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Naruto brushed his shoulder against his brothers, wanting nothing more than to grab his hand, but he didn't want to look weak in front of Sasuke. His heart was still pounding and he couldn't focus on the old man's tale, though it was not for a lack of trying.

He had seriously thought that Kakashi-sensei had been killed. For a blinding moment, he had been so filled with rage and fear that he couldn't breathe.

Even know he still felt the barest hint of chakra that wasn't his own, still in his veins. It burned and made him shiver and sweat.

He vaguely recalled this feeling from years ago.

He closed his eyes trying to calm his racing heart. If his brother hadn't said anything he was sure that he would have ended up like he did years ago when Natsu had been attacked by that instructor. He didn't remember much, but his brother had told him that the Kyuubi's chakra had taken over, making him wild and violent.

He tried to suppress a shiver.

He didn't want that to happen again.

He could still recall the pain of the burns across most of his body, but more importantly, he had hurt Iruka-sensei. He took a deep breath, grinning softly when he noticed Natsu glancing at him worriedly. He wished he could be like his brother sometimes. Natsu never seemed to struggle with being overcome by the demon. His brother was so cool.

He turned his attention back to their client and his sad situation.

"I just did this for the sake of my village. Gatō is killing us. I'm sorry." The man held his hands out in deference as he lowered his head. " My daughter and grandson are counting on me and I couldn't think of any other way."

Naruto glanced at Kakashi-sensei. The man's face was startlingly blank. Naruto didn't realize how expressive he was, despite covering most of his face, until now when the emotions were gone. He glanced at Natsu, wondering if his brother could tell what emotions their sensei was feeling right now. Natsu, insisted that Naruto could feel emotions if he tried, but Naruto had only ever felt the touch of negativity from people when it was directed towards him and his brother. He didn't understand when Natsu explained how he reached out to touch other people's emotions, nor really how to control the burst of negativity he sometimes felt from others.

He looked back at his sensei.

The man was shaking his head. "Regardless, of your situation, you've lied to a hidden village and put my students at risk by this scheme. I cannot allow this mission to continue…"

"Wait!" Naruto gasped while stepping forward. "This is our first C-rank mission! We can't just give up!"

He crossed his arms and frowned. He had been looking forward to this mission, he didn't want to go back!

"I understand, Naruto, but the threat of other shinobi has made this mission B-rank at least borderline A-rank since our village is not exactly friends with Kirigakure," Kakashi-sensei spoke gently, but Naruto couldn't help but argue.

"Natsu and I completed an A-rank already! And, we handled those shinobi just fine while you ran off and hid!"

"What." Sasuke butted in looking even more irritated than normal as he practically growled his question. "What A-rank?"

"Even so…" Kakashi-sensei sighed, but Naruto didn't let him continue…

"I already killed an enemy shinobi." He glared defiantly up at his sensei trying to convey how serious he was. "We can do this."

The man sighed again as he rubbed his hand over his face. Naruto closed his mouth trying to push back bad memories. Even if the drunk old guy lied to them, he did it because he wanted to help his village. Naruto became a shinobi to help people. It started out rough with Mizuki, but he was determined to make good on that goal. He was a shinobi now.

He glanced at his teammates wondering for the first time if they supported him.

Sasuke was giving him an unreadable look, but nodded decisively when he meet Naruto's eye. Natsu smiled and nodded at him, but his eyes were a little sad. Sometimes he was like that, though, so Naruto didn't dwell on it too much. Despite all of Naruto's attempts to keep him happy, his brother just got sad sometimes for no obvious reason that Naruto could see. He would smother his brother in comfort when they settle in for the night, but for now he shuffled slightly closer and pulled up all the positive emotions he could, knowing his brother would feel them. Sure enough, within seconds, his brother's eyes crinkled as he gave him a more genuine smile.

Naruto turned back to Kakashi-sensei only to find him looking at him intently.

"Sasuke, what do you think?"

"I think we should continue," Sasuke replied. "Naruto's right, we can handle it."

Naruto grinned, deciding at the last minute not to try and high-five the other boy. That probably wouldn't go over well and Naruto didn't want him to change his mind out of spite.

"Natsuki?"

"I think we should continue, as well. We've trained hard and besides, we have you."

Natsu tilted his head in the way he did when he was sharing a joke, but Naruto couldn't see the punchline. He glanced suspiciously between the two, wondering if he was missing something. Now that he thought of it, Natsu did seem to have an oddly close relationship with their sensei. He opened up quicker than he normally would to strangers.

He shook the stray thoughts from his head.

"Alright…" Kakashi-sensei started. "We can continue, but if it looks like it is getting to be too dangerous I reserve the right to terminate the mission and head home."

The three of them nodded.

"Great! Thanks!" The old man grinned widely.

