Enjoy...

Both Haku and Naruto had decided to go to their favourite spot, the top of a nearby hill which had large trees and bushes, making it easy for anyone to find a decent hiding spot if and when needed. It also had one of the most stunning views in the whole of the wave country. Contrary to what people might think, the two of them kept their personal lives separate from their shinobi lives. In battle they could be heartless and relentless, but when not in battle and with those they cared about, which was very, very few, they were indeed, very sweet people. Enjoying both the beauty of nature and having a laugh with each other. At first, the two were just friends, then they became best friends, their friendship leading to a brotherly-sisterly bond. But lately, they had become closer, much closer. Whenever they could, they would spend time alone together, with Zabuza knowing of course, as they wouldn't keep anything from him, and he approved. He knew that they wouldn't want to do anything to defy him, and secretly, he did want them to be happy, but he would never tell them that.

The 'devil's demons' would often muck around, even sometimes pulling pranks and they always got away with them as there was no-one who could catch them, with the exception of Zabuza, though he enjoyed the reactions of others who were affected by the pranks. Again, he would never let the two know, but he would praise them sometimes for it.

Currently, Haku and Naruto were sitting at the top of the hill, gazing out into the distance, enjoying each others company and the pleasant silence. The two of them were wearing their off-the-job clothes. Haku was wearing a wrap around dress which ended at her knees and it had sleeves which reached her elbows. It was a light shade of pink with a slightly darker shade of pink petals on it. She wore a simple pair of wooden sandals and her hair was down, reaching near the bottom of her back. Naruto was wearing a plain black fitted t-shirt and a pair of slightly baggy jeans. He wore a pair of black and white trainers on his feet and he wore a short chain around his neck which had a sharks tooth dangling from it. His hair was the same as it would always be; slightly long and spiky, with the right half being slightly longer and therefore it flopped slightly down, covering most of his right eye, but not quite interfering with his eyesight.

Haku looked slyly over at Naruto and when he didn't look back, she quickly did some handseals with her right hand so that he wouldn't be able to see them, she then mentally said 'ice element: growing ice' which resulted in Naruto's hair and eyebrows turning into ice as the water molecules froze. Naruto immediately felt the cold and quickly felt his would-be hair and smiled as he realised that he had just been pranked, so he decided to get his own back so he did a couple of handseals with his left and mentally said 'wind element: fury gust' which ended with a strong gust of wind blowing Haku's hair behind her and when the wind was gone, her was stuck in the upright-gravity-defying style. The two looked at each other and burst out laughing due to both of their appearances. This went on for a couple of minutes until they stopped as they both needed to breath. They then sat there staring at each other, deep into the others eyes, until it began getting awkward, but neither of them could look away, until Naruto cleared his throat and looked back out into the distance, Haku followed shortly.

"You know… I've been thinking and I've come up with another prank we could pull off." Naruto began, with a sparkle in his eye.

"Oh really? Do tell."

"Well, first we…" Naruto began to explain with his smile spreading across his face, forming his infamous cheeky-fox grin. Haku's eyes closed, turning into upside down 'U' shapes, meaning that she likes the idea. So the two set off into the nearby town to carry out the prank.

Half and hour later and the two of them returned to their spot, about to burst out laughing when they heard something from behind. Out of the bushes came Zabuza. When he noticed the state in which the two were in, he inquired as to why they were.

"Come with us and we'll show you otou-san." So Zabuza followed obediently. He was lead to a farm which was situated at the southern point of a town. When there, Naruto pointed towards a farmer and two men in their late teens who looked like they were stuck in a position, but he didn't quite know why.

"We put a genjutsu on a big pile manure which they had there. When the farmer guy came out of the barn, he noticed that it wasn't there, so he walked over to the spot only to find that he had become stuck in something which couldn't be seen. Then the other two guys noticed and they went over to him and ended up getting stuck as well. They'll never be able to get that stench out of their clothes…" Both of the two teens then put their hands up to their mouths as they tried to compress their laughter.

Zabuza, on the other hand, wanted to see more, so he released the genjutsu, making the manure seeable again. The three captives then saw in horror what they were stuck in, their faces looked like they had seen a ghost. He grinned a small smile, barely visible before picking the two teens up in his arms as he could see that they wouldn't be able to keep their laughter in for much longer.

