position. He then looked to Shikamaru and pointed at Tazuna.

"Carry Tazuna. He's heavier than Naruto, but lighter than these two put together. You should be able to manage just fine." he ordered the Nara, who did as he was told and made his way to Tazuna. Though the arrangement was somewhat awkward for all those involved, it was at least semi-functional. With roles established, Team Seven began its slow crossing of the river, which possessed a powerful current that both Kakashi and Shikamaru had to routinely adjust their chakra control to match.

"How young were you taught, Shikamaru?" Kakashi asked around one minute into the journey. The Nara shrugged as best he could with Tazuna clinging to his back.

"Seven, eight maybe? My mom likes having bonfires, and the best firewood is across a creek that's a little too wide to jump over, so I had to learn. It's a handy trick to know." he recalled. The Jonin gave Naruto and Satsuki a jolt each to make sure they hadn't somehow fallen unconscious.

"And it'll be an essential skill from here on out. That, and being able to scale vertical surfaces without using your hands. After this mission, we're doing tree drills." he said, more to the two he was carrying than to Shikamaru.

"Could you at least stop digging your shoulder into my stomach? I'm gonna puke." Satsuki grumbled uncomfortably. Kakashi ignored her and picked up the pace at which he was walking, to which Shikamaru followed suit. The further they walked, the more an oddity began to make itself known.

'Mist? The weather is nowhere near humid enough for that. Something's awry.' Kakashi thought to himself apprehensively as a heavy mist began to set in over the wide river. With each step they took, the denser the obstruction of gaseous liquid became. Within moments, they were completely enveloped in a thick, blinding cloud.

"Any idea what's going on, sensei?" Shikamaru asked nervously. Despite their inexperience, all of Team Seven could feel the wrongness of the anomalous mist surrounding them. Kakashi rapidly sifted through the deep, layered database of knowledge regarding Jutsu, Ninja, and history he kept stored within his mind. Within moments, he came to a single conclusion. One that sent him into a momentary panic. Once he had calmed, he balanced Naruto in the crook of his neck and reached into his belt pouch.

He produced a kunai and tossed it out ahead of him, listening carefully to hear its landing. A few seconds later, the sound of metal sinking into a damp earth registered in his eardrums. With a few simple calculations, Kakashi nodded to himself.

"Shikamaru, take Tazuna to the bank. It's around seventy-seven feet ahead. Move quickly, and do not lose focus. Any sound, smell, or sensation out of place spells danger." he said. Though he hesitated a moment, the Shadow user followed his directions and began a brisk jog for the nearby shore.

"What's going on, Ka-" Satsuki began. Before she could make it even halfway through saying her teacher's name, the Jonin swiftly bent backwards at the waist and shifted his grips on the genin to let them fall parallel with him. A quarter-beat after the rapid dip in elevation, a gigantic blade came whizzing past their noses.

"Don't...move...a muscle." Kakashi mouthed to the terrified teens. They both swallowed and gave tense nods. Slowly, at an unsettling low tempo, a laugh rippled through the mist that sent chills down the spines of all those who could hear it.

"How much do the two of you trust me?" the Jonin asked rhetorically. Despite the disingenuous nature of the question, Naruto answered.

"Right now? With my life." he said honestly. Kakashi responded by standing back up straight and dropping both the blonde and the Uchiha girl, catching them both by an ankle just before the tops of their heads could touch the water.

"Hope you like heights." Kakashi said as he tightened his grip on their ankles. He then performed a rapid rotation with his students in hand to create momentum, and then promptly launched them away toward the bank that Shikamaru had likely arrived on with Tazuna in tow. The sound of their bodies colliding with the soil of the bank brought the Jonin a surge of relief. Though he was not a sensory type, he could indeed feel that all three of his genin had arrived on the shore.

"Don't you think the camouflage is just a bit tacky? We all know that the idea of Ninja being masters of concealment is mostly a lie." he called out to the entity he knew to be lurking in the mist. The same laugh he had heard before then echoed through the air, though from a much closer, clearer proximity and location.

"I never really took you as the spineless type, Kakashi…" came a dark, husky voice. The Jonin smoothly turned around to face the voice, and finally caught sight of the progenitor of the mist that had so plagued the cell's advancement. The entity was clearly male, several inches taller than Kakashi, and muscularly built. His skin was tanned, his hair was spiked and black, and the lower half of his face was bandaged.

"I don't quite know what you mean." he replied calmly as he assessed the man before him. The feared criminal, and attempted assassin of the Mizukage. Zabuza Momochi was upon them.

"Sending the children away like that. I expected better of you." the blade-wielding rogue continued vaguely. Well aware that he was putting himself into the jaws of a verbal trap, Kakashi relented.

"And why is that, exactly?" he asked evenly. Zabuza swung his blade in an arc in front of himself to clear the mist between them.

"Because, suicide is the coward's way out."


A/N: CLIFFHANGER. Well, sorta. We all know what happens, though I'm going to put my own spin on the fight, as I tend to with these sorts of things. ALSO: This fic just hit 300 FOLLOWERS. For a 5-chapter story, that's fucking WILD. Thank you all so much for the support :))

Also, I have a question: Would you guys prefer chapters of this length, with updates coming once every day or two, or longer chapters (around 5,000 words as opposed to the current quota of 3,500) coming out once every three or four days? Tell me in a review, alongside your thoughts on the chapter.

The majority will dictate the way I structure my updates

See you next chapter! Read and Review!