Kakashi-sensei simply glanced at him with an unimpressed look in his visible eye.

"Thank my students. I'd prefer to see you arrested in Konoha."

Naruto grinned at the man when he turned to them. "Sure thing, old man! We're shinobi, after all. Shinobi are supposed to protect people!"

"Alright kiddies." Kakashi clapped, his mood changing drastically. "Why don't you goes go ahead while I deal with these guys before they try to run. They've already undone the knots."

Sasuke opened his mouth, but after a quick glance at his brother Naruto grabbed the dark haired boys shoulder and pulled him away as his brother ushered their client down the trail after them.

"What are you doing?" Sasuke muttered trying to pull away, but Naruto had a good grip on him.

"Kakashi-sensei is taking care of the enemies, we need to go. Sensei doesn't want the client to see."

Or us. Naruto added silently, feeling a little bit relieved.

That seemed to make Sasuke understand. Naruto glanced at him, wondering what was going on in his mind. He was smart, even Naruto would admit that and usually got the subtle things before Naruto did, though not before Natsu did. Naruto looked over at his brother. He was engaging the client in some small talk about his family and home. The man looked sick to the stomach and kept glancing back.

When he caught Naruto looking he flinched and looked away.

Naruto realized with a start that he had just admitted to killing someone.

He looked down at his feet, lagging slightly behind his brother and the client.

Sasuke walked beside him.

"Who?"

Naruto glanced at him. Sasuke didn't look frightened or disgusted, just curious.

"Mizuki." He replied. "He kidnapped Natsu and threatened to kill us. I killed him instead."

Sasuke nodded. "Was is easy?"

Naruto grimaced. "Yes."

He nodded again. "My brother killed my clan. I'm going to kill him."

Naruto glanced at the boy, recognizing the glint of stubborn determination that he often had in his own eye when talking about his dream to become the Hokage. He grinned. It was smaller than usual, but he grinned.

"When I become Hokage, I'll make sure to send you on that mission."

Sasuke blinked before for a faint smile touched his lips. Not a smirk for once, an actual smile. "Well, that's a different way to tell me that my goal is impossible."

It took a minute for Naruto processed the barb. Sasuke used that time to pull ahead of him quickly.

"Hey! Sasuke! You teme!" Naruto shouted as he charged forward.

Sasuke dodged his initial attack with a smirk on his face but nearly fell for Naruto's swipe at his feet. Their impromptu sparing match went on until Kakashi appeared again and smacked them both on the back of the heads.

They continued walking for the rest of the day before settling down for the night on the edge of the Land of Fire. Naruto couldn't help but get excited over the boat ride they'd be taking the next day. He and Natsu spent some time after they had set up camp looking over the water in awe. Wave was very close and could be seen from the shore when the mist thinned enough, but it was still more water than Naruto had ever seen in one place before.

Once it go to dark to see much they returned to the campfire as Kakashi-sensei lecture them quietly on knowing their limits. Naruto wanted to scoff, but there was a serious glint in Kakashi-sensei. He looked older with the flickering flames casting shadows on his face. Naruto glanced away uncomfortably, eyeing the open field to the right of them with trepidation. They were just inside the tree line, but the trees themselves weren't anything like Naruto had seen before. They were much thinner and shorter than the great Konoha trees within the village. The tree were further apart too, with less bushes to obscure the sight line allowing him to see further than he ever had in the Konoha forest. The thin trees and open beach was making him feel uneasy.

Natsu bumped shoulders with him. Drawing him out of his thoughts.

Naruto sent his brother a smile.

"Come on, let's get some sleep." His brother murmured.

As he laid in the tent with his brother and Sasuke Naruto could help, but dwell on the attack earlier today. While he had privately wished for a more exciting mission than guarding some old drunk guy, he hadn't expected it to take the turn out the way it did. Kakashi-sensei was a jounin. A powerful shinobi with years of experience. Even working together, they couldn't lay a finger on him if he didn't want them too. They had tried and failed each time. He'd even beat them while reading that perverted book!

Even if his sensei was safe and alive, the attack today made him realize that even a jounin like their sensei could be killed.

He held his hand in front of his face, searching clumsily for the burning chakra he had felt earlier. He found it in its usual place around his stomach rather than coursing through his veins and he let out a sigh of relief. That chakra, the demon's chakra, was scary and painful.

Natsu shifted restlessly beside him, his face scrunching up in his sleep.

Naruto wondered how his brother managed to deal with that chakra every day. The old man had told him that Natsu had to use the demon's chakra because he had none of his own, for some reason. The Hokage warned him that this might make Natsu more susceptible to the demons' influence and told him to keep a good eye on his brother to keep him safe, but Natsu never seemed to have any problems.

Naruto frown.

He was the only one struggling with control.

