Okay. There's not much to say this time. I'm not going to throw out any spoilers or anything right now either, so tough luck there. Hmm, anything else I need to say right now…. Ah, just one more thing. Again, I'd like to thank all of you who have sent in reviews, given suggestions, or are just a part of the hits counter for this story. Seeing all of these things is keeping up my optimism for writing this story.

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Za Kaze Shokkou: A Naruto AU Fanfiction.

Written by: Cloud1239999

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. It is as simple as that. I'm only writing this story for both my personal and the enjoyment of others. I do not intend to make any form of money off of this story. If however you do see reason to sue you will find no money within my pockets. That's right; I'm a 21 year old with no money and still living with my parents. :P

Rated: M (For Swearing, Gore, and any other mature thing that may show up including a possible future lemon ((Don't know this one for sure)). Reader Discretion is advised.)

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It was just over a weak after the encounter with the demon brothers, and all the members of the two teams stared. There was not much else that they could do when the bridge came into view for the first time. Tazuna and the driver of the boat watched the ninjas' reactions with smug smiles on their faces. Naruto was the first one to say anything, and to the surprise of Team Seven, it wasn't shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Now that's a big bridge…" And so it was. The bridge stood at what could've been estimated to be about twenty five feet tall with supports that were estimated to be ten inches thick.

"It is quite impressive, isn't it?" Tazuna asked while still wearing the smug smile. Naruto and the others turned towards the proud man wearing sweatdrops on the back of their heads. Well, at least the gennin did.

"Biggest bridge I've ever seen." Asuma answered with a nod of his head while turning towards Tazuna.

"I've seen one just as large in Stone Country, but it is impressive nonetheless." Was Kakashi's answer as he went back to his perverted book.

At this point while the other gennin decided to turn back to the bridge for a bit, Naruto decided to pull back out one of his scrolls and read for a bit as Sasuke watched curiously.

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A half hour later, the boat finally pulled up to land.

"Well, this is where I leave." The boatman said.

"Thank you for your help." Tazuna said with a small bow.

"Thanks." Chorused some of the others.

Naruto with his head still buried in his scroll just lifted one hand and waved. This caused the boatman to chuckle as he finally turned on his motor and left.

From here the two teams and their client started walking along a trail. After a few minutes Tazuna decided to speak up.

"About an hours walk from here, we will arrive at my home. There we have enough room for all of you, though that will be a tough squeeze unless we do it right."

As the team continued on Sasuke's curiosity finally got the better of him, and he wound up surprising his team mates by starting a conversation.

"What are you reading there Dobe?" Everyone there except Tazuna knew that there was only one person there he referred to by that name. Naruto snorted before answering.

"Not that it's any of your business, but I'm reviewing one of my scrolls on elemental manipulation. I can already manipulate my affinity, but I'm reading how manipulations of other elements work. I figure that in the future it might give me enough insight to help me survive against other elemental manipulators." Kakashi's visible eyebrow rose as he heard this. Other then Asuma, Hinata and Shikamaru, nobody else knew of the difficulty of such a thing, so they didn't react in any way. This was also noticed by Kakashi.

"So how long have you been able to do elemental manipulation Naruto? Most ninja don't have the chakra reserves or control to do that sort of thing until they're at least high-chuunin to mid jounin in rank after all."

"I started when I was seven and a half years old. I finished learning my elemental manipulation by the time I turned eight." Let's just say that Sasuke wasn't the only person blinking at him owlishly. Naruto's team mates never knew that he learned it that fast. Asuma being the only person there to know, or remember in Kakashi's case, that detail. It took the two teams another minute to recover from the shock before everybody continued on.

It was another few minutes of walking in silence until Naruto and Kakashi both thought they heard a slight rustle in the bushes just ahead of the trail. Naruto was the first to react though. He quickly closed his scroll with a snapping noise and threw it in the air as both of his hands went to pouches on each of his legs, both hands were quick to come out throwing one kunai each. Two thunks were heard at the same time as his scroll landed in his hand, which he quickly pocketed. Except for the Jounin's everybody was confused as to Naruto's actions. When they looked back ahead, they saw a white rabbit hop out of the bushes where the Kunai went.