When they were a safe distance from the farm, Zabuza stopped and placed the kids down on the ground. They had been laughing for the whole run and now they were just wiping away the last of their tears from their eyes. They then looked up at Zabuza, waiting to hear what he was going to say.

"… Hn… Nice work…" He then ruffled both their hairs. Upon noticing Naruto's hair being wet he held his now-wet hand up questionably. Haku began to snicker to herself, so Naruto spoke.

"Haku froze my hair and eyebrows when I wasn't looking, so when it melted, well… you get the idea." Zabuza just shook his head sideways at their antics. It was so typical of them to come up with this.

Back with team seven…

They had been traveling for three days now and they had finally reached the house of Tazuna. But not without getting themselves stuck in more trouble as three more shinobi had popped out and attacked them But the three were eventually defeated, but not without consequence as Kasa was injured and at the moment, out cold. He had been carried on Kakashi's back until they had reached the house, where he had been laid down in a bed to rest properly. Tsunami had come up to check up on him and found out that he had had a rather high temperature, so she had stayed up there to tend to him, only having breaks where Sakura would come up and help.

Kasa wasn't fairing too well, so the team decided to hire a local doctor, who came as soon as he could and helped to tend to the boy. The doctor had told the team that Kasa was suffering from a lack of healthy marrow in him. He also had slight blood poisoning and that it was best if he kept off his feet for a couple of weeks. The real shocker was that the doctor had warned them that Kasa probably wouldn't be able to stay as a shinobi as he shouldn't to anything too physical or nerve-racking. The rest of the team mourned the loss (he's not dead) of their teammate, but that just made them even more determined to complete the mission. No matter what, this mission would be completed one way or another.

Kakashi then took his two last subordinates downstairs for breakfast. Once done, he had told them that they would be meeting out in the woods to improve their chakra control for further battles which would undoubtedly be in their near future on this mission.

"But sensei, how are we going to improve our chakra control?" Sakura questioned.

"By climbing trees…"

"Climbing trees?! How the heck will that help us?!"

"I'll show you when we get started with your training."

About half an hour later, the two genins were at the allocated area, which was in the middle of the forest, in a part which had many extremely tall trees in. Just then, Kakashi appeared, with his book in his hand. "Yo!"

"So, sensei… are you going to tell us how climbing trees is gonna help us."

Kakashi placed his book carefully back into it's special pocket before looking up (well, down) at his team. "Simple, by climbing the trees without the use of your hands…"

"How on earth could we do that?!"

"I wasn't done talking. Now, as I was saying, by releasing the correct amount of chakra from the soles of your feet, you'll be able to stick to the surface which you want to walk on. If you release to o little, then you have no hope at staying on and if you release too much, then you'll damage the surface and again, you'll have no hope at staying on, therefore falling off. So here, "Kakashi threw a pair of kunai at the two genins, "Use these to mark on the trees where you reach. This will allow you to see how well you are doing, how much you've improved and where your target is."

"Umm, sensei… could you show us how to do it first?"

"Okay, but only once." Kakashi then put his hands together into the seal of the ram and the soles of his feet began to glow blue and so he began to walk towards the tree. When he placed his first foot on the tree, his body instantly became parallel to the ground as he carried on walking up the tree, both of his students had there jaws hanging in awe of their sensei. Kakashi soon came down again and smiled at his students. "Good luck." And with that, he was gone in a poof.

However, lurking in the bushes were two certain people; Haku and Naruto, who had decided to spy on the supposed team guarding their target. They wanted to see how good they were, and they were loving what they were seeing; the genins didn't even know how to climb trees up until now, and now they were just beginning to learn. Though they knew that the teams sensei was one of the top jounins in the whole of the fire country, so they were slightly weary of him, though they had no doubt that they could take him.

"Man, I thought that we might have a bit of a challenge, but look at them, they're pathetic." Naruto whispered in a voice only just loud enough for Haku to hear.

"I know what you mean. I kinda feel sorry for them."

"Yeah…"

"That reminds me, I heard that they were from Konoha, isn't that where you were from?"

"…" Silence.