He clinched his fist tightly, feeling his nails bite into the calloused flesh of his palm. He ignored the pinpricks of pain and swore to himself not lose control to the demon again. He swore to fight the demon's chakra with everything he had in him.

He couldn't protect his brother if he was rabid with the demon's power, after all.

Sasuke didn't like the water.

Or at least, he didn't like being on a boat in the water.

He scowled at his choppy reflection wanting the boat ride to be over already. His stomach was churning and there was a headache building behind his eyes. He sighed silently and glanced over at the people he was sharing this tiny boat with. Natsuki sat beside him looking at his brother's antics with amusement in his eyes. Naruto, himself, was at the front of the boat alternating between looking around excitedly and dipping his fingers in the water. Kakashi was behind him with their client and the boat driver. None of the others looked as sick as he felt.

He looked back at Naruto as the memories from yesterday flickered across his mind.

At first, he had been almost blindly jealous that his two teammates had already completed an A-rank mission. Sasuke had felt the emotions build up the moment the words had left Naruto's mouth. He had nearly snarled his question and almost growled when they were ignored. How could his own classmates have already completed such a high ranking mission while he was stuck with still D-ranks and annoying training? Then the rage and jealousy were all gone in the next instance. At Naruto's next confession.

He hated how his mind always went to his brother when death was brought up in any given conversation.

It was happening more often lately with this team.

He blamed it on the fact that the two Uzumaki's were brothers.

He didn't like to think about how things were, but those two tended to force him to with their attitudes.

He turned his gaze to the water as he tried to ignore the memories.

He felt Natsu shift beside him and wondered if the other boy could feel his twisting emotions. He didn't like that thought. As much as he was grateful that he didn't get stuck with weak teammates (or worse fangirls) being on a team with the two Uzumaki's was frustrating in an entirely different way.

He always had to be on his toes when sparing Natsuki. The boy was as quick as a viper and hit surprisingly hard. The way he could whip out fire jutsus easily as if he was the Uchiha and not Sasuke, himself, annoyed Sasuke to no end. The one thing he could hold over the orange haired boy was his inability to do most other jutsus for some reason, especially water jutsus. However, that weakness seemed to be nonexistent in his brother, who drove Sasuke up the wall with his rate of learning. The boy had always been ok in school, but getting on a team with a sensei dedicated to training them seemed to make the boy shine. His taijutsu had slowly gotten less sloppy and Sasuke was having to work harder to beat him in their daily spars. Not only that but he soaked up jutsus like they were water and his stupid little traps got the better of Sasuke more often than he'd like to admit. Together they outmatched him in the amount of chakra they could throw around at any given moment, which led to Sasuke digging through dusty scrolls trying to find ways to boost his own reserves.

It was endlessly frustrating, but….even if he'd never admit it allowed, they made a decent team. They had managed to get the bells from their sensei and had even stopped the first enemy shinobi they came across outside the village. Natsuki still refused to look him in the eye and Naruto was too loud and friendly, but they challenged him and supported each other during missions.

"There it is." Tazuna-san murmured. "My villages only hope."

Sasuke glanced up towards where the old man gestured and blinked in surprised. Out of the mist, a giant bridge had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

"Whoa." He heard Naruto whisper. "It's huge."

Sasuke glanced at Natsuki but found the other boy eyeing the shore slowly coming into view suspiciously. He searched the fog, he could just make out the outline of houses and trees, but nothing that looks overtly suspicious. Natsuki must have sensed something.

He tensed and glanced at their sensei.

The man nodded calmly, having noticed Natsuki's attention as well.

"We'll likely meet more enemies when we reach the shore." Kakashi-sensei murmured. "Prepare yourselves."

"What?" The boat driver whispered frantically. "But, we tried so hard to avoid detection. We cut the engine and travel through the fog."

Their client scowled and muttered a curse under his breath. Kakashi-sensei just shook his head.

"Your enemy is Gatō, but our enemies are the shinobi he hired." He spoke solemnly. "Judging from the last pair, whoever else Gatō has hired are probably also from Kiri. Kiri shinobi know fog. They thrive in it. Rather than hide us, this fog puts us at a disadvantage."

He looked at them. "Remember my training and orders. Kirigakure, from what our intelligence tells us, had a small rebellion a little while ago. So, right now they have a bit more missing nin than the rest of the villages. Unfortunately, one of them is a real piece of work. If we encounter him during this mission I want the three of you to not engage. I'll handle him."

"Who is he?" Natsuki asked quietly, his eyes still on the shore as they crossed through a dimly lit tunnel.

"Zabuza Momochi," Kakashi replied. "The Demon of the Hidden Mist."

Sakura groaned as she tried to push herself up into the push-up position, but her arms gave out and she collapsed into the dirt. Beside her, both Hasegawa and Kenta were still struggling through the workout despite their arms shaking breath coming out ragged.