Ino went pale in the face when she saw the rabbit and was just turning to yell at Naruto when Naruto spoke first. "No winter rabbit should be white at this time of year."

That statement caused the two sensei to glance at each other in realization. "EVERYBODY HIT THE GROUND." As Kakashi yelled that he dove to the ground, pulling Tazuna with him. Everybody else got to the ground in their own ways, and just in time too as a huge sword spinning like a saw blade flew over their heads and stuck itself into the tree that the rabbit ran out from under.

As the ninja all quickly got to their feet, a man appeared standing on what they saw to be a very large sword. Asuma and Kakashi recognized the sword as a Zanbatou. The man was tall. Naruto estimated him to be a few inches taller than Kakashi, who was the tallest of the leaf ninja there. He had a messy head of black hair that was held back by a slashed mist headband, the bottom half of his face and his neck were wrapped with bandages to act as a mask. He wore no shirt, a pair of winter-camouflage pants and black ninja sandals. He stared down at the group of ninja and one civilian. He chuckled to himself before speaking aloud.

"Well, I'll be. It's a group of little baby ninjas and two babysitters." He chuckled to himself as Sasuke growled resulting in Kakashi placing his hand on Sasuke's shoulder to stop him from doing anything rash. "Normally I work alone on these missions, but since there are two babysitters I decided to bring a friend." As the man finished his sentence a whistling sound came from behind them causing the group to scatter, with Kakashi grabbing Tazuna before jumping into the nearest tree.

It was a good thing that they moved too, since only seconds after they evacuated the spot it was covered in potholes from exploding kunai. Naruto looked back and forth between the two ninja that had of attacked them so far. The second ninja stood in the center of the trail behind them. He wasn't wearing a ninja uniform that Naruto could see. All that could be seen of the man were cold, green eyes glowing slightly underneath a grey hat, and the rest couldn't be seen underneath a large bulging cloak that he or she (Naruto wasn't sure which) wore. Asuma and Kakashi seemed to have decided to take on one of the ninja each. As they stepped towards their targets Naruto started to get the feeling that there was someone who was staring at the back of his head. Since his back was facing away from both of the enemy ninja, he figured that there must be another person yet. He couldn't feel any hostile intentions yet though so he continued to focus on what was happening with the other two enemy nin's.

"So I see that's it is the infamous Momochi Zabuza, the demon of the hidden mist. Famous for going overboard during his academy test killing his whole graduating class at the age of eight." Kakashi said this as he got a closer look at the missing-nin.

Zabuza just looked like he zoned out for a second before saying something that spooked out all of the leaf ninja. "Ah yes, those were such good memories. The feeling of my classmate's blood running over my hands as I tore out the last ones throat with my bare hands." A shiver ran down not only Naruto's spines, but those of all "Well, that's enough reminiscing. We're here to take out the old man there so I'll have to ask you to step out of the way, or we will have to kill all of you." Naruto and Shikamaru both snorted to that statement. Naruto turned his head from his sideways position to Zabuza.

"You'd just kill us anyways. After all, you don't want us reporting to kiri hunter-nin that you're in this area." Zabuza laughed at Naruto's statement.

"Smart brat, though that intelligence may have just given me a reason to kill you first." With that said, Zabuza charged with surprising speed towards Naruto. Before either jounin sensei could react Zabuza's sword had of already completed the over head slice that would of cut Naruto in half if it hadn't of been dodged with a quick sidestep. "Heh, smart and fast. Maybe my little spy was correct about you possibly being the biggest threat on your team." Naruto's eyebrows rose in surprise, but he didn't have time to dwell on it as he was forced to dodge another attack just before the Zabuza in front of him burst into water from the kunai that Kakashi stuck in it's back.