"Hey, Naruto, are you okay?" Haku placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and she felt that he was very tense, thus indicating that he was, indeed, from Konoha, and that he still had a grudge against the village and she couldn't blame him. She knew fully what had happened and it sickened her. She couldn't believe how he had been treated, his story made her both enraged and sad. When she had heard the story for the first time, she had been made even more thankful to Zabuza for taking them both in, even though he knew very well what they were.

Haku stood up and walked up behind Naruto, sitting down behind him, placing her head on his shoulder and her arms round him. She felt his tenseness began to slowly decrease. Her heartbeat, which had been on high, finally began to slow down and she let out a long sigh of breath as she realised that she had been holding her breath.

Naruto then decided to break the eerie silence, "Should we go and introduce ourselves?"

Haku turned Naruto's head so that she could look at him to see if he was being serious or not. When she saw that he was, she nodded so the two stood up, but before they got any further, Naruto put a hand out to stop Haku. "Wait." Naruto put his hands together and mumbled 'Kage Bunshin No Jutsu' and there, in a poof of smoke, appeared a clone of Naruto. Naruto then used a Henge to change the appearance of the clone, from that of Naruto to that of a small brown dog. "Perfect." The dog then started to run in the direction of team seven. About a minute after the 'dog' had left, Naruto whispered 'Now follow my lead,' and with that, they headed in the same direction as the dog.

Back with team seven…

Sakura had managed to reach the top of her tree, so she sat on one of the branches near the middle of the trees, watching Sasuke carrying on with his training; he had only been able to reach the mid point of the tree, but decided to stay on the highest branch he could reach to rest on. Just then, the two shinobi hear some barking so they looked down to find that a small brown dog was running like it was chasing something. They thought it strange but decided that it was nothing. About a minute later, they heard to people come running in the same direction as the dog. When the two came to the clearing, Sasuke and Sakura saw that it was just a boy and a girl, probably about their age. The two stopped in the clearing to catch their breath. They were both panting and had their hands on their knees.

"He's gotta be around him somewhere. I thought I heard him running this direction…" The boy said in between breaths.

Sasuke and Sakura both jumped down from their branches and gave the two panting teens a slight shock.

"Hi there… you're not from around here, are you?" Said the blond.

"No, how could you tell?" Replied Sakura.

"Your head band thing. It hasn't got those wavy lines on like everyone else's'. Yours kinda looks like a leaf with a swirl." The other girl responded.

"Yeah, we're from the fire country. So, what are your names?" Sakura questioned, she was doing the talking as Sasuke was never the one to talk willingly.

"I'm Naruto, and this is Haku. You?"

"I'm Sakura and this is my sweet Sasuke?"

"You two going out?" Haku asked.

Sasuke's face turned from bored to annoyed in a split second. "No way!" Sakura frowned but quickly recovered. "So, why were you guys running?"

"Oh yeah, we were looking for our dog, Enkai. You wouldn't have happened to come across him? He's small and brown with cute little ears which hung down." Haku said.

"Yes, we did actually, he ran that way." Sakura said as she pointed in the direction in which the 'dog' had run.

"Thank you…" Naruto and Haku were now both off to find their 'dog'. Sakura waved them good bye and Sasuke carried on with his training.

Back with Naruto and Haku…

The two were now about a mile away when they stopped, the 'dog' had long ago poofed away. They looked at each other and smiled.

"Well… they were kinda nice…" Haku began.

"Hn… I suppose, but that's because they didn't know who I was, if they did, I'm sure they would have treated me like every other bastard from that damned place!"

"I'm sure they wouldn't… As far as I know, it was only the older folks who… you know… did that to you…"

"Yeah right, I still have my doubts, but you could be right…" Naruto said as he placed his hands behind his head and leaned against a tree. He closed his eyes and began to dose off slightly but was interrupted by Haku.

"Naruto…"

"Yeah?" Naruto said as he opened his left eye slightly, gazing at Haku.

"Forget about those two…"

"Sure thing." Naruto then closed his left eye again, but felt something in front of him and when he opened his eyes, he smiled. Haku and shifted herself so that she was sitting in between his legs, leaning on him with her back. Naruto moved his hands from the back of his head hand placed them round the waist of Haku. The two of them then dosed off.

Wow, this was way longer then the previous two chapters... I hope you liked it as much as I enjoyed writing it...