"Sakura-chan, why have you stopped?" Her sensei questioned as his sandaled feet came into view. "A genin should be able to do a hundred and fifty push-ups as part of a warm-up. This is a basic endurance exercise."

She let out a shuddering breath nearly gagging at the taste of dirt in her mouth.

"I'm sorry sensei…I…I can't do it."

She watched as Hasegawa grit his teeth and do another one, his whole body shaking. She felt shame well inside her, but she couldn't. She just couldn't do it.

She hated this.

"I see." He coughed. "Then why don't you do a hundred sit-ups."

She closed her eyes as she rolled onto her back. She hated that the most. Her sensei never shouted at them. He never even scolded them. He always responded calmly with an "I see" or "Okay" before moving on to a different subject whenever Sakura couldn't do something.

It felt like he was judging her.

She groaned quietly as she began the sit-ups.

Everything hurt.

They had been doing work-outs like these for a full week now. She had never work-out like this even through-out the academy. She had put most of her attention on grades in the academic area rather than the physical aspects of being a shinobi. They had been given a training regimen to do every day at home and they always did warm-up before throwing and sparing, but nothing as intense as this. She was regretting skipping the training regimen as much as she did during the academy.

She made it through twenty before collapsing again.

"Just push through it," Hasegawa muttered.

"I can't." She replied between harsh breathes.

"That's enough." Their sensei cut in smoothly.

"Ok, break. Hasegawa-kun and Kenta-kun grab your water bottles and start stretching. Sakura-chan grab your water bottle and follow me."

"Yeeeesss," Hasegawa exclaimed as he collapsed gleefully in the dirt.

"Thank Kami." Kenta murmured.

Sakura didn't say anything. Her gut was twisting as she pulled herself to her feet slowly and trudged over to her pack for her water bottle. Already her mind was flickering through all of the different horrible things her sensei might say to her. She knew she was the weak link on the team. She couldn't do half of the physical things the other boys could. She failed at the exercises and failed at sparing. She stared at the flowery water bottle in despair.

Was he going to kick her off the team?

"Hey, it'll be fine."

She jumped at her teammate's voice. Kenta grinned at her tiredly as he dug through his backpack for his own water. Hasegawa shove her shoulder when he crawled passed her dramatically.

"He probably just wants to give you more training 'cause you suck."

"Chou!" Kenta exclaimed. "Don't be mean."

The blond just threw his water bottle at him.

Sakura giggled softly and shook her head. She stood slowly and made her way over to her sensei, who had been waiting patiently. He nodded to her and led her across the training field and out of earshot of her teammates. He sat down and patted the dirt beside him for her.

She hesitated briefly glancing at her teammates. Kenta gave her a thumbs up while Hasegawa just flipped her off. She scowled at him and sat down.

"You know, as morbid as it may sound I've noticed that training future shinobi seems to work best during war or conflict. Do you know why, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura paused, not expecting this type of conversation. "Um, well, because they training to go to war?"

"That's part of it." He coughed. "I think the main reason is motive, though."

"What do you mean?"

"When I was in the academy everyone in the room with me knew exactly what we were getting into. We were there to protect our village from our enemies or die trying." He stared up at the sky for a moment, before turning to her. "Sakura-chan, why did you want to become a shinobi?"

"I…" She looked down at her hands. It had been a long time since she had been asked that question.

Why did she join the academy?

She knew her parents weren't all that approving of it. Her father had continuously mentioned different jobs he thought were appropriate for young ladies through-out her academy years and her mother fretted and tutted whenever she came home with bruises and scrapes.

"I don't know." She murmured. She knew that she had stayed for Sasuke-kun, but she couldn't remember why she joined in the first place.

"You might want to think about it, Sakura-chan." Gekkō-sensei murmured. "Do you know why Hasegawa-kun and Kenta-kun are genin?"

She glanced at her teammates. They were going through the stretches their sensei had taught them their first day of training. Hasegawa was obviously ranting over something, while Kenta was nodding sympathetically like her usually did when he wasn't really listening to his shorter friend.

"Because they trained hard and know why they want to be shinobi." She guessed.

"No." Gekkō-sensei coughed. "It's because of you, Sakura-chan."

Her head snapped towards her sensei as she processed those words.

"What?"

"There was a different number of graduates this year than normal." He shrugged. "The Hokage tried to organize the teams, but there was at least one person left without a full team. So, in order to fill out the teams, the academy graduated two of the students who wouldn't normally make the cut in order to create a full team. Your team."

"They passed just because I needed a team?" Sakura couldn't help but repeat.

Gekkō-sensei chuckled at her incredulous look.