"Are you alright?" At Naruto's nod Kakashi turned to the lake a short distance away and watched while lifting up his forehead protector to reveal the Sharingan eye as Zabuza quickly went through some seals before mumbling just loud enough for all to hear: "Kirigakure no Jutsu"

The area was then covered in a thick mist and all of the leaf shinobi became nervous. That was until they heard Naruto's voice speak. "One down." Before they felt a large spike of chakra and heard Naruto's voice shout. "TAKE THIS YOU SCUM. SUEHIROGARI, SANJO ZA BOUFUU: GURIDO ITTOU!!!" (AN: translates directly to: Spreading out like an open fan, cutting away the storm: Grid Blade!!!) This was followed by an even larger spike of chakra, and then even though they couldn't see the results of Naruto's technique yet they could hear what sounded like several swords cutting through something before they heard a voice scream that was silenced only half a second later. It was a few seconds before the second effect of the jutsu took place where the mist was pulled away from the area towards where the second missing-nin was.

As the mist finished dissipating, Zabuza could be seen standing on the water with his hands still in a seal, probably shocked into stopping a jutsu half way through, and four mizu-bunshin at different points looking like they were trying to sneak up on the leaf ninja before they were shocked into stopping. That isn't what everyone was looking at though; they were looking between a heavily panting Naruto and what looked like a forest where a lumberjack went crazy. All of the trees in an area that covered a width of twenty meters and traveled for a distance of one hundred meters were literally cut into square pieces no larger than Naruto's fist with the body of the other missing-nin in the same condition. Nobody knew what Naruto did but Naruto himself, but what'd of actually been covered by the mist was a quick construction of a grid of crisscrossing wind blades (think of the wind blade Baki uses in the anime/manga) that was twenty meters tall and twenty meter wide (think like what the lines on a sheet of graph paper looks like). That was Naruto's first chakra burst was. Then as Naruto yelled the name of his technique, he used a much larger burst of chakra in order to propel the grid of wind blades in the Missing-nin's direction. So needless to say this took a hell of a lot of chakra.

"Sorry guys, but I'm burned out for now." Naruto said still panting. It was then that Naruto fainted from chakra exhaustion.

After Naruto fainted the battle went on, but off in the trees fifteen meters away of Naruto's position stood the hunter-nin from before, the nin had a large sweat drop on it's head as it could only stare at the destruction and the fact that it was literally one tree out of range of that devastating attack. 'I hope I don't have to face up to that Jutsu.' Were the Hunter-nin's thoughts on what of just happened. It was a few more seconds before the Hunter-nin was able to snap its attention back to the battle just in time to watch it end just before stepping in to do what was needed.

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AN: The one thing that is undecided has come up. And that simple matter is Asuma. The thing is that I don't know much about him. Certainly not enough to put together a fighting style for him anyways. That is why I didn't show the fight scene of Asuma and Kakashi Vs. Zabuza. And this is also where you readers come in. I would like your opinions on what Asuma should be like in a fight. I do want to be able to us him in a fight that is coming up either on the bridge or on their next assignment. That'll depend on whether or not I have a fighting style put together for him or not. Keep in mind that if you make a contribution about your thoughts on his fighting style, I may mix and match parts. Of course I'll give credit where it is due. And I'd like to thank any contributors ahead of time for the help.

Also, I only put this AN here because I wanted to clear up the circumstances for skipping out on that battle now instead of having upset readers before the end of the chapter. You know, minimalizing damage and all that. I thank you for your patience with me.

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'Drip' 'Drip' 'Drip'

'Groan' He gave off an audible groan as he joined the land of the living. For as long as Naruto could remember, that annoying dripping noise has always been apart of his waking moments. It was something that was such a constant that he never brought it up. It sounded like water dripping in what he would guess to be a sewer. Sometimes he did have to wonder though.

Naruto opened his eyes. He stared at the roof above him until one thought entered his mind.

'Another unfamiliar ceiling.'

One thing that Naruto had never of told anybody about was the fact that Naruto had of never been able to keep the same apartment. For some reason that he still didn't know, Naruto had of only been able to stay in a single place no longer than three to four months before he would find himself kicked out of the place for no good reason. Then he would have to find another apartment complex that would accept him, sometimes even going back to old ones. Of course whenever he did that he would find that the rent was more expensive and then he'd be kicked out again within the next few months. This continued until he was ten years old, when for some reason the owner of the apartment complex would always seem scared whenever he was around. Nonetheless, he never was kicked out of that place so he continued to live there and always showed kindness to the guy for allowing him to stay.