"That happens sometimes when there are odd numbers of students in academy. Some kids don't pass the test even if they technically passed it while others pass it even if they failed. There's a lot of political maneuvering involved. In your case, since the class was full of clan heirs the teams were pretty much already decided before you guys took the test. Since you passed with the highest written score in class, good scores on the chakra control and decent scores in the physical portion of the exam they couldn't justify failing you, so they passed those two even though neither did very well overall."

"That isn't fair!"

He laughed. "Perhaps not but things rarely are, especially in a shinobi village. In any case, you guys are a team now."

Sakura frowned as she looked back over at her teammates. Hasegawa was doing a full split that made Sakura wince at the other boy's flexibility and looked like he was trying to goad Kenta into doing it as well, but the other boy was having none of it and kept shaking his head as he continued stretching.

"How did I pass when I'm not as good as them?"

"All we've been doing so far is strength and endurance training. You'll most likely be better at them when we move onto chakra control and other things."

Sakura scowled. "So, I'm just not as strong as them?"

"Right now? Yes." He replied easily, making her even more annoyed. "But, it doesn't have to stay that way Sakura-chan."

She glanced up at him when he patted her head awkwardly.

"Find your reason to be a shinobi Sakura-chan. It doesn't have to be fancy or creative. It can be very simple. You just have to believe in it completely. It should be something worth fighting for." He coughed roughly, before continuing. "Being a shinobi is a harsh life, Sakura-chan. It involves pain, death and greif. There will be times when you will have to push passed all of that to continue forward, to continue fighting even when you are exhausted. If you are going to continue being my student I want to make sure you understand and accept that."

She looked down at her hands.

Her nails, that she had spent so much time perfecting in the academy, were chipped and broken. Her knuckles were bruised and her palms scraped.

A part of her wanted to quit. She didn't get to be on Sasuke-kun's team and training was really hard. She went home in pain and woke up very sore every morning. Maybe she should just go work at a nice shop like her dad wanted or finish civilian school like her mom wanted. It would be a lot easier and less painful.

But…

She glanced up at Hasegawa and Kenta who were now roughhousing. Or more accurately, Hasegawa was swinging wildly Kenta, who was holding him back fairly easily with one arm. They were her teammates now. She had spent a full week suffering through training with them. Their hands were probably just as scraped and bruised as her own, probably even more so because they had been throwing their all into training.

"Yes, sensei." She said quietly.

They reach the docks with little trouble. Their client talked quietly with the boat driver, thanking him professing for risking himself as they rest of them remained on alert eying the houses and tree line for any movement. Sasuke kept one hand on his weapons pouch as he ran through the jutsus he knew. Once the boat driver had left they continued onward to Tazuna-san's house further in the woods.

Sasuke eyed the forest around them with a critical eye as they walked. The smaller tree allowed them to see further than they normally could in the Konoha forests, but there was still some lingering fog that put him on edge after Kakashi's comment on the boat.

Natsuki was on point in front of the client, while Sasuke and Naruto were on either side and Kakashi-sensei brought up the rear.

Natsuki kept tilting his head and looking around as if he was trying to pinpoint a noise that no one else could hear. He very well might be for all Sasuke knew. He didn't really understand how the whole chakra or emotion sensing went.

Suddenly, about ten minutes into their march Natsuki froze his eyes darting to the trees to their left before he snapped his head to the right. Sasuke gripped his kunai tightly from within his weapons pack.

"Sensei." Natsuki barely managed to get the word out, before he suddenly shouted in tandem with Kakashi-sensei. "Get Down!"

Sasuke dove to the ground while gripping Tazuna-san's sleeve to pull him with him out of danger. He felt the whoosh of displaced air as something huge went over them. He pull himself into a crouch shifting in front of their client as her turned to see the huge sword now imbedded in a nearby tree and the shinobi on top of that sword.

He swallowed heavily as he tried to figure out how deeply impeded the sword must be to be able to be able to hold a grown man and how strong the man on top of it must be for throwing it that hard.

"Zabuza Momochi." Kakashi-sensei looked unfazed as he stood in front of them calmly with a hand still in his pocket.

Sasuke glanced at his teammates as he slowly stood up. Naruto was on the other side of their still crouching client, while Natsuki had moved closer to his left side. All of them eyed the man still turned away from them waiting for his next move.

Sasuke saw Kakashi-sensei's hand slowly move to his head band and was shocked when the man actually started to pull up for the first time since he had met the man.

"Kakashi Hatake of the Sharingan." Zabuza murmured just loud enough for them to hear.

Sasuke frowned in confusion at the mention of his clans prized Kekkai Genkai. The missing-nin turned to look at them over his shoulder, his dark eyes sent an unwilling shiver down his spine.

"Just hand over the old man. He's all that I'm here for."

"Sorry, my cute little kiddies decided to complete this mission, so it looks like we can't do that," Kakashi-sensei replied. Sasuke couldn't prevent his annoyance at the man's use of that stupid nickname for them despite the situation, but he straightened when their sensei addressed them. "Guard our client and stay out of this battle."

"Yes, sensei." They replied in unison, though Sasuke noticed Natsuki sounded a bit hesitate.

He glanced at the boy, noting how pale he was as he watched their sensei slowly remove his headband from coving his left eye. Remembering what Zabuza said, Sasuke turned his eyes toward the newly revealed eye. He felt the breath leave him when the man finally opened his eye, revealing a familiar black dotted red eye. He barely noticed Natsuki flinch and take a step back beside him even when he accidently brushed his shoulder.

"You know we had a standing order back in Kiri to kill you on sight, Hatake. I always wanted a piece of you. The man who copied over a thousand jutsus." Zabuza chuckled. "A mighty opponent indeed. I'm glad I finally get the chance to test my strength on you. Give me a good fight, Hatake and maybe I'll let your brats live."

As he spoke mist slowly started to infuse the area. Sasuke tried to pull his eyes away from his sensei and focus on his surroundings, but he found it difficult after seeing his clan's jutsu in the eye of someone obviously not of his clan. Every cell in him rejected the idea. He had grown up with horrifying tales of enemy shinobi trying to steal their clan's eyes. Those stories stuck with him even today.

He was jerked out of his thoughts by the missing-nin jumping onto the lake just off of the path they had been following. He wondered if they should take their client and make a break towards his house while Kakashi-sensei fought, but he wasn't sure if there would be more powerful enemies waiting in the mist.

He glanced at his teammates. Naruto was in a defense position with a kunai out to the right of the client. Sasuke moved to the front of the old man and glanced at Natsuki, only to find the other boy looking silently at their sensei with a strangely blank look on his face. His eyes…

Sasuke had noticed that the boys eye's tended to change color based on his mood, but he had never seem the boys eyes as red before. He froze for a moment watching as the boys thin pupil's contract and dilate for a moment like a cat's or a...

He tore his eyes away feeling unsettled.

Those eyes didn't seem human.

He shook himself to attention as the mist suddenly got a lot heavier. His eyes widened when he realized that Zabuza had vanished into the mist.

"Stay alert." Kakashi murmured.

A flood of killing intent washed over the area and Sasuke flinch, but stood his ground even though his hand shook. A thought crossed his mind and he turned to Natsuki once more, only to find the boy on his knees clutching his head just like that day Kakashi-sensei had used killing intent to test him. He forced himself to take a step towards the boy, but a chuckle made him freeze as the cold touch of a blade brushed passed him.

He looked behind over his shoulder in horror as Zabuza seemed to appear out of nowhere behind them. Now he was between them and their opponent.

"The reactions of little genin to their first taste of killing intent is always amusing." The man chuckled. "What do you say Hatake? How about I get rid of the weak link here."

Sasuke's eyes widened as he saw the blade get closer to the still knelling Natsuki.

"No!" Naruto shouted, throwing his kunai at the man's face.

Kakashi swooped in with his own kunai in hand stabbing the man in the gut. Only for it to turn out to be a water clone. Zabuza appeared again from nowhere slashing at Kakashi who also exploded into a splash of water.

Sasuke watched in awe as his sensei maneuvered behind the missing nin with a kunai at his throat.

"You will not harm my students." He spoke calmly, but his eyes were steel.

"Huh, it looks like you got me." The man shrugged despite the blade at his neck.

Then he exploded into water as another appeared behind their sensei once more sending him flying with a sharp kick. Kakashi threw a volley of kunai at the man as he flew back and flipped skillfully into the water of the lake.

Zabuza rushed after him dodging the kunai with ease. Kakashi popped out of the water…or at least tried too. Sasuke saw him struggle for a brief second before Zabuza was on him with foreign hand signs. Suddenly their sensei was encased in a sphere of water. Sasuke took a step back making sure he was still in front of their client and glanced down at his two teammates. Naruto was now next to Natsuki who hand managed to lift his head, but was looking worse for wear.

Stupid. Stupid.

He knew about Natsuki's issue with killing intent. He knew it would be an issue in battle and the boy was working with their sensei on it. He should have known he would freeze up during a critical battle and should have been prepared to cover him.

He gripped his kunai tightly as he watched Zabuza make another water clone.

Naruto jumped in front of his brother with wide eyes, but a steady grip on his blade.

"Little upstarts like you are a joke to all shinobi." The clone kick Naruto aside with ease knocking the boy's headband from his head and stomping on it to make a point. "You don't know what real shinobi life is. You're just pathetic brats."

"Run!" Kakashi shouted, his voice distorted but still hearable. "He can't send his clone too far away from him right now! Get our client out of here and run!"

"You won't be able to get away." The clone chuckled as he approached Natsuki. "I'll do you a favor and end your pathetic life before you realize what it means to be a shinobi."

Natsuki continued to knell his eyes wide and dilated.

Sasuke moved before his mind could process what he was doing. "Dammit, move you, stupid orange haired idiot! A little killing intent won't kill you, but this guy will!"

He shoved the boy out of the way and released the jutsu his hands had flown threw the signs for.

"Great Fireball Jutsu!"

That seemed to kick both his teammates into action as the clone leaped away from the attack even though it was at point blank range.

His teammates both leaped to their feet and flanked him with weapons out.

"I told you to run!" Their sensei shouted, looking more panicked than Sasuke had thought was possible for the sarcastic man.

"No way!" Naruto snapped. "You're the one who told us never to leave a teammate behind 'cause that's scummy!"

"I'm fairly certain you just butchered his phrase," Natsuki muttered as his eyes flickered around the area restlessly still looking rather pale and strained.

"Shut-up!"

Some of the tension left his shoulders at the return of the twin's usual banter.

"Cute." The clone words were dripping with sarcasm. "But, cuteness won't stop me from slaughtering you."

"We need a plan." Sasuke murmured under his breath.

"No kidding," Naruto muttered back. "And I want my headband back."

"We can do something similar to what we did at the bell test." Natsuki murmured.

"We couldn't even manage to lay a hand on Kakashi-sensei then." Sasuke scowled. "What makes you think we could defeat him?"

"Our goal isn't to defeat him." Natsuki glanced behind the clone to where their sensei was still being held captive.

"I get it." Naruto nodded with a grin. "If we free Kakashi-sensei, then Kakashi-sensei can defeat this crazy guy."

"Are you kids done?" The clone mocked. He hadn't moved at all during their conversation. The obvious dismissal of them as any sort of threat made Sasuke's heckles rise.

"Wait. I have an idea."

Sasuke glanced at Naruto, noting the wicked grin on his face.

"Trust me, ok?"

Sasuke glanced at Natsuki who looked slightly exasperated but nodded anyway before nodding himself. He didn't think he could defeat the man on his own, so he really had no choice but to trust his wayward and endlessly annoying teammates.

"Alright! Let's kick this guy's butt!" Naruto cracked his knuckles and tried to look as confident as possible, but Sasuke could still see his hands shaking slightly when he move them into a now familiar hand sign.

They were suddenly surrounded by Naruto's clones. Natsuki disappeared into the crowd with a barely visible ripple as an illusion slipped over him. Sasuke didn't flinch as a Naruto clone slipped a couple of fūma shuriken into his hand while the rest charge past him in a loud heckling frenzy of blond haired idiots.

He noticed the difference immediately and smirked. So, that was his idea.

The clone threw all of the Naruto clones off of him with a wide sweep of his giant sword, but missed the smaller Uzumaki twin, coming under his guard till it was too late and he had a kunai in his gut.

As the clone exploded into water Sasuke threw the two fūma shuriken, straight towards the real Zabuza.

He grabbed the first one like expected and leaped over the second.

Sasuke smirked and released a volley of shuriken with Natsuki as Naruto threw his kunai from behind after releasing his disguise as the second fūma shuriken.

Face with weapons from both sides, Zabuza has no choice but to release Kakashi and jump away.

Sasuke's joy at the victory was cut short when the man appeared before Naruto with rage in his face and fūma shuriken in hand. Kakashi-sensei, however, recovered just in time to stop the blade.

"Naruto," Kakashi-sensei ordered. "Get back to shore."

With wide eyes and a frantic nodded the blond scurried over the water and back to them on the shore. The three of them returned to their position in front of their client as the two more powerful shinobi started squaring up to one another once more. Another wave of killing intent washed over the area making Sasuke shiver. He felt Natsuki shaking like a leaf beside him, but the other boy remained upright with his eyes fixed on the two shinobi.

His eyes were that eerie red again as they seemed to fix on Kakashi-sensei's sharingan.

Sasuke shivered for an entirely different reason this time.

There was something off about the twins.

He forced himself to look away from the other boy's eyes and focus on the battle himself as he tried to push the millions of questions to the back of his mind. Instead of dwelling on them, he watched his clans Kekkei Genkai in action for the first time in many years.

"Water Style: Water Dragon Jutsu."

The resulting wave from the huge water dragons nearly sent them flying, but the three of them managed to hold their ground even if their client got knocked over. The old man muttered curses under his breath as he pull himself back to his feet with Naruto's help.

Sasuke, himself, now couldn't take his eyes off of the dueling water dragons. He couldn't wait until he managed to activate his own sharingan. It was an amazing sight to see his sensei copy the missing nin's exact movements at the exact same time as if he could read the other man's mind.