'Am I in another new apartment? No, wait a second.' Memories of what happened before he fainted from his chakra exhaustion came back to him in a rush. 'I killed.' With that thought Naruto's mood sunk. 'But wait a second. I did what I felt that I had to do to help protect my friends and old man Tazuna from those two jounin.' Naruto raised his hand to his forehead and rubbed. 'Not to mention the fact that I probably wound up scaring the crap out of everybody there.' Naruto chuckled to himself. 'That was one of my best techniques too.' Naruto lay still for a couple more seconds. 'Speaking of my friends, I should go and figure out what happened to everybody.' It was with that thought that Naruto threw off his covers and stood up to discover one little predicament. 'Where the hell are my clothes?' At the moment he was in nothing but his boxers.

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After five minutes of searching the room and finally finding his scrolls piled up in the corner. They were completely covering the desk that was in the corner of the room. Naruto came out of the room he was in. Of course being in unfamiliar territory Naruto did what any descent ninja would do in his situation. He played the roll of spy.

The first person that Naruto found and spied upon was a little boy. That quickly grew boring however as all it seemed that the boy did was sulk in a corner of his bedroom, staring at a picture and crying quietly to himself.

The next person he found was a middle-aged woman. Naruto guessed her to be only in her late twenties. As he watched her go about doing a couple chores he started to admit to himself that she was very pretty in her own way. After pulling himself away from watching her he continued his self-appointed mission to discover where he was.

The next place he chose to stake out was the yard outside of the home. He started hiding in a shadow that was underneath the house's front porch. From there he observed the yard which was pretty well kept. At least when compared to some of the yards that he'd of seen back in Konoha. He couldn't help but admire the small garden that was right in front of his current hiding position. There was a small fence a short distance in front of his position that wasn't very long. He guessed they just used it as a marker for the edge of their property as opposed to actually using it to keep something in or out.

From there Naruto snuck around the house, being sure to stay underneath the windows to avoid detection, over to the back of the house. He had to admit that if anything it would be an excellent spot to practice water-walking if he ever felt like it. The whole back yard was pretty well a dock leading out into an open body of water.

After Naruto spent a few minutes admiring the view of the sun beginning to set in the distance, Naruto decided to jump up to the roof to take a look around from there. As he looked around from the top of the house he had the sudden urge to just smack himself on the forehead. 'I can't believe I didn't check the forest off to the side there.' As he poked his head over the side he heard rustling in the bushes. In reaction he pulled some of the spare shuriken and senbon that he kept in his scrolls.

It was a few seconds later that he watched Kakashi, and the other gennin walk out of the bushes and approach the house. When Kakashi was only a few steps out of the forest (Naruto now noticed that he was walking with crutches) he looked up directly to Naruto's position. 'Oh crap, I forgot to hide my chakra. Oh well.'

The copy-ninja waved up at Naruto. "Ohaiyo Naruto-san." Kakashi's greeting was returned by a shuriken that was easily caught. "I see that you seem to not only be out of bed, but ready to continue your mission, neh?" Up to here, Hinata was the only one of the gennin who'd of seen Naruto's position. To give Naruto more credit, Hinata had to use her Byakugan to find him.

"Yeah, yeah. Greetings to you too, Hatake-san." Naruto waved from his position before standing up to see the surprised looks on the faces of team seven. Naruto patted his face for a second. "What, do I have something on my face?" When Shikamaru registered the shocked look that the other team was throwing Naruto, neither one of them could hold their laughter in any longer as Hinata quietly giggled with them.

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Now the two teams, their client and his family sat around the dining room. It was only a few minutes after Naruto met up with Kakashi and the gennin that Asuma and Tazuna had of shown up from working on the bridge, and now they were sitting around the table as Tsunami, as she was introduced to Naruto as, started serving the food. It was quiet for the first few minutes as they ate. Naruto was content with the silence. It was good food, and good company. He didn't know what else he could ask for at that moment. Besides a bowl of Ramen to go along with it all that is. That is until the only other blonde decided to interro, er, ask a question I meant.