From the tales of his former clan members he knew that the masters of the Sharingan might as well be reading minds.

(Like his brother. The traitor.)

He winced at the thought before having to steady his stance again as his sensei released another powerful water jutsu that send Zabuza flying away in the flood of water the jutsu created.

The water cleared and they all watched in shock as a new shinobi struck down Zabuza right when Kakashi was about to finish him off.

"A tracker shinobi from Kiri?" Kakashi-sensei questioned.

Sasuke couldn't take his eyes off of the dead Zabuza. The man's eyes were wide and now blank in death. He held back a shiver and repressed his memories in order to follow the conversation with the new shinobi.

"Yes, you're well informed. It was my duty to stop Zabuza. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to finish my mission."

Sasuke frowned as he looked over the shinobi. He didn't sound much older than himself and his teammates.

"We spent so much effort to take him down and this guy just takes him out, just like that." Naruto muttered quietly.

Sasuke shook his head in agreement, while Natsuki sighed.

The shinobi jumped down to Zabuza's body and pulled it up onto his smaller shoulders. "I must dispose of the body. Thank you again for aiding my mission."

The two disappeared in a swirl of leafs.

"Well, I supposed that's over." Kakashi-sensei shook his head. "In any case, we need to get our bridge builder back to his house."

Their client laughed nervously. "Trust me, I am forever grateful for you guys sticking around. Please, stay and rest at my house. It's really not far from here."

"I could use a bed." Naruto grinned.

"Alright, lets-" Kakashi started before stopping suddenly.

Sasuke tensed wary of another shinobi appearing, but their sensei just swayed slightly before collapsing.

"KAKASHI-SENSEI!"

Kurama sat quietly beside his unconscious sensei. They had reach the bridge builders house easily enough despite dragging their sensei's unconscious body. Night had fallen and his brother and the Uchiha were asleep in the other room.

But, Kurama couldn't sleep.

Kurama had grown fond of a select number of humans during his time as one himself. His brother, of course, was someone he had grown to care about a great deal. In fact, he would most likely label him his most important person.

If someone would have told him that he'd grow to care for some humans before he was taken captive by Konoha or even during his captivity he would have killed them for their insolence. Yet, despite his initial horror over interacting with other humans, he had grown fond of several of them. The Hokage, as wily and secretive as he was still held a place in Kurama's new human heart, along with Iruka and his classmates Shikamaru and Choji. However, the human he was closest to beside his brother was, in fact, the same Anbu that had continuously visited him throughout childhood and had helped him through the worst of his nightmares. That human turned out to be Kakashi, who later became Kakashi-sensei to him.

Before today, Kurama would have easily said that he trusted the man.

He was the only one, besides Naruto, that he had considered telling the absolute truth about who he was and his situation.

Now…

He had been so shocked when Kakashi revealed his eye he could barely think and the killing intent only muddled his mind further.

(He had been minding his own business up in the mountains he had called home for a few decades. Dusk had just fall and he was looking fondly up at the full silver moon and the twinkling stars above him. He had felt the man approach. He had felt his tormented chakra twisting and churning inside of him. He ignored him for a time, before turning his attention to the tiny human bellow him silently waiting for acknowledgment. That was his mistake. The man had no time for small talk. Those eyes. Those horrible red eyes trapped him. He could only watch in horror as he was used as a common weapon against the man's opponent.)

He brought his knees to his chest and pressed his head down on them.

He didn't want to remember that.

He hated remember the loss of control.

The fear and horror of watching as his body moved on its own.

He lifted his head and glared at the unconscious man in front of him. Every time he looked at him he felt an irrational feeling of betrayal course through him, tangled with age-old rage at the remembrance of what those eyes did to him.

Why did he have to have one of those damn eyes?

He hated those eyes.

I trusted you.

Wow, that was really long. Hoped you guys enjoyed it, though it probably has more grammar issue than normal because it's a monstrosity to edit. Sorry. :/

I've been writing off and on between assignments but finally found the time to sit down and finish it today. The Zabuza fight is kind of by the numbers, but I couldn't see this one being too different even with Kurama. Now the next fight should definitely be different from canon. Honestly, though, this arc is kind of hard to write because there isn't a lot of wiggle room. I still have a few ideas, though, so we'll see how it plays out. I'm looking forward to the chunin arc, though. I already have a bunch of scenes written and let me tell you shit goes down during the chunin exam.

As always your reviews are simply awesome. Some of them really made me laugh too. 'Bruh' is apparently calling the team "Hook, line and sinker", which is hilarious. And I love the ideas from both Wolf Guardian Miestwin (I think I might write a little short with Kakashi getting sassy with the fox puns and references. Maybe next chapter, I'll add it at the end. ) and shewhocan'twrite. It's super awesome to read ideas like that and gets me thinking about future events in the story. So thanks!