"So what are you doing up already Naruto? I heard Kakashi-sensei say that you used enough chakra to knock youself out for at least another twenty four hours, and that when you woke up you'd probably barely be able to move." Naruto was preparing to answer her question, he did have to finish chewing and swallowing his food if he didn't want to be rude, when the question was answered for him by Hinata.

"A-Ano, pardon me Naruto-kun." Did I mention that over the previous four months Hinata started to get over her stuttering, being in Naruto's presence and all that. "Naruto-kun has always been a fast healer Ino-san. Our team has seen him run himself to exhaustion several times, and he has always been ready to continue training by the next morning. Not to mention that he never has any of his scrapes or bruises the next morning either."

This proved to be interesting topic for Ino as she kept pressing for some more info on Naruto's apparent healing abilities through out the rest of the meal. Naruto chose to zone out as he finished his meal. When he was finished he quietly excused himself from the table and put his dishes in the sink before deciding to head back to his room to get some more sleep before he'd begin training with the others again the next morning.

Considering the fact that the vast majority of the time nobody would expect Naruto to speak quietly, most people thought that he only had one volume setting, nobody except Asuma and Tsunami, she being the person that Naruto spoke to when he excused himself, realized that he'd of left the table until five minutes after he'd of left.

Up in his room, Naruto was already asleep. Of course even in his sleep Naruto dreamed of Jutsu's that he wanted to create in action. Oh, and we can't forget to put ramen in those dreams. Nosiree bob.

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End Chapter

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AN: Greetings and salutations. I don't have much to say myself for this chapter except that I continue to have fun with story and the great reviews all of you are sending, and to ask again for all of your help with my Asuma dilemma. If you don't remember what I'm talking about then please check the AN that I posted just after the first meeting with Zabuza. The next chapter will be the end of the Wave arc. From there they will head into one more mission before the Chuunin exams come rolling around. Boy have I been looking forward to writing that. The unveiling of Za Kaze Shokkou to the world is going to happen during the third exam.

Again I'd like to thank you all for your great reviews. Without them this story might have suffered the same fate as my Ranma stories. Hiatus. The next chapter should be out before the end of this month, if not early next month. Considering that I'll be home sitting next month while my parents go to Arizona for the month, I'll be trying to pump out chapters too, so expect more soon. Now as a little treat, I'm going to post for all of you my notes on how Naruto's Gurido Ittou technique notes.

Spreading out like an open fan, cutting away the storm: Grid Blade – suehirogari, sanjo za boufuu: Gurido Ittou

People that know the technique: Naruto, and Sandaime Hokage (Naruto explained the technique to Sarutobi, but the old man doesn't have the proper affinity to use the technique well. Then again, he has never tried it.)

This technique is a complex chakra construction that is made of several air blades just like the one that Baki uses in the anime/manga to kill Hayate Gekkou. They are put into a grid like formation a set distance, and Naruto is able to control the size of the area that the grid covers. Once he is finished building the chakra construct (this is complete in seconds, the larger the grid the more time up to five seconds for the maximum strength) through his first burst of chakra, he has to use a larger burst of chakra to throw it at a high speed. Naruto also has to know how much chakra he can put into the grid because he also has to have enough chakra to launch the grid or it'll just sit there until it disappears on its own. The amount of chakra used in the technique is dependant on the size of the grid and how many air blades he uses. The amount of chakra used to throw or launch the construct is also proportional to the size of the construct. So Naruto could create a small construct made of only four blades for a relatively low amount of chakra, and just give a burst a little larger to throw it to cut a cube shape of an object, or he can create a large grid like he does in this chapter and then use the rest of his chakra to launch it at a really high speed. This is a high A-rank jutsu for the versatility of the technique and because of the chakra control necessary to build the grid construct properly. As with nearly all of Naruto's original techniques you must also have an affinity to wind in order to pull the technique off properly. This is Naruto's strongest technique that can hit multiple targets simultaneously, or that can be used to just cover a large area. It is Naruto's second most brutal attack